Lie of the Year 2011: 'Republicans voted to end Medicare'

By Bill Adair, Angie Drobnic Holan
Published on Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 at 12:05 a.m.

Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the plan kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies.

Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care "because Republicans voted to end Medicare."

Rep. Steve Israel of New York, head of the DCCC, appeared on cable news shows and declared that Republicans voted to "terminate Medicare." A Web video from the Agenda Project, a liberal group, said the plan would leave the country "without Medicare" and showed a Ryan look-alike pushing an old woman in a wheelchair off a cliff. And just last month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a fundraising appeal that said: "House Republicans’ vote to end Medicare is a shameful act of betrayal."

After two years of being pounded by Republicans with often false charges about the 2010 health care law, the Democrats were turning the tables.

PolitiFact debunked the Medicare charge in nine separate fact-checks rated False or Pants on Fire, most often in attacks leveled against Republican House members.

Now, PolitiFact has chosen the Democrats’ claim as the 2011 Lie of the Year.

It’s the third year in a row that a health care claim has won the dubious honor. In 2009, the winner was the Republicans’ charge that the Democrats’ health care plan included "death panels." In 2010, it was that the plan was a "government takeover of health care."

A complicated and wonky subject with life-or-death consequences, health care is fertile ground for falsehoods. The Democratic attack about "ending Medicare" was a pervasive line in 2011 that preyed on seniors' worries about whether they could afford health care.

Even when explained accurately, the Republicans’ Medicare plan was not particularly popular with the public, nor with some independent health policy analysts. But the plan was distorted and attacked again and again.

"In terms of creating a national conversation about fiscal reform, the last thing we need is demagoguing attacks against people who have put forward serious policy proposals," said Jason Peuquet, a policy analyst with the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "It’s very worrying."

A persistent falsehood

With a few small tweaks to their attack lines, Democrats could have been factually correct, said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "I actually think there is no need to cut out the qualifiers and exaggerate," he said.

At times, Democrats and liberal groups were careful to characterize the Republican plan more accurately. Another claim in the ad from the Agenda Project said the plan would "privatize" Medicare, which received a Mostly True rating from PolitiFact. President Barack Obama was also more precise with his words, saying the Medicare proposal "would voucherize the program and you potentially have senior citizens paying $6,000 more."

But more often, Democrats and liberals overreached:

• They ignored the fact that the Ryan plan would not affect people currently in Medicare -- or even the people 55 to 65 who would join the program in the next 10 years.

• They used harsh terms such as "end" and "kill" when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system.

• They used pictures and video of elderly people who clearly were too old to be affected by the Ryan plan. The DCCC video that aired four days after the vote featured an elderly man who had to take a job as a stripper to pay his medical bills.

"Both parties use entitlements as political weapons," Ryan said in an interview with PolitiFact. "Republicans do it to Democrats; Democrats do it to Republicans. So I knew that this would be a political weapon that the other side would use against us."

Liberal bloggers and columnists contend it's accurate to say Republicans voted to end Medicare. Left-leaning websites such as Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, and The New Republic said PolitiFact's analysis was wrong, as did New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

"According to (PolitiFact's) logic, if the FBI were replaced with a voucher program wherein citizens would receive subsidies for hiring private investigators to look into criminal activity, but the agency running the voucher program were still called the FBI, it would be unfair to say that the FBI had been ended," wrote Jed Lewison for Daily Kos. "I guess it's their right to make that argument, but it's transparently absurd."

In a blog post, the DCCC stood by its claim, saying the ad accurately stated Ryan's plan would "abolish" Medicare.

But PolitiFact was not alone. Other independent fact-checkers also said the claim was false.

"Medicare would remain an entitlement program, but it would also be more costly to future beneficiaries. It would not end," noted FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker concluded that while there’s "a worthwhile debate" about whether Ryan’s proposal should be adopted, "it is not true to claim Republicans are trying to ‘kill’ Medicare."

The Democratic attacks struck a chord. Polls showed voters were skeptical of the Ryan plan and want Medicare to remain largely the way it is now. That may be why the plan has virtually no prospects of passing the Senate, which voted to shelve the plan. President Obama has indicated he would veto any changes to Medicare that would privatize the program and substantially shift costs to beneficiaries.

How the Ryan plan would work

Under the current Medicare system, the government pays the health care bills for Americans over age 65. Under the Ryan plan, future beneficiaries would be given a credit and invited to shop for an approved plan on a Medicare health insurance exchange. It received overwhelming support from Republicans in a House vote on a budget blueprint.

Starting in 2022, beneficiaries would receive "premium support payments" from the government to help pay for the private insurance. People who need more health care would get a little more money, and high earners would get a little less.

The plan has some guarantees for coverage, although seniors would have to pay more to get the benefits they receive today, according to an analysis completed earlier this year by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The guarantees: Ryan's plan requires private insurers to accept all applicants and to charge the same rate for people who are the same age. The plans would comply with standards set by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which administers the health plans of federal employees. The Medicare eligibility age would rise from 65 to 67, an idea that has received some bipartisan support in the past.

The CBO found that it would save the government money. But it does so by asking future Medicare beneficiaries to pay more for the same benefits.

Ryan says the plan would offer more choice for Medicare participants and increase competition among private insurers to drive down cost.

"I’m a big believer in patient-centered choice, where the beneficiary is the prime decision-maker, which drives competition and innovation, and that’s missing from the status quo, to a large degree," he said.

It’s not the first time it’s been suggested that Medicare be changed from its current fee-for-service, where the government pays all the bills, to one that uses private insurers. In the past, some Democrats have even favored such proposals, especially if -- unlike the Ryan plan --  the support was linked to medical inflation, or there were an option for traditional Medicare, or there were more explicit protections for consumers.

Just last week, Ryan agreed to a new framework with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Their proposal uses Ryan’s idea for private insurers and exchanges, but it leaves traditional Medicare as an option.

Private insurers already offer Medicare plans under the program Medicare Advantage, though those plans have proven more expensive than traditional Medicare, not less.

The partisan split on health care reveals the contradictions of congressional debate. Republicans were staunchly against the insurance exchanges in the federal health care law. But they endorsed them in the Ryan proposal, even as Democrats switched to oppose the plan.

"Ryan basically proposed the Affordable Care Act for future seniors," said Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who advised both President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney on health care. "I don't understand how you can like it for future seniors but not like it for today's needy uninsured. That doesn't make any sense."

'Scaring 85-year-olds'

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an expert on campaign advertising who directs the Annenberg center at the University of Pennsylvania, says Democrats have been using falsehoods and exaggerations about Medicare and Social Security since at least 1952. She calls it the longest-running "Democratic deception."

It fits with a core theme from Democrats that they will use government to protect seniors and needy people, while Republicans supposedly want to cut those programs, she says. It is a scare tactic that works.

"If you're reliant on Medicare, a suggestion your benefits are going to be cut in any way is a direct, visceral threat," said Jamieson.

Republicans actually used a version of the attack in 2010, claiming Democrats cut $500 billion from Medicare to pay for Obama's health care law; the law actually sought to reduce the growth of future spending with a series of efficiency measures. But historically, attacks about Medicare have come from Democrats.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Democrats used images of Social Security cards being torn in half to suggest that Republicans wanted to cut the program. In 1995, Democrats said House Speaker Newt Gingrich's plan to restructure Medicare would force seniors to pay more and would "wreck" Medicare.

President Bill Clinton vetoed the Republicans' Medicare bill, and used the issue to pummel GOP nominee Bob Dole in the 1996 campaign.

Gingrich complained at the time that "Medicare is the one issue the left believes they can lie about and demagogue." He described the Democrats as "totally morally bankrupt" and said, "They are reduced to scaring 85-year-olds."

The scare tactics are effective because seniors worry about being able to pay their medical bills and Medicare is a vital program for them. Also, seniors represent a large, up-for-grabs voting bloc.

Jonathan Oberlander, a health policy professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said, "If you can scare seniors that something is going to happen to those programs, there is potentially a huge payoff in votes."

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House Republicans, Obama seek end to budget stalemate

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON Negotiations to end the government shutdown and avert default continued Friday as Senate Republicans huddled with President Barack Obama privately to discuss a pathway out of the impasse.

POLL: MOST FAULT REPUBLICANS FOR SHUTDOWN

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed more people blaming Republicans than President Barack Obama for the shutdown, 53percent to 31percent. Just 24percent viewed the Republican Party positively, compared with 39 percent with positive views of the Democratic Party.

"The question is: Can you get something in the next 72 hours? The president seems committed to being engaged in it, and he hadn't been up to this point, so I'm optimistic," said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., after the meeting.

House and Senate Republicans appear to be pursuing different negotiations with the White House, and it is unclear whether either proposal can win over Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is leading congressional Democrats in the negotiations.

Democrats have resisted GOP efforts, led by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to engage in budget talks until the government is reopened and the debt ceiling is increased before the Oct.17 deadline.

Day 11

The shutdown, in its 11th day Friday, began when Republicans demanded a delay or defunding of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for their votes to keep the government running.

The funding discussion has now snowballed to include a plan to increase the U.S. borrowing limit so the nation can continue to pay its bills on time. Republicans have since moved on from focusing solely on the health care law to seeking broader concessions on fiscal issues.

Congress will continue to work through the weekend. House Republicans will huddle Saturday morning and the Senate is scheduled to vote on a key procedural hurdle to move ahead with a 15-month increase in the debt ceiling with no conditions attached.

House Republicans have offered a short-term path to resolve the shutdown and avert default in order to reach a broader budget deal, while Senate Republicans appear to be mulling longer-term solutions in order to reach an agreement.

Stopgap measure

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is working with senators in both parties on a budget framework that includes a six-month stopgap funding bill and suspends the debt ceiling through January. The extensions would give Congress breathing room to reach a broader budget agreement.

"I believe that still gives us plenty of leverage to work out a long-term fiscal plan, but it removes the threat of an immediate default," Collins said Friday.

Multiple Senate Republicans said the conversation with the president did not include the competing House proposal that would increase the debt ceiling for six weeks.

Republicans have also proposed a short-term stopgap spending bill to reopen the government after Obama rejected their proposal for only a debt ceiling increase.

Senate Republicans seem eager to resolve the impasse. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cited a "devastating" NBC/WSJ polled released Thursday that showed the Republican Party's favorability at an all-time low. "I know that they're reading the polls," McCain said of House Republicans.

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Finding Democrats to Run Where Republicans Win

She gained statewide popularity winning three full terms to the House of Representatives, where she voted against President Obama’s health care law, for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and against cap and trade. That is the type of Democrat who is considered able to win elections in red states.

So when Ms. Herseth Sandlin recently announced that she would not run, it not only upended Democratic plans but spurred deeper reflection over exactly what kind of candidate should represent the party — one who adheres to the party’s core principles or someone moderate, even conservative, enough to appeal to more voters?

The debate in South Dakota could set a guidepost for Democrats nationwide weighing candidates’ electability versus their ideological purity.

South Dakota is among three states where the balancing act in choosing a candidate who reflects the party’s values, yet can attract enough voters to win, could be particularly important in next year’s Senate elections. There, and in West Virginia and Montana, the Democratic incumbent is retiring, but in all three states, voters went resoundingly Republican in last year’s presidential contest, suggesting that keeping the seat in Democratic hands will be an uphill battle.

And at the same time, the Democratic incumbents who are vying for re-election in three reliably Republican states — Arkansas, Alaska and Louisiana — expect difficult challenges as well.

That makes a total of six seats — precisely the number Republicans need to retake control of the Senate.

Democrats say the split in their party between ideological activists and moderates is not nearly as pronounced as it is in the Republican Party, where some are blaming right-wing purists for the party’s disappointing showing in the 2012 elections. But as Congress and state legislatures tackle core liberal issues like gun control, health care and gay rights, Democrats are starting to engage in their own soul-searching.

Several liberal groups, for instance, have said they might find candidates to challenge the Democratic senators who voted against tightening gun background-check laws.

“There’s a substantial population of the electorate coast to coast that wishes the Democrats would elect candidates who are stronger on certain issues,” said James R. Fleischmann, who has advised several red-state Democrats including Senator Max Baucus of Montana, who is retiring. “But there’s not a powerful organized strain of purists trying to correct what they perceive to be the incorrect position of the party.”

Here in South Dakota, with Ms. Herseth Sandlin opting out of the Senate race, the only declared Democratic candidate so far is Rick Weiland, a small-business owner who has said he would fight corporate interests. Mr. Weiland also favors same-sex marriage and universal background checks for guns, and he is concerned about the weakening of Social Security and Medicare.

Mr. Weiland has the support of his onetime boss, Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader (also a South Dakota Democrat), and of the party’s more liberal base. But his candidacy has upset some in the Democratic establishment.

Many South Dakota Democrats are hoping for a centrist to compete in a state where the number of registered independents has increased nearly 20 percent over the past five years, while Democratic registration has dipped 7 percent.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the current majority leader, had said he would prefer that someone other than Mr. Weiland run, according to Mr. Daschle. A spokesman for Mr. Reid declined to comment.

Mr. Daschle said he believed that Mr. Weiland would be able to earn the establishment’s support. “I’ve been through this hundreds of times — a candidate has to prove himself or herself before they get support of the D.S.C.C.,” he said, referring to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington. “I believe Rick will be able to do that.”

But Jason Frerichs, a state senator who leads the Democrats’ seven-member minority caucus, said, “We are a state that comes to the center.”

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Wind Down the War on Terrorism? Republicans Say No

Republican lawmakers on Sunday criticized President Obama’s vision for winding down the war on terrorism, using talk show appearances to accuse him of misunderstanding the threat in a way that will embolden unfriendly nations.

“We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine.”

In his first major foreign policy address of his second term, Mr. Obama said last week that it was time for the United States to narrow the scope of its long battle against terrorists and begin a transition away from a war footing.

In addition to renewing his call to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he said he would seek to limit his own war powers. He also issued new policy guidelines that would shift the responsibility for drone strikes to the military from the Central Intelligence Agency, and said there would be stricter standards for such attacks.

Mr. Graham, a strong supporter of the drone program, said he objected to changing the standards. Separately, he called for a special counsel to investigate both the Justice Department, which has come under scrutiny for seizing journalists’ phone records, and the Internal Revenue Service, which has acknowledged that it unfairly targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Democrats, including Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, praised Mr. Obama for what they said was a necessary rebalancing of civil liberties and national security interests. “We have to balance our values,” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week.”

But at least two lawmakers — the current and former chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas and Peter T. King of New York — complained specifically about the president’s remarks about Guantánamo Bay.

Mr. McCaul warned against closing the detention center, especially if it meant moving prisoners to the United States. “Name me one American city that would like to host these guys,” he said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

More than half the remaining 166 detainees at Guantánamo Bay are Yemeni; of these, 56 have been cleared to go home. Mr. Obama has proposed repatriating detainees when he can, but will still face the thorny question of what to do several dozen men who cannot be prosecuted and who have been deemed to be too dangerous to release.

Mr. King, appearing with Ms. Wasserman Schultz on “This Week,” said the detention facility had been a success. “Many experts believe it did work,” he said, adding that he was “very concerned about sending detainees back to Yemen.” Noting that Mr. Obama had campaigned on a promise to close the prison, he said the president “could have done a lot more than he has done if he was serious about it rather than just moralizing.”

In calling for a special counsel, Mr. Graham said the Justice Department had begun to “criminalize journalism” and had engaged in “an overreach” in investigating leaks of classified national security information. He also complained of an “organized effort” within the I.R.S. to target political opponents of the president. “I think it comes from the top,” he said, although current and former I.R.S. officials have said Mr. Obama did not know of the targeting.

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Republicans Seize On Biden's 'Middle Class' Remark

James Hill for The New York Times Supporters waited to greet Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at a campaign rally on Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C.

A stray sentence by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Tuesday became the latest remark seized by the opposition and turned into a blistering line of attack against him.

After Mr. Biden described the middle class as having “been buried the last four years,’’ Republicans pounced, treating it as an unwitting admission of President Obama’s failures.

The vice president was criticizing the Republican ticket for pursuing a tax overhaul that would raise taxes on the middle class, he said.

“How can they justify raising taxes on the middle class that’s been buried the last four years?’’ Mr. Biden said at a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C.

The Republican barrage came fast and furious by Twitter message, news release and campaign conference call. It began with a Twitter message from Mitt Romney’s account:

Agree with @joebiden, the middle class has been buried the last 4 years, which is why we need a change in November #CantAfford4More

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 2, 2012

Campaigning in Iowa, Representative Paul D. Ryan reinforced the message. “Of course the middle class has been buried,’’ he said. “They’re being buried by regulations; they’re being buried by taxes; they’re being buried by borrowing. They’re being buried by the Obama administration’s economic failures.”

The Romney-Ryan campaign even held an afternoon press call with one of its fiercest surrogates, John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor, to drive home the theme.

Republicans seemed to seize on the remark with special fervor, coming as it did one day before the first debate between Mr. Romney and President Obama, in which the cost of Mr. Romney’s proposed tax cuts for the rich and his disparagement of 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes are sure to be topics of discussion.

In response, the Obama campaign called the attacks “desperate and out of context.’’

“As the vice president has been saying all year and again in his remarks today, the middle class was punished by the failed Bush policies that crashed our economy,’’ a spokeswoman, Lis Smith, said.

In his North Carolina remarks, Mr. Biden was citing, as the Democrats have for months, an independent study that found that cutting tax rates by 20 percent and closing loopholes to avoid increasing the deficit, as Mr. Romney proposes, could be done only by raising taxes on households earning less than $200,000.

The audience booed.

“No, no – all kidding aside,’’ Mr. Biden said. “With all the boos – I mean, we can stop all that malarkey. Look, guys, this is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest. How can they justify raising taxes on the middle class that’s been buried the last four years? How in the Lord’s name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts?’’

Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan dispute the accuracy of the study, by the Tax Policy Center, and they have cited studies of their own showing their tax plan will not hit the middle class.

The maladroit sentence was the latest in a long series this year that have been yanked from context and used by the opposition, including Mr. Romney’s remark that he “liked to fire people” and Mr. Obama’s comment that “you didn’t build that.”

Later in the day, Mr. Biden clarified his meaning. “The middle class was buried by the policies that Romney and Ryan have supported,” he told a crowd in Asheville, N.C.

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Mixed Message as Republicans Claim Health Law Cuts Medicare

Yet since the Supreme Court upheld the Democrats’ 2010 health care law, Republicans, led by Mitt Romney, have reversed tactics and attacked the president and Democrats in Congress by saying that Medicare will be cut too much as part of that law. Republicans plan to hold another vote to repeal the law in the House next week, though any such measure would die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“Obamacare cuts Medicare — cuts Medicare — by approximately $500 billion,” Mr. Romney has told audiences.

That is a reprise of Republicans’ mantra of the 2010 midterm elections, which gave them big gains at both the state and federal levels and a majority in the House. Yet the message conflicts not only with their past complaint that Democrats opposed reining in Medicare spending, but also with the fact that House Republicans have voted twice since 2010 for the same 10-year, $500 billion savings in supporting Mr. Ryan’s annual budgets.

The result is a messaging mess, even by the standards of each party’s usual election-year attacks that the other is being insufficiently supportive of older people’s benefits.

And in this year’s contests, which both parties describe as a referendum on who can best correct the nation’s economic course, such talk underscores how far Republicans and Democrats are from truly squaring with the public about curbing the growth of the major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security. That growth is driving the projections of a federal debt that is mounting unsustainably as the population ages and health care costs rise.

“A pox on both their houses,” said Ron Haskins, a former Congressional staff member who is now a scholar of social programs and budgeting at the Brookings Institution. Democrats and Republicans “know they have to do something about Medicare, and then they harass each other about cutting Medicare. It’s so discouraging to me, but I’m a Republican, so I’m much more distraught about Republicans.”

And, Mr. Haskins added, “$500 billion is modest compared to what Ryan would do.”

Under Mr. Ryan’s budget, which Mr. Romney has supported but which has been blocked each year in the Senate, Medicare would not pay for the medical fees of future beneficiaries, as it currently does. Instead it would provide “premium support,” limited payments — vouchers, Democrats say — that beneficiaries could use to buy insurance policies in the private sector. And Medicaid, which increasingly goes toward nursing home care for older people, would become a capped block grant to states, forcing them to make significant cuts.

In their attacks, Republicans have said in speeches and in television advertisements that the Democrats’ projected $500 billion in Medicare savings will “strip,” “gut,” “rob” or “raid” older people’s benefits.

“Ron Barber will hurt Arizona seniors,” said an ad this spring from the House Republicans’ campaign committee in support of the Republican who ultimately lost to Mr. Barber, a Democrat, in a special election to replace Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

Objecting to such attacks, Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in an interview: “There are two issues here: One, there were no cuts to Medicare benefits. And in fact, benefits were strengthened.”

Independent fact-checking groups have repeatedly knocked down the Republicans’ claims. “A discredited claim is making a comeback following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding most of the national health care reform law,” PolitiFact recently wrote in one such analysis.

Republicans stand by their attack. They say the problem with the Democratic approach is that the reductions do little to bolster Medicare’s stability, with the money diverted to initiatives in the health care law.

“Democrats are still the only party in Washington to cut $500 billion from Medicare in order to help pay for Obamacare,” said Paul Lindsay, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It’s a fact that did not go unnoticed among seniors in 2010, and one that we will continue holding Democrats accountable for in our ads this fall.”

But the $500 billion in reductions would come through cuts in the projected growth of Medicare and would mainly affect hospitals and other providers of medical care, some of whom supported the health care measure nonetheless because it would extend coverage to up to 30 million uninsured Americans, raising the number of paying customers. Other savings would result from lower subsidies for private insurers selling Medicare Advantage plans, which offer older people extra features like vision care and gym memberships. The insurers could not cut basic Medicare benefits.

Democrats used the projected $500 billion in savings to help pay for expanding older people’s benefits. The health care law says that some preventive care services like mammograms must be free to patients, and it closed the “doughnut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug program, which had left many older people paying full price for prescriptions above a certain level.

While Republicans have backed the spending reductions, even as they have attacked Mr. Obama and the Democrats for enacting them, they would end the new benefits.

Mr. Ryan, of Wisconsin, was unavailable for comment, but, pressed on the issue on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, he said: “Well, our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare.”

Robert Greenstein, the executive director of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, called Mr. Ryan’s claim “somewhere between a misstatement and a flat-out untruth.”

Mr. Greenstein, among others, said that Democrats were not double-counting the $500 billion in savings — by claiming that it both improves Medicare’s financial outlook and helps finance new benefits — any more than were the Republicans, who say they would use the savings both to shore up the Medicare trust funds and to reduce the federal debt.

The Congressional Budget Office and the chief actuary for the Medicare and Medicaid programs, Richard S. Foster, have concluded that the $500 billion in savings would extend the solvency of Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund. Since the passage of the health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, the Medicare trustees have shifted the projected date of insolvency to 2024 from 2016.

Mr. Foster, in this year’s report by the trustees, wrote that “the Affordable Care Act makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook.”

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Republicans see opening with Hispanic voters over jobs data

WASHINGTON – With last week's job report showing Hispanic unemployment on the rise, Republicans see a chance to draw voters from a group that voted overwhelmingly for President Obama in 2008.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

President Obama greets audience members after speaking at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington in 2011.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

President Obama greets audience members after speaking at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington in 2011.

It remains uncertain, however, whether presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, who staked out a position at the right of his Republican rivals on immigration, can exploit it, analysts say.

The Hispanic unemployment rate jumped from 10.3% in April to 11% in May as the economy added only 69,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported. The disappointing job numbers come as Hispanic voters — who voted by 67%-31% for Obama in 2008 — are showing signs of diminished enthusiasm about the November election.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 65% of Hispanics put their propensity to vote at 10, according to the Gallup daily tracking poll from May 7 to May 27. By comparison, 82% of white voters and 75% of African-American voters offered a similar level of enthusiasm about the election, according to the poll.

"President Obama cashed in on the favorability capital that the Democratic Party has been developing over the longest time and the damaged brand that has hurt the Republican Party," said Daniel Garza, executive director of the Libre Initiative, a conservative Hispanic business organization. "I think we're getting to a point where you have to show results, not just rhetoric. Hispanics are just waking up to that."

Obama still holds a commanding 65%-25% lead with Hispanics over Romney, but political analysts say Obama has reason to worry that a lackluster job situation could dampen Hispanic turnout in November.

Hispanic unemployment is projected to remain above 10% through 2012 in 14 states — including the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

"We're not going to have a scenario where (Hispanic) Obama supporters switch sides, but we could have a scenario where they get dispirited," said Gary Segura, a partner with the polling company Latino Decisions and a political scientist at Stanford University.

It is unclear how much emphasis Obama will place on trying to contrast his views with Romney's on immigration.

Last year, Romney said if Congress passed the DREAM Act— a proposal that sets a path for young illegal immigrants to win citizenship if they attend college or serve in the military — he would veto it.

"Hispanics know that the president is committed to comprehensive immigration reform and to the DREAM Act and that only by exercising their right to vote in November will these sensible proposals become laws," said Gabriela Domenzain, an Obama campaign spokeswoman.

The president's ability to attack Romney on his immigration policy is somewhat complicated by his own record, Segura said.

Obama has overseen a record number of deportations of illegal immigrants during his presidency.

A Pew Hispanic Center poll released in December found that Latinos disapprove of the Obama administration's deportation policy 59%-27%.

"He's lost the ability to bring up the topic without action," Segura said. "But a bolder move, such as stopping deportations of DREAM-eligible kids — which he could do with executive action — that would shift the conversation and energize Hispanics. And every day that Mitt Romney spends not talking about the economy is a good day for Obama."

"It is abundantly clear that President Obama hasn't lived up to the promises he made in 2008 and that his failed economic policies are disproportionately hurting Hispanics," Republican National Committee spokeswoman Alexandra Franceschi said. "With Gov. Romney in the White House, we will see a leader that has the business experience to put Hispanics back to work."

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Six Words From Obama, and a Barrage From Republicans

By late afternoon, Mr. Obama was forced to clarify one line from his morning session with reporters — “the private sector is doing fine” — after Congressional Republicans and his presidential rival, Mitt Romney, had seized on the comment to criticize Mr. Obama as out-of-touch and detached from the millions of Americans who cannot find jobs or have given up looking.

“Listen, it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine. That’s the reason I had the press conference,” Mr. Obama said in clarifying his earlier remark when asked about Mr. Romney’s criticism during an Oval Office appearance with the president of the Philippines, Benigno S. Aquino III.

“There are too many people out of work. The housing market is still weak and too many homes underwater,” Mr. Obama said. “And that’s precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference.” He ended, “What I’m interested in hearing from Congress and Mr. Romney is what steps are they willing to take right now that are going to make an actual difference. And so far, all we’ve heard are additional tax cuts to the folks who are doing fine.”

But for the day at least, the damage was done, as Republicans hijacked the news cycle with their barrage against Mr. Obama’s six words in a professorial 29-minute exchange. While the metaphor of the bully pulpit originated with President Theodore Roosevelt about a century ago and generally remains apt, it does not allow for a 21st-century media environment of constant cable television chatter, blogging and instant Internet videos that empower a president’s opponents to bully back.

Campaigning in Iowa, Mr. Romney called Mr. Obama’s statement “an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding by a president who is out-of-touch. And we’re going to take back this country and get America working again.”

What was worse for Mr. Obama, the controversy was the capstone of an already bad week that had started the Friday before with a disappointing monthly jobs report showing an increase of just 69,000 jobs in May. There had been a similar media commotion over comments by former President Bill Clinton that were unhelpful to the Obama campaign (he, too, clarified himself later), a defeat for Democrats in Wisconsin’s election to recall the Republican governor and the latest monthly fund-raising reports showing that Mr. Romney and the Republican Party for the first time had out-raised Mr. Obama and his party.

Mr. Obama’s point at his news conference was that for more than two years, monthly jobs reports have shown growth in the private sector, but continuing cutbacks in the public sector as state and local governments slash jobs in their struggle to balance their budgets; the public sector — not the private sector — most needs additional government help.

He argued that “if Republicans want to be helpful” as Europe’s financial crisis again threatens the American economy, they should quit opposing proposals in his jobs plan of last September that would aid states so they can keep teachers and first-responders at work and finance public-works projects to employ construction workers left jobless by the 2008 housing bust.

Mr. Obama’s comment, in context, was: “We’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government — oftentimes, cuts initiated by governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don’t have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.”

Republicans hope they can turn Mr. Obama’s “doing fine” line into the sort of bumper-sticker comment that would damage him with swing voters much like his 2008 rival, Senator John McCain, was hurt when he said “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” Mr. McCain, however, spoke in September 2008 as the financial system was already imploding, and his comment underscored his well-known and self-acknowledged unfamiliarity with economic policy.

Seeking to even the day’s score, Democrats quickly mounted a counteroffensive by the same cable and Internet outlets to amplify one of Mr. Romney’s remarks on Friday.

Speaking of Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney said: “He wants another stimulus. He wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did: It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, said in a statement that “Mitt Romney promised to eliminate even more public-sector jobs.”

Mr. Obama’s news conference also provoked Republicans to revive their charge that he is blaming Europe’s ills for slow growth here to distract from his own culpability.

“He used his old standby excuse — headwinds — for his failure on the economy,” said Kirsten Kukowski, press secretary for the Republican National Committee.

Yet many economists say that Europe is a big factor in the American outlook. AllianceBernstein, an asset management firm in Manhattan, wrote to clients and reporters on Friday that it had slightly lowered its forecast for economic growth this year “amid increasing international headwinds facing the U.S. economy.” And Bank of America Merrill Lynch said “the uncertainty shock from Europe is building rapidly, undercutting both U.S. and global growth.”

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Republicans in Senate Block Bill on Student Loan Rates

A Democratic bill intended to prevent the doubling of some student loan interest rates is in limbo now that Senate Republicans have blocked its consideration, Jonathan Weisman reports:

Along party lines, the Senate voted 52 to 45, failing to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to beat back a filibuster and begin debating the measure. Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the retiring moderate Republican from Maine, voted present.

Republicans said they wanted to extend Democratic legislation passed in 2007 that temporarily reduced interest rates for the low- or middle-income undergraduates who receive subsidized Stafford loans to 3.4 percent from 6.8 percent.

But they oppose the Senate Democrats’ proposal to pay for a one-year extension by changing tax law that currently allows some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes by classifying their pay as dividends, not cash income.

“They want to raise taxes on people who are creating jobs when we are still recovering from the greatest recession since the Great Depression,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, who instead wanted to pay for it by eliminating a preventive health care fund in President Obama’s health care law.

What are your thoughts about the Senate’s vote? Should Congress keep the reduced student loan interest rate from 2007, or allow the reduction to expire? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below.

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Republicans Seek Independent Investigation of MF Global

A growing number of Republican lawmakers are pressing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the collapse of MF Global and the firm’s misuse of customer money.

In a letter to Mr. Holder, more than 20 House Republicans are calling for an outside prosecutor to handle the high-profile case. With an outsider leading the charge, the lawmakers say, the investigation will be free of political favoritism for MF Global executives with ties to the Democratic Party.

Such a move would strip authority from regulators, federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, all of which are examining how an estimated $1.6 billion in customer money disappeared from the firm before its demise on Oct. 31.

The Republican lawmakers, led by Michael G. Grimm, a Republican from New York, plan to stage a press conference in Washington on Wednesday to formally request an independent prosecutor. MF Global customers are also expected to attend the event.

The request comes as lawmakers and customers grow impatient with the progress of the federal investigation, which has yet to yield any charges or actions. Some investigators have expressed doubt that they will have enough evidence to mount a criminal prosecution.

It is unclear whether the plea for an independent prosecutor will cause criminal authorities to change course. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Some investigators have dismissed the effort as a partisan swipe from Republican lawmakers. The Republicans directed their concerns, in part, at Jon S. Corzine, the former head of MF Global. Mr. Corzine is a prominent member of the Democratic Party, having served as a United States senator and New Jersey governor.

At times, partisan spats have emerged at public hearings into the firm’s collapse. In March, lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee sparred after some Republican members accused the Department of Justice of failing to fully investigate the matter. The accusation suggested that Mr. Corzine, who has raised money for President Obama’s re-election, was given a free pass.

The letter to Mr. Holder, signed by Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, among others, echoed these concerns.

“Clearly it would not strain credulity for the American people to perceive a conflict of interest when an individual raises large sums of money for the president’s re-election campaign,” the lawmakers wrote.

But in the letter, the lawmakers also acknowledge having no proof that prosecutors were letting Mr. Corzine off the hook.

“We wish to be clear that, at this time, we have no direct evidence that either your office or the Department of Justice is providing special treatment in this case,” according to the letter to be sent to Mr. Holder.

The main regulator investigating the case, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has selected a Republican to oversee the MF Global matter. The Republican, Commissioner Jill Sommers, took over for the agency’s chairman, Gary Gensler, who stepped aside after questions were raised about his past ties to Mr. Corzine, his former colleague at Goldman Sachs.

A spokesman for Mr. Corzine declined to comment. Mr. Corzine has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Mr. Grimm, meanwhile, faces questions of his own. A military veteran and former F.B.I. agent, he is under scrutiny for his business practices and his ties to a fund-raiser under investigation for embezzling money. Mr. Grimm has not been accused on any wrongdoing.

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Democrats, Republicans each aim to woo support of women voters in November - Post-Crescent

WASHINGTON ? Is the 2012 election shaping up to be all about women?

President Barack Obama is working hard to woo this pivotal constituency in his re-election race. His Democratic allies are even accusing the GOP of launching a "war against women" after the Republicans reignited a new national debate over cultural issues, including birth control.

But now the Republicans ? including Ann Romney and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski ? are striking back with a promise: Their party will win women by focusing on the real No. 1 issue, the economy.

Not that Obama is ready to give up that issue.

"I believe that the Democrats have a better story to tell to women about how we're going to solidify the middle class and grow this economy, make sure everybody has a fair shot, everybody's doing their fair share, and we got a fair set of rules of the road that everybody has to follow," Obama said Tuesday as Republican presidential contenders competed in Super Tuesday primaries.

Hours later, Ann Romney ? the wife of GOP front-runner Mitt Romney ? answered him.

"Do you know what women care about? Women care about jobs," she declared on national television, as her husband waited nearby to speak. "They're angry, and they're furious about the entitlement debt that we're leaving for our children."

"I'm right along with Ann Romney," Murkowski said on Wednesday.

The Alaska Republican has been critical of her party's focus on birth control policy when people remain worried about economic stability. In a telephone interview, Murkowski added: "There is clearly a direction that we can take as Republicans that gives confidence and assurance that we are focused on the issues that matter to women."

Eight months before Election Day, women have become arguably the most sought-after voting group in an election year where the presidency and control of Congress are at stake. Females comprise a majority of voters in a typical presidential election year.

Women are a crucial voting group for Obama, particularly in the suburbs of big cities like Denver and Detroit. He would not be president today had he not beaten Republican John McCain by 13 points among women four years ago.

The importance of winning the women's vote may be magnified this year given that the fragile economy may weigh down the support of other groups that supported Obama strongly in 2008, such as Latinos and college-age voters.

Recent polling suggests Obama is gaining among women. An Associated Press-GfK poll conducted last month showed his approval rating had risen 10 percentage points among women since December. The poll also showed that women approve more strongly of the way the president is handling the economy.

For Republicans, conservative women represent a loyal sector of the party's base, and female independents offer an opportunity to eat into Obama's support. Independent women broke for Obama by a 10-point margin four years ago, according to exit polling, while among independent men he managed just a 5-point edge.

Both parties have viewed the furor over Obama's policy on access to contraception as an opportunity to curry favor with women. Republicans protested Obama's mandate that birth control be covered by insurance, even for employers whose faiths forbid contraception. The policy, Republicans insisted, was a violation of the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom, and they forced a vote on it in the Senate. The GOP measure to overturn Obama's policy lost, 51-48, with one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe, helping Democrats kill it.

Recent exit polls in the GOP nomination contest suggest some groups of women within the GOP are turned off by the focus on social issues. In Ohio, for example, married women broke for Santorum, while unmarried women favored Romney, a marriage gap that did not exist among men. Women who said abortion should be legal in most or all cases broke for Romney, while those who thought it should be illegal in most or all cases leaned toward Santorum.

Democrats called the Senate vote the latest attempt to roll back long-established women's rights. House Republicans, they also pointed out, had barred a young law student from testifying in favor of Obama's policy but allowed five men to testify against it. And then radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh called the woman a "slut" and a "prostitute" for arguing that her school, Georgetown University, should cover her contraception.

Obama made sure reporters knew he had telephoned the young woman, Sandra Fluke, to offer support. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called Limbaugh's remarks "inappropriate." And Limbaugh, losing advertisers, apologized.

The Democrats' pitch ? that Republicans were launching a "war on women" was born. Coast to coast, Democrats hawked the theme. Women senators used it to raise money, wives of candidates included it in pleas for support, and surrogates ? from Sen. Claire McCaskill's mother to former tennis star Billie Jean King ? ran with it.

"Stop the GOP's War on Women!" read an email sent to Democrats by the party's House campaign committee.

The drumbeat has frustrated Republicans, pushed onto the defensive as polls showed a majority of Americans favored the president's contraception policy.

But the notion that Republicans are out to strip women of their rights "is just a lie," said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. "It's not a war on women. It's an effort to protect religious liberty."

But Ann Romney's rebuttal moves the response further, said veteran GOP pollster Ed Goeas.

Polling, he said, shows that different subgroups of women assess economic questions differently ? and that white women in particular respond well to the Republicans' economic message.

"Everybody's responding to this as if women vote as a monolith," Goeas said. "They don't."

Or, suggested Murkowski, they shouldn't.

In the interview, she said she regrets her vote for the GOP amendment to overturn Obama's contraception policy. If she had it to do over again, she would join Snowe in voting against it.

"Women in Alaska are worried about what they're paying for energy costs. They're worried about whether or not they're going to be able to put their kids through college, whether their savings are secure," Murkowski said.

Even Obama acknowledged that female voters are going to want questions answered on the economy.

"I'm not somebody who believes that women are going to be single-issue voters. They never have been," he said.

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Unpopular House Republicans aim to regroup (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – House Republicans, struggling to articulate a unified message after a year of fights among themselves and with Democrats, hope to use their annual retreat to craft an agenda that resonates with voters in November's elections.

That will be House Speaker John Boehner's main mission when he and his fellow Republicans gather on Thursday in Baltimore for three days of brainstorming behind closed doors.

There is also certain to be chatter about the party's frontrunner to be the presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, who is widely derided as an uninspiring moderate by members of the conservative base. And the lawmakers will hear from a rising party star: Chris Christie, the audacious New Jersey governor who is seen as a future presidential or vice presidential contender.

The retreat comes as Republicans, entering their second year in control of the House of Representatives, are hounded by disappointed voters, including many aligned with the Tea Party movement, a three-year-old grassroots conservative movement dedicated to smaller government, fiscal responsibility and individual freedom.

Recent surveys give Congress record-low approval ratings, with Democrats narrowly outpolling Republicans.

Adding to their gloom, after a year dominated by partisan brawls over spending and taxes, many conservatives feel they have little to show in their historic bid for smaller government.

In fact, polls show voters blame Republicans more than Democrats for partisan gridlock that pushed the U.S. government to the brink of shutdowns and unprecedented default amid a stubbornly high U.S. jobless rate now at 8.5 percent.

"Voters are frustrated and angry," said Representative David Dreier, a senior House Republican. "Their feelings are driven by the hard economic times" and the inability of the Republican House and Democratic Senate to agree on legislation to create jobs.

Representative Tim Huelskamp, a Tea Party activist, figures Congress's nationwide approval ratings of about 11 percent are much lower in his Kansas district.

"They're probably closer to 1 percent," said Huelskamp, who hosted seven town hall meetings with constituents during the recent holiday break.

While some House Republican boast of unprecedented efforts to downsize the U.S. government, Huelskamp and others say 2011 was a failure.

The first-term lawmaker sees little in the way of lasting, meaningful deficit reduction. He also complains that Republican leadership abandoned a 2010 campaign vow of transparency in favor of back-room deals with Democrats.

PAYROLL TAX CUT

One day before departing for the retreat, House Republicans huddled on Wednesday in the Capitol basement to assess last year's missteps, especially the December payroll tax cut debacle. The idea was to get gripes about 2011 behind them so that the retreat can focus on 2012.

"We were picking the right fight," Boehner said of his handling of the payroll tax cut last month. "But I would argue we probably picked it at the wrong time."

Boehner, the top U.S. Republican, acquiesced in December to internal and external pressures and agreed to Obama's demand for a two-month tax cut extension just before it was to expire.

Many Republicans are skeptical of the economic benefit of the payroll tax cut, part of Obama's jobs creation efforts, but opposition to the publicly popular measure was seen as a political liability.

Boehner's performance has drawn fire from critics who question his toughness. But others say the speaker is doing the best he can given the Tea Party movement's influence and Democrats' control of the Senate and presidency.

"There is a recognition by all that John has a very difficult job - and that there isn't anyone out there who can do it better," said Dreier, a Boehner ally.

In coming weeks, Republicans are expected to vote to renew the payroll tax cut beyond its February 29 expiration so they can move to other matters. They also hope to reform an antiquated budget process and hone their message on the need to streamline a clunky U.S. tax code - two moves they see as essential for restoring the nation's economic health.

The annual retreat comes before November elections that political pundits think will see Democrats gain at least a few seats in the 435-member House, but not the 25 needed to take control.

Yet control of the House could ultimately turn on the presidential race with Obama or his Republican foe providing their parties a needed lift.

Ron Bonjean, a former senior Republican leadership aide in the House and Senate, said he expects his party to coalesce around Romney as nominee.

"Republicans have a choice. Support a Republican or give up ground to President Obama. Most Republicans will decide to support a Republican," Bonjean said.

In Baltimore, House Republicans will focus on ways to boost their popularity, several aides and members told Reuters.

After years of Democrats branding them as "the party of no," Republicans will try to turn the tables and accuse Obama of blocking progress.

"We hoped the Democrats controlling the Senate and White House were willing to work with us in the interest of country," wrote Representative Jim Jordan in a letter published Tuesday on a congressional website.

"Unfortunately, the president spent the past year trying to boost his own chances for re-election by avoiding real cooperation," added Jordan, the head of the Republican Study Committee representing core House conservatives.

Last week, Republican Senator Ron Johnson, a Tea Party activist, wrote a Wall Street Journal column outlining his prescription for success in 2012 - ideas that leading House conservatives will echo, according to a Jordan spokesman.

Johnson called on Republicans to highlight, through House votes, differences between their party and Obama's Democrats, on matters from health care to domestic energy production.

(Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Cynthia Osterman)

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While Republicans battle, Obama never far away (Reuters)

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) – While Republican presidential candidates dominate headlines in Iowa with their caucus quest, President Barack Obama's Democrats have quietly built a massive organizational structure to round up voters and win the state in November's general election.

Thousands of Democratic volunteers have mobilized across Iowa to garner support for Obama, who used the state as his launching pad for a White House victory four years ago.

The president may need that organizational advantage.

Iowa is considered a battleground state that could swing to either side, and Republican candidates have been wooing voters one-on-one here for months if not years, generating media coverage and public attention for their cause.

Obama's volunteer army has worked to offset those headlines with a quiet, on-the-ground apparatus to get out the vote. They opened eight campaign offices across the state and made more than 350,000 calls to supporters, officials said.

"Come Wednesday morning, no matter who wins the Republican race, we will have the best organization," said Tyler Olson, 35, a state representative who is campaigning for Obama.

"And we'll continue to build on it while the Republican candidates go around the country and keep battling it out."

Part of building that structure involves luring Democrats on Tuesday to their Iowa caucuses, where voters typically express support for candidates and causes.

This year the Democratic candidate -- Obama -- is already chosen, but the campaign wants supporters to turn out anyway as a sign of organizational support.

"Obviously, the celebrity is on the Republican side, and people I've called today didn't even know the Democrats were even going to have a caucus," said Leni Stastny, 63, a retired insurance worker who was volunteering at a call center in Cedar Rapids.

"I've got a lot of people (on the phone) that were going. And some people hung up on me. And some people didn't want anything to do with it. And some people were really mad at Obama because of ... healthcare (reform)."

Republicans will seek to exploit that anger among Obama's supporters, organizational advantages or not.

"The president's team is boasting about its organization in Iowa but the reality is Obama's going to need it," said Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

"Iowa today is completely different than the state that launched him to the presidency four years ago. The so-called spark is gone in Iowa for President Obama."

GETTING ATTENTION

Obama's supporters are trying to get that spark back.

At the call center in Cedar Rapids, volunteers ranging from their late teens to their late sixties use cell phones to dial up long lists of Democrats in their neighborhoods. Obama campaign signs decorate the walls and windows, and a large statue of a donkey -- the symbol of the Democratic party -- greets visitors when they walk in.

"In essence, the Obama organization never left," said Peggy Whitworth, 69, a neighborhood "team leader" for the president in Iowa. "There's been this staying connected to people who were involved the first time around."

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said the Iowa operation was representative of a nationwide grassroots organizing push, which it hopes will create a strategic advantage for the president in November.

"It's indicative of the type of unrivaled organizations we've built across the country," he said.

But some supporters worry that the strong Republican presence in Iowa has drowned out Obama's message.

"I haven't seen anything from Obama this year, it's all been Republican," said Wind Goodfriend, an author and Obama supporter, while walking her dogs in the town of Storm Lake.

"I think in some ways (the campaign is) probably waiting to decide what strategy based on who the Republican nominee is, but I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that no attention has gone to Obama," she said.

Whitworth said Obama's presence or visibility would increase.

"Some people see the presence as lots of bumper stickers and lots of yard signs. Yard signs don't vote, you know?" she said, noting that the "thrifty" Obama campaign has been careful about how much money it wants to spend on such things.

"We will continue to be more and more visible. We've certainly been visible in the last several weeks," she said.

Obama will address a group of Iowa caucus-goers from a hotel in Washington on Tuesday, adding his voice to a scene that will otherwise be drowned out by intrigue over who wins the first Republican nominating contest in the country.

The president will travel to Iowa to campaign in person, too, though his campaign declined to say when his first trip this year would take place.

He has a reason to come often: among five nationwide state-by-state scenarios that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina has designed for victory in 2012, three of them include winning Iowa.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Jackie Frank)

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Republicans aim to quash new union rules (AP)

WASHINGTON – Republicans are maneuvering to short-circuit an effort by Democrats on the National Labor Relations Board to approve rules that would quicken the pace of union elections.

The GOP member of the labor board is threatening to resign his post, which would deny the board a quorum and quash the entire process. At the same time, the House is poised Wednesday to approve a GOP bill aimed at short-circuiting moves they consider anti-business. That measure is unlikely to go anywhere in the Senate.

The developments are the latest sign of how intensely business groups are opposing any moves that could help organized labor make new inroads at companies that have long opposed unions.

At the labor board, the Democratic majority was set to take up a proposal Wednesday that would simplify procedures and shorten deadlines for holding union elections after employees at a work site gather enough signatures.

But the board's lone GOP member, Brian Hayes, has threatened to quit the agency over his objection to the planned rules, an unprecedented move that would render the board powerless to approve any new measures at all. The board needs at least three members to make any decisions.

If Hayes leaves, only two members — both Democrats — would remain instead of the five members it's supposed to have. Congressional Republicans have blocked President Barack Obama from filling the other two vacancies at the board.

Under current rules, union elections typically take place within 45-60 days after a union gathers enough signatures to file a petition. Republicans contend the new rules could shorten that time to as little as 10 days.

Unions claim companies often abuse current rules to file frivolous appeals, holding up elections for months or even years. But business groups claim the plan would give unions "quickie" elections without leaving employers enough time to respond.

The board's majority has been rushing to approve the new rules before the end of the year, when the term of one of the two Democratic members expires. A modified plan being considered Wednesday is a limited version of more sweeping rules proposed earlier this year. It would not, for example, require employers to provide a list of worker phone numbers and email addresses in voter lists provided to unions.

A final vote on the rules would take place next month, unless Hayes leaves the board.

Hayes has vowed not to participate at the Wednesday meeting and threatened to resign his post over his objection to the rules, according to a letter from the board's chairman, Mark Pearce, circulated last week. Hayes has declined requests for comment.

Union officials have decried Hayes' threat as a bullying tactic that undermines the board.

"We are shocked by the idea that a partisan difference would shut down the workings of a federal agency," said Peter Colavito, director of government relations for the Service Employees International Union.

Minnesota Rep. John Kline, GOP chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, blamed the board's Democratic majority and called on Pearce to withdraw "his ambush election proposal."

The bitter feud between Hayes and the board's two Democrats is the latest sign of how polarizing the debate over union rights has become. Board members often quarrel over policy differences, depending on which political party is in the majority. But labor experts say a board member has never resigned for the sole purpose of preventing a vote.

"As far as I'm aware, it's unprecedented," said William Gould, a former NLRB chairman during the Clinton administration and now a professor at Stanford Law School. "The board has become more polarized, but this takes it to a different level entirely."

In the House, meanwhile, Republicans are expected to pass a bill that would override any changes to NLRB election rules. The measure would delay any vote on a union for at least 35 days after a petition is filed.

The bill would also overturn a recent board ruling that made it easier for smaller groups of workers within companies to organize bargaining units. Business groups claim so-called "micro-bargaining unions" would allow unions to cherry-pick certain departments or employees within a company.

"Congress must act now to thwart the NLRB's radical regulatory maneuvers," said David French, a vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade group.

The federation, whose members include Best Buy Co. and Macy's Inc., claims the board's proposed rules would limit workers access to "information needed to make an informed decision about union representation."

California Rep. George Miller, top Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce committee, has denounced the measure as an "anti-worker, anti-family bill" that would undermine worker rights.

The bill is not expected to go far in the Senate, where Democratic leaders are not likely to bring it to a vote.

___

Follow Sam Hananel on Twitter at http://twitter.com/shananel

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How Frank's Retirement Hurts Democrats and Helps Republicans (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | When Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., announced today he would retire at the end of his current term, it was a serious blow to the Democrats. As a former political consultant, I know the damage of this retirement goes beyond the committees he sat on or the legislation he attempted to pass. One of the major faces of the party is turning off the lights and going home.

Frank is someone people have gotten to recognize over the years due to the fact he is often a guest on news shows. At times, he has been a voice of the Democrats and has been the go-to-guy in stressful times for his insight. He has gained a reputation for being quick on his feet and strong in his resolve. While I rarely agree with the congressional leader, I have always respected him.

People feel comfortable when they see commentators on the news they recognize. There is something odd in the human psyche that causes us to be more likely to trust people we recognize over those which are unfamiliar to us. With Rep. Frank moving on, the Democrats lose one of those familiar faces that people have learned to trust, or at least semi-accept.

At the same time, Frank works with many of the younger Democrats in Congress and has helped them stay firm in their resolve. These up-and-coming politicians will wake up tomorrow to the reality of one of their leaders giving up on the system. What does this tell them about the future of the Democrats in Congress?

At the same time, since he is walking away due to the redistricting, this may cause some of the other leaders in Congress to become convinced to do the same. Frank thinks the next election will be too difficult due to the redistricting in his state. How many Democrats will become discouraged by the redistricting in their states and place an undue amount of concern on the issue?

Even if Frank's seat goes to another Democrat, the Republicans can still chalk up a win. With one of the loudest voices in Congress being silenced, the Republicans are able to gain more strength. Instead of worrying about battling Frank, now they can focus on whoever had the best chance of carrying his torch.

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Republicans and Democrats Watch Out: Centrists Are on the Rise! (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Polls show that as many as a third of all Americans identify themselves as moderate or centrist, yet the candidates for public office seem to be getting more extreme every election cycle.

I have always considered myself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I am in favor of balancing the budget and reducing spending, but not of gutting social services to do it. I also favor equal rights for same sex couples and basically staying out of other people's bedrooms.

Who's my candidate? You'd think the major parties would care, but all the fury centers around which contender can capture the evangelical Christian vote. What about those of us - of all races, genders and socioeconomic classes - who want to see lawmakers take a well-reasoned, balanced approach to solving the serious problems we face today?

I usually vote for some Democrats and some Republicans, but frankly, I find most of those vying for the Republican presidential nomination alarmingly inappropriate. Some of these guys can barely put a coherent thought together, and yes, Mr. Cain, it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of international affairs to be president.

I shudder to think what would happen if some of these guys became president. But where are the good alternatives? It seems that most intelligent, rational and capable individuals don't want the job. Who can blame them?

The extremists play the part of the squeaky wheel, shouting down the voices of reason. It's not in the nature of moderates to be that loud. We're the mediators, the problem-solvers, the ones who try to facilitate positive solutions.

Question: How can you tell when things are running smoothly? Answer: You don't notice them.

I'd like to see one of the six House Republicans who refused to sign Grover Norquist's tax pledge run for President. How about Frank Wolf? He's one of the few Republicans to vote against making the Bush era tax cuts permanent. Here's a guy who understands that fiscal responsibility means considering both increases in taxes and decreases in spending to balance the budget. I don't agree with everything in his voting record, but it's better than most.

As the percentage of moderate voters grows, perhaps we will gain enough political clout to convince the major parties that the middle ground is where creative solutions spring to life. It's time they started to care what we think.

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Republicans and Democrats Watch Out: Centrists on Rise! (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Polls show that as many as a third of all Americans identify themselves as moderate or centrist, yet the candidates for public office seem to be getting more extreme every election cycle.

I have always considered myself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I am in favor of balancing the budget and reducing spending, but not of gutting social services to do it. I also favor equal rights for same sex couples and basically staying out of other people's bedrooms.

Who's my candidate? You'd think the major parties would care, but all the fury centers around which contender can capture the evangelical Christian vote. What about those of us - of all races, genders and socioeconomic classes - who want to see lawmakers take a well-reasoned, balanced approach to solving the serious problems we face today?

I usually vote for some Democrats and some Republicans, but frankly, I find most of those vying for the Republican presidential nomination alarmingly inappropriate. Some of these guys can barely put a coherent thought together, and yes, Mr. Cain, it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of international affairs to be president.

I shudder to think what would happen if some of these guys became president. But where are the good alternatives? It seems that most intelligent, rational and capable individuals don't want the job. Who can blame them?

The extremists play the part of the squeaky wheel, shouting down the voices of reason. It's not in the nature of moderates to be that loud. We're the mediators, the problem-solvers, the ones who try to facilitate positive solutions.

Question: How can you tell when things are running smoothly? Answer: You don't notice them.

I'd like to see one of the six House Republicans who refused to sign Grover Norquist's tax pledge run for President. How about Frank Wolf? He's one of the few Republicans to vote against making the Bush era tax cuts permanent. Here's a guy who understands that fiscal responsibility means considering both increases in taxes and decreases in spending to balance the budget. I don't agree with everything in his voting record, but it's better than most.

As the percentage of moderate voters grows, perhaps we will gain enough political clout to convince the major parties that the middle ground is where creative solutions spring to life. It's time they started to care what we think.

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House Democrats Want Republicans to Stop Saying 'Obamacare' (The Atlantic Wire)

Arguing that Obamacare is at this point a derogatory term, House Democrats want to ban the term from mailers sent from Congressional offices, reports Roll Call's Jonathan Strong. Democrats on the House Committee that oversees their franking privileges -- that is, the right to send campaign mailers to constituents thinly disguised as official correspondence for free -- say Obamacare violates the rules against sending mailers for "personal, partisan, or political reasons." For example, Republicans got Democrats to stop sending mailers that claimed Rep. Paul Ryan would "end" Medicare.

Related: Brooks and Olbermann Kill the Bill

Obama tried to reappropriate Obamacare back in August, pulling some reverse discourse action: "I have no problem with folks saying 'Obamacares' ... I do care," Obama said. Back then, ABC News's Jake Tapper wondered if the president made it okay to use the term again. But House Republicans really know what's up. "You know, if it was popular they’d be all about calling it Obamacare," a Republican source told Strong.

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Seriously? Democrats Target New House Republicans for...Sleazy Ethics? - News Busters

Stephanie Condon of CBS News reports the Party of Charlie Rangel is attacking freshman Republicans as sleaze-oids: "Democrats are launching a series of robocalls today against six vulnerable House Republicans who have been caught in ethics scandals."

The calls focus on six relatively new GOP members: Reps. Scott Tipton of Colorado, David Rivera of Florida, Frank Guinta of New Hampshire, Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, and Stephen Fincher of Tennessee were all elected in 2010. Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida came into office in 2007.

"House Republican leaders pledged a zero tolerance policy to ethics problems in their conference, but their answer has been to turn a blind eye, " said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of House Democrats...

Most of the allegations noted in the robocalls surfaced before Election Day 2010, but there have been new developments since then in most cases. For instance, Fincher came under scrutiny in 2010 for allegedly failing to disclose a loan of $250,000 to his campaign, but the Federal Election Commission has since opened an investigation into the charge.

The robocall targeting Guinta focuses on an investigation into his campaign funding, while the call targeting Rivera highlights a series of charges against the congressman, including the accusation he received "secret payments" from his mother's company.

Perhaps CBS could add the story of Rep. Laura Richardson, recently profiled by David Freddoso.

Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Tim Graham on Twitter.

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How and Why Republicans Suppress Voter Rights (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Republicans often accuse Democrats of voter fraud, despite the activist judges and squelched recounts that won them the 2000 presidential election. These accusations continue today, even though there's little substance to back them up, for one reason:

Republicans consider all Democratic votes to be illegitimate

Tea partiers compare Democratic leaders to Nazis, and scrutinized Obama's birth certificate to a degree that no white, Republican candidate has ever faced ... even one who was born outside the United States, as Sen. John McCain was. To them, no Democratic leader is legitimate, and many preach the use of the "ammo box" to get their way if the ballot box fails them. Unfortunately, the less stable among them heed these calls.

One of this year's earlier Republican presidential hopefuls, Mike Huckabee, said at the Rediscover God in America conference that he "almost wish[ed]" all Americans would be "forced at gunpoint" to listen to revisionist historian David Barton. Barton misquotes America's founders, in order to teach that the United States were meant to be a "Christian nation." His website even promotes "Biblical slavery" for unbelievers.

A party whose leaders and pundits proclaim such views can be expected to act on them. That's why a new crop of voter suppression laws is coming into effect, in states brought under Republican control during the 2010 elections.

Voter suppression 101

Naturally, laws designed to suppress the vote are never described as such. Not except in especially candid moments, like when New Hampshire's Republican House Speaker said letting people register to vote on Election Day led to "the kids coming out of the schools and basically doing what I did when I was a kid, which is voting as a liberal." In other words, he admitted that the laws he promotes, such as that one and photo ID laws, are designed to suppress Democratic votes.

An innocent observer might ask, what's wrong with tightening our laws to make sure no voter fraud happens? The problem is two-fold. First, there is no real voter fraud problem to begin with; and second, tougher laws make it harder for society's weakest members to vote.

Students, minorities, the poor and disabled, and America's working class all have less ability to learn and comply with these laws, and may not know about them until it's too late. Even a photo ID requirement could be the last straw, for a student or single mom working two jobs. And it's exactly these harried people who are likely to be hardest hit by a law that says they can't register at the polls.

An unsympathetic conservative might reply with an anecdote about pulling himself up by his bootstraps, and how these kids and poor people have to learn responsibility (that's why they're poor, you know). But a more cynical observer might note that those most affected by these laws are more likely to vote Democrat, and that the Republican winners of 2010 are writing them -- effectively kicking the working poor while they're down. Even voter outreach programs are being curtailed, so that "get out the vote" efforts stall.

Might makes right

To a conservative enough Republican, there are no legitimate Democrat votes. And as long as the ballot box is a way to make your voice heard in government, they will do their best to deny it to everyone who disagrees with them. Especially the most vulnerable members of our society, who don't have an "ammo box" to fall back on and wouldn't use one if they did.

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