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Power Shift 2011: President Obama Meets with Youth Climate Leaders

By Brad Johnson on Apr 15, 2011 at 10:16 pm

Our guest blogger is Jeff Mann, online director of the Energy Action Coalition.

Today at the White House, President Obama met with twelve young leaders from across the country that are in town for Power Shift 2011, the youth clean energy and climate summit being attended by over 10,000 people.

The young leaders described the meeting as positive and expressed excitement about working with the Administration to transition America to 100 percent clean energy and protect the Clean Air Act. Courtney Hight, co-director of the Energy Action Coalition thanked the president for fighting to “save the Clean Air Act”:

It was a real testament to President Obama’s commitment to young people that he met with youth clean energy leaders today. We are thankful he fought to save the Clean Air Act. That’s the man we elected and we need him to stand strong and stand up to big polluters and safeguard America’s public health.

The young people expressed concerns with aspects of Obama’s energy policy, particularly ongoing reliance on dirty energy sources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas. The young leaders also voiced concerns about continued subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

The President reminded the young leaders that they have the power to change this country. Grassroots organizing in communities and states will help move our nation on energy and climate.

“We’re conducting the largest grassroots organizing training in history, to prepare young leaders to go back to their communities and lead, and we’re calling on President Obama and Congress to join us in standing up to Big Polluters and creating a clean energy economy,” said Maura Cowley, Energy Action Coalition’s other co-director. “Young people know we need a clean energy policy not based on things that kill people, whether it’s dirty coal or dangerous nuclear,” Cowley added.

Follow @PowerShift11 and @EnergyAction for updates.

Update

Maura Cowley tells CNN‘s Cody Combs:

“We saw the community organizer side of President Obama come out in this meeting,” said Maura Cowley, co-director of Power Shift. “I think we’re hoping it’s the beginning of a dialogue.”

Related Posts

Politics

Trump Reluctantly Agrees U.S. Should Help Japan’s Tsunami Victims Because He’s Such ‘A Nice Guy’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Apr 15, 2011 at 7:00 pm

A new PPP poll out today confirms the startling findings of previous CNN and NBC/Wall Street Journal polls that twice-bankrupted, birther-obsessed reality TV star Donald Trump is currently leading the GOP presidential field. PPP found Trump with an astonishingly strong nine-point lead over his nearest competitor, Mike Huckabee.

Trump has so far made his way as a theoretical candidate while offering few policy positions, aside from a dogged focus on Obama’s birth certificate and a commitment to sticking it to China, Colombia, and Japan, which he claims are “screwing” America somehow. This problem is so severe, Trump nonsensically argued last night on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show, that he could solve much of the country’s debt and deficit problems by simply being tougher on these countries. But Trump said he reluctantly agreed to make an exception for helping Japan after the tsunami, even though they treat Americans “like a bunch of dopes”:

TRUMP: No, it is. But we are losing so much money. Every country we deal with virtually we are losing money. When Japan had its horrible accident, they said to me, what do you think? I said, you know what? They’ve treated us like fools for many years. But still, we should help them. Aren’t I a nice guy?

HANNITY: You are a nice guy.

TRUMP: But they treated us like fools for years and years and years. They treated us like a bunch of dopes. But you know — [shrugs].

Watch it:

As the Smoking Gun reported earlier this week, despite claiming to be an “ardent philanthropist,” Trump may be the country’s “least charitable billionaire.” His foundation — to which World Wrestling Entertainment has donated more money than Trump himself — has given out just $3.7 million since 1990, “pitiful when compared to the philanthropy of other high-profile tycoons.”

Security

EXCLUSIVE: Abdullah Abdullah On Whether Karzai Deliberately Fueled Quran Burning: ‘He Did It, Of Course’

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 15, 2011 at 6:30 pm

Earlier this month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai received widespread criticism for spreading news to ordinary Afghans that radical pastor Terry Jones had burned a Quran at his church in Florida a week previously. Protests erupted around the country that left dozens dead, including UN workers, and hundreds wounded. Karzai “provoked people to take such actions. Karzai should have called on people to be patient rather than making people more angry,” one Afghan political analyst said.

Today, ThinkProgress spoke with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minster from 2001-2005, and Karzai’s main challenger for President in the country’s 2009 national elections, which were widely considered to be fraudulent. During the interview, Abdullah said that Karzai has made it his policy to promote anti-Americanism in Afghanistan:

ABDULLAH: President Karzai believes that by promoting anti foreigner, anti-American feelings, he might find some constituency in parts of the country. … And this has started with one of the events and now it became a trend and now it has become a policy. In between, who misses the opportunities? The people of Afghanistan.

ThinkProgress also asked Abdullah if he thinks Karzai deliberately fueled Jones’ Quran burning stunt. “It was very obvious,” he said:

ABDULLAH: It was very obvious. It was very obvious and it is what I mentioned earlier it started one of a blame game yes? And then a trend and then a policy. [...]

TP: Do you think that he did it on purpose?

ABDULLAH: He did it, of course.

When asked if Karzai benefits in any way politically from making an issue of Jones’s Quran burning, Abdullah replied, “I don’t think it helps him but nevertheless it damages the situation.” Listen to the entire interview in two parts here:

Transcript: Read more

Yglesias

American Taxes Are Low

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 15, 2011 at 5:30 pm

All things considered, public policy across the developed world does very similar things. It promotes health insurance, gives pensions to the elderly, offers income support to the poor, pays for basic infrastructure, and does some subsidization of rural lifestyles that people feel sentimental about. But levels of taxation vary wildly.

Via Jamelle Bouie, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a chart that makes the case:

This is one important reason why the United States has large projected budget deficits.

Politics

VIDEO: Rick Santorum Says He Has ‘Nothing To Do’ With His Own Campaign Slogan

By Lee Fang on Apr 15, 2011 at 5:24 pm

Yesterday, I caught up with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) after a town hall he hosted in Henniker, NH. Earlier that day, he announced his presidential run and unveiled his campaign slogan, “Fighting to make America America again.” ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser was quick to point out that “this eloquent turn of phrase” was actually “borrowed from the title of a pro-union, pro-racial justice, and pro-immigrant poem written by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes — ‘Let America Be America Again.’”

I asked Santorum about the campaign slogan, which was already plastered at the front of the room under the official Santorum campaign posters. Santorum at first distanced himself from it, claiming “I had nothing to do with that.” Asked for a clarification, the former senator laughed and added that his campaign staff “didn’t inform” him about the origin of the phrase. However, Santorum said he has read “some” poems by Hughes:

FANG: Today, you unveiled your new campaign slogan, “Fighting to make America America again.” But was it intentional that this line was borrowed from the pro-union poem by the gay poet Langston Hughes?

SANTORUM: No, because I had nothing to do with that so–

FANG: Oh, alright thanks. Wait did you have a clarification there? Was it just a coincidence?

SANTORUM: I didn’t know that. The folks who worked on that slogan for me didn’t inform me that that’s where it came from, if in fact it came from that.

FANG: Do you like Langston Hughes? Is he a favorite poet?

SANTORUM: I’ve read some of his poems. I’m not a big poetry guy so I can’t say I have a favorite poet, sorry.

Watch it:

Santorum seemed discomforted by the fact that his campaign slogan had been borrowed from Langston Hughes. Perhaps he actually had no role in crafting his own campaign motto. But it was interesting that Santorum — who has made a career demonizing the gay community — recoils when learning that anything associated with him has roots in the gay community.

Update

The New Hampshire Union Leader, which overheard the exchange between ThinkProgress and Santorum, reported on it this morning. David Weigel has more.

Yglesias

Inflation Expectations Creeping Up

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 15, 2011 at 4:45 pm

Some good news from Ryan Avent on the inflation expectations front:

Inflation expectations are inching up. That’s good! The Fed began QE2 in order to reverse a steady decline in expectations, and a rise in expectations reduces real interest rates, which helps to stimulate the economy.

There are only two problems here. One is that though expectations are now moving in the right direction, they’re still lower than would be optimal. It’d be nice to see expectations pushed all the way up to Reaganesque levels in the 4 or 5 percent range, but even if that’s unrealistic ten year expectations could at least get above two. The other problem is that any hint of effective monetary policy and growth expectations seems to spark a new round of crazy talk from Fed hawks about the need to tighten policy.

Politics

Pawlenty Dodges Question About Paul Ryan’s Medicare Cuts

By Igor Volsky on Apr 15, 2011 at 4:34 pm

Earlier this afternoon, House Republicans approved Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget framework that would reduce federal spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade and dramatically alter the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Ryan’s Medicare proposal would eliminate $30 billion from the program by forcing seniors to purchase private coverage beginning in 2022 and by retaining many of the Medicare savings that are part of the Affordable Care Act.

During a Tea Party rally in New Hampshire, likely presidential candidate and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R) endorsed the Ryan proposal, saying, “as a general matter and directionally, I think Paul Ryan’s plan moves in the right direction.” But when I pressed him over whether he supports maintaining some of the Medicare cuts that are part of health care reform, Pawlenty demurred, and took another question:

PAWLENTY: I like Paul Ryan’s plan directionally. I don’t think it’s fully filled out in terms of the fact that we still have to address Social Security and when we issue our plan later in this process, it will have some differences. [...]

VOLSKY: Do you support the Medicare cuts in his plan that he keeps from Obamacare?

PAWLENTY: Anybody else have a question besides this guy?

Watch it:

Ironically, Republicans attacked the Medicare cuts in the Affordable Care Act throughout the last two years, arguing that such reductions would ration care for seniors and would drive providers out of the program. In an executive order prohibiting Minnesota from implementing the ACA, Pawlenty referred to the cuts as “unrealistic assumptions regarding purported future cost-savings.”

Health

Pawlenty Dodges Question About Paul Ryan’s Medicare Cuts

By Igor Volsky on Apr 15, 2011 at 4:30 pm

Earlier this afternoon, House Republicans approved Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget framework that would reduce federal spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade and dramatically alter the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Ryan’s Medicare proposal would eliminate $30 billion from the program by forcing seniors to purchase private coverage beginning in 2022 and by retaining many of the Medicare savings that are part of the Affordable Care Act.

During a Tea Party rally in New Hampshire, likely presidential candidate and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (R) endorsed the Ryan proposal, saying, “as a general matter and directionally, I think Paul Ryan’s plan moves in the right direction.” But when I pressed him over whether he supports maintaining some of the Medicare cuts that are part of health care reform, Pawlenty demurred, and took another question:

PAWLENTY: I like Paul Ryan’s plan directionally. I don’t think it’s fully filled out in terms of the fact that we still have to address Social Security and when we issue our plan later in this process, it will have some differences[...]

VOLSKY: Do you support the Medicare cuts in his plan that he keeps from Obamacare?

PAWLENTY: Anybody else have a question besides this guy?

Watch it:

Ironically, Republicans attacked the Medicare cuts in the Affordable Care Act throughout the last two years, arguing that such reductions would ration care for seniors and would drive providers out of the program. In an executive order prohibiting Minnesota from implementing the ACA, Pawlenty referred to the cuts as “unrealistic assumptions regarding purported future cost-savings.”

Yglesias

Privatizing Medicare Will Destabilize Benefits For All Seniors, Even Those Allegedly Exempted From It

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 15, 2011 at 3:58 pm

According to Paul Ryan, privatizing Medicare will open up a universe of benefits to patients so bounteous that they won’t even mind that the value of the vouchers they’re getting is eroding at a frightening rate. But also according to Paul Ryan, today’s elderly people don’t need to worry about the fact that this doesn’t make sense since “if you’re 55 and above, no changes whatsoever in Medicare.” I’ve written before about how politically unstable this is going to be. Ryan is essentially promising people born in 1956 and earlier that people born in 1955 and later are going to keep taxing ourselves to finance an expensive program that we’ll never benefit from.

My colleague Igor Volsky adds the observation that even if this problem is avoided, Medicare will be actuarially destabilized anyway:

In 2022, newly-eligible beneficiries would have to enroll in a private plan, but existing beneficiaries (those who are over 55 today) would also have the option of leaving traditional Medicare. As Ryan’s budget put it, “While there would be no disruptions in the current Medicare fee-for-service program for those currently enrolled or becoming eligible in the next ten years, all seniors would have the choice to opt into the new Medicare program once it begins in 2022. No senior would be forced to stay in the old program.”

That opens up the possibilities of private plans trying to lure away the healthiest beneficiaries (as is currently the case in Medicare Advantage) and of health care providers abandoning traditional Medicare patients for the higher reimbursement rates of private insurers. For chronically ill seniors who are more likely to remain in fee-for-service Medicare this means two things: higher costs (as the healthier beneficiaries exit the risk pool) and fewer doctors.

You could conceivably deal with the adverse selection issue, but the provider abandonment problem is completely unsolvable. Right now most health care providers accept Medicare even though its payment rates are stingy because the customer base is so large. Under Ryancare, starting in eleven years the size of the Medicare customer base will start to erode. That means each and every year more providers will find it’s in their interests to abandon Medicare patients. Imagine the sorry fate of the Last Medicare Patient In America, alone and adrift in a world of privatization. Who’s going to take his insurance? Nobody. But of course there won’t be any such Last Medicare Patient because the combination of actuarial and political instability ensures that sometime in the late 2020s or early 2030s, the remaining stock of Medicare beneficiaries will be tossed into the higher-cost voucher pool.

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