Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
Name	Peter Orszag
Office	37th Director of the Office of Management and Budget
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Rob NaborsJeffrey Liebman (Acting)
Term start	January 20, 2009
Term end	July 30, 2010
Predecessor	Jim Nussle
Successor	Jeffrey Zients (Acting)
Office2	7th Director of the Congressional Budget Office
Term start2	January 18, 2007
Term end2	November 25, 2008
Predecessor2	Donald Marron (Acting)
Successor2	Robert Sunshine (Acting)
Birth date	December 16, 1968
Birth place	Boston, Massachusetts
Party	Democratic Party
Alma mater	Princeton UniversityLondon School of Economics }}

Peter Richard Orszag (; born December 16, 1968) is an American economist who is a Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup. He is also a columnist at Bloomberg View and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before joining Citigroup, he was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing columnist for the New York Times Op-Ed page. Prior to that, he was the 37th Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Barack Obama.

New York Times Biography

According to the New York Times website summary of Orszag's biography:

"Peter R. Orszag was President Obama's first budget director, helping to shape the 2009 stimulus package and the health care legislation passed in early 2010. Mr. Orszag promoted and carried out an effort by the White House to pry away from Congress some of the responsibility for making hard decisions, especially when it comes to the budget. In the process, he signaled that an administration populated from the top down by Capitol Hill alumni was intent on altering the balance of power between the branches of government. Mr. Orszag was the administration's main proponent of "bending the curve" on health care expenditures. Frustrated that House Democrats wouldn't accept some painful cost-cutting measures in the new health care law, Mr. Orszag pushed for and won a controversial provision to create something called the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This is an outside commission of 15 appointees who will, beginning in 2014, identify cuts to Medicare if the plan exceeds a preset rate for growth. Congress then has to either approve the cuts or propose an alternative. The Medicare Board is one example of the Obama administration's strategy to wrest the constitutional responsibility for budgeting away from powerful Congressional committee chairmen. House Democrats blame Mr. Orszag for having led this incursion onto their territory, and they seem hopeful for a better reception from his successor, Jacob Lew, who once worked for the legendary Speaker Tip O'Neill.

Mr. Orszag helped popularize the idea that reducing health care costs is essential to the country's economic future and the sustainability of the federal budget. In the months after the health bill passed, he espoused deficit reduction strategies in administration debates against those who pressed for more stimulus spending and tax cuts to keep the economy from slipping back into recession. Mr. Orszag had earlier been director of the Congressional Budget Office. He somewhat reluctantly accepted Mr. Obama's invitation to join the cabinet after the 2008 election and never planned to stay more than two years. Typically, budget directors do not. He left his job as the White House budget director in July 2010 and while the president urged Mr. Orszag to remain, the calendar for drafting the next budget weighed in favor of Mr. Orszag's leaving sooner. Mr. Orszag's personal calendar also argued for a timely departure: He was planning to get married in September.

Born in 1968 and the youngest member of President Obama's cabinet, he earned a reputation as a budgetary prodigy.

His animating passions include health care, energy policy and Social Security overhaul, for starters. Everything about the way he interpreted his O.M.B. job speaks of ambition: the policy heavyweights he hired, his efforts to persuade cabinet secretaries to let him help shape their plans, and a public profile as high as that of any budget director since David A. Stockman's polarizing tenure under Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Orszag was a protégé of Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary. He served as an economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, and before that to Mr. Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. After leaving the White House, he formed an economic consulting company then became a senior fellow for economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a center-left research organization in Washington. There, he directed the Hamilton Project, which enlists scholars to propose solutions for problems with big fiscal and societal costs, and the Retirement Security Project, which promotes public and private incentives to help improve retirees' income prospects.

Outside of the office, Mr. Orszag was known for running marathons and attending country-western concerts. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and received master's and doctoral degrees from the London School of Economics. He has co-written or co-edited a number of books, including "Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach" and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences.

In December 2009, Mr. Orszag became engaged to Bianna Golodryga, an ABC News correspondent."

Other Biography

Other biographies of Orszag are posted on the Congressional Budget Office website and the Council on Foreign Relations website.

Orszag grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy with high honors (1987), he earned an A.B. ''summa cum laude'' in economics from Princeton University in 1991, and a M.Sc. (1992) and a Ph.D. (1997) in economics from the London School of Economics. He was a Marshall Scholar 1991–1992, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science, and serves on the Boards of Directors of Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York, the Partnership for Public Service in Washington, and ideas42 in Cambridge.

Economists Alan Blinder (who taught him at Princeton) and Joseph Stiglitz were his mentors early in life, and later Robert Rubin.

He runs marathons and enjoys country music.

Orszag was first married in 1997 to Cameron Hamill, an assistant at the Treasury Department, with whom he had two children. They later divorced. In 2010, he became engaged to Bianna Golodryga, co-host of ABC's Weekend Good Morning America. Shortly after becoming engaged, he and a former partner, Claire Milonas, released a joint statement to the press, stating that they had been in a relationship up until the spring of 2009, and that in November of that year, Milonas had given birth to Orszag's third child.

Career

Orszag was a senior fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he directed The Hamilton Project and (in conjunction with Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute) the Pew Charitable Trust's Retirement Security Project.

He served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (1997–1998), and as Senior Economist and Senior Adviser on the Council of Economic Advisers (1995–1996) during the Clinton administration. He also formed a consulting group called Sebago Associates, which merged into Competition Policy Associates and was bought by FTI Consulting Inc. for a reported $70 million.

He is also an invitee of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011 Bilderberg conference at the Suvretta House in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Congressional Budget Office

Orszag was director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2007 to November 2008. During his tenure, he repeatedly drew attention to the role rising health care expenditures are likely to play in the government's long-term fiscal problems—and, by extension, the nation's long-term economic problems. "I have not viewed CBO's job as just to passively evaluate what Congress proposes, but rather to be an analytical resource. And part of that is to highlight things that are true and that people may not want to hear, including that we need to address health-care costs." During his time at the CBO, he added 20 full-time health analysts (bringing the total number to 50), thereby strengthening the CBO's analytical capabilities and preparing Congress for health-care reform.

He was widely praised for his time at CBO for preparing the agency for the debates to come. When he stepped down, National Journal noted that "Orszag, who will turn 40 on Dec. 16, has been praised by lawmakers from both parties as an objective analyst with deep knowledge of the most pressing fiscal issues of the day, including health care policy, Social Security, pensions, and global climate change. He is the unusual economist who blends an understanding of politics, policy and communications in ways that wrap zesty quotes around complex ideas."

Office of Management and Budget

On November 25, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced that Orszag would be his nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, the arm of the White House responsible for crafting the federal budget and overseeing the effectiveness of federal programs.

Orszag, in a November 2009 speech in New York, said that deficits, expected to add $9 trillion to the current national debt of $12 trillion over the next decade, are "serious and ultimately unsustainable." He said that deficit spending was necessary to help boost the economy when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent. But he said that red ink must be stopped as the economy recovers. During a recovery, private investment will again pick up and compete with the federal government for capital.

In June 2010 the White House wants non-security federal agencies to list wasteful programs and produce budgets for fiscal year 2012 that cut spending by 5 percent. “It’s the beginning of the process, not the end,” he said. Orszag has stressed that the search for more spending reductions would focus on under-performing programs and that some agencies could see increases in spending. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Budget Committee Republican, said he’s “hopeful” federal agencies will heed Orszag’s call to cut spending but added that the proposed reforms didn’t go far enough. “I welcome any and all efforts that recognize the urgent need to get Washington’s fiscal house in order," Ryan said in a statement.

In July 2010 Orszag said that “The problem now is weak growth and high unemployment rather than outright economic collapse,”. Still, the deficit would be equivalent to 10 percent of the gross domestic product, the highest level since World War II. The Office of Management and Budget’s mid-session review, forecast a smaller deficit and stronger economic growth than the administration’s initial budget release. The deficit forecast in 2011 increased to $1.42 trillion, up from the $1.27 estimate in February. For 2012, the deficit estimate rose to $922 billion, up from $828 billion in the previous report. The annual budget shortfall would bottom out in 2017 at $721 billion, or 3.4 percent of GDP, and begin rising again in following years.

A review of Orszag's daily schedules shows his sustained focus on healthcare reform as soon as he joined Obama’s Cabinet. The daily schedules for Orszag, who left his position as Office of Management and Budget director in August, reveal that he and key White House aides regularly met to discuss healthcare starting in January 2009, within days of Obama entering office. Orszag also had meetings with insurance executives and health experts as the White House made health reform its top legislative priority after enacting the $814 billion stimulus.

Citigroup and Bloomberg

Since January 2011, Orszag has been Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup. According to New York Magazine, "for an ambitious economist like Peter Orszag, going to work for Citigroup represented a choice. As a young staffer working in the Clinton White House, he saw laid before him two different paths: Stiglitzism and Rubinism. There were both intellectual and career-arc components to these. While both are liberal Democrats, Rubin was the consummate insider, whose philosophy was that the free markets, balanced budgets, and limited regulation would create a rising tide that would lift all boats (or at least make Wall Street not complain too much about Clinton’s social programs). Stiglitz, the public intellectual, is as concerned with the boats as with the tide. Orszag certainly had a lot in common with Stiglitz’s academic mien, having grown up in an intensely intellectual family in Lexington, Massachusetts, outside Boston. His father is a celebrated Yale math professor. But Orszag possessed an ambition that would take him beyond the ivory tower. He ultimately chose Rubinism. It makes perfect sense that Orszag would have been drawn toward Rubin. It must have been incredibly seductive seeing this world, watching the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party move so easily from government to Wall Street boardrooms to the table with Charlie Rose."

Orszag has also been writing a twice-a-month column for Bloomberg View. His early columns covered topics such as consumer-directed health care, political polarization, and growing gaps in life expectancy.

Bibliography

Orszag, Peter, ''et al.'' ''American Economic Policy'' in the 1990s (MIT Press: 2002)

Orszag, Peter, ''et al.'' ''Protecting the American Homeland: A Preliminary Analysis'' (Brookings Institution Press: 2002)

Orszag, Peter, ''et al.'' ''Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach'' (Brookings Institution Press: 2004)

Orszag, Peter, ''et al.'' ''Protecting the Homeland 2006/7'' (Brookings Institution Press: 2006)

Orszag, Peter, ''et al.'' ''Aging Gracefully: Ideas to Improve Retirement Security in America'' (Century Foundation Press: 2006)

Orszag, Peter. 1999. Administrative Costs in Individual Accounts in the United Kingdom. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

"Implications of the New Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Risk-Based Capital Standard" (March).Fannie Mae Papers 1, no. 2 (March 2002)

Orszag, Peter and Joseph E. Stiglitz. "Rethinking Pension Reform: Ten Myths about Social Security Systems." In Robert Holzman and Joseph Stiglitz, eds., New Ideas about Old Age Security. (The World Bank: 2001).

Orszag, Peter, J. Michael Orszag. "The Benefits of Flexible Funding: Implications for Pension Reform in an Uncertain World." In Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics. (The World Bank: 2001).

References

External links

Curriculum Vitae at CBO

OMB leadership biographies

Article in the New Yorker, May 4, 2009

Peter Orszag articles and columns on Bloomberg Press

{{U.S. Cabinet Official box | before= Jim Nussle | after= Jeffrey Zients Acting | years= 2009–2010 | president= Barack Obama | office= Director of the Office of Management and Budget}}

Category:1968 births Category:American bankers Category:Citigroup people Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics Category:American economists Category:American Jews Category:American people of Hungarian descent Category:Assistants to the President of the United States Category:Clinton Administration personnel Category:Democrats (United States) Category:Directors of the Office of Management and Budget Category:Employees of the United States Congress Category:Georgetown University faculty Category:Living people Category:Marshall Scholars Category:Obama Administration cabinet members Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts Category:People from Lexington, Massachusetts Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Category:Princeton University alumni

de:Peter R. Orszag fa:پیتر ا�?رزاگ fr:Peter Orszag he:פי�?ר �?ורסג hu:Peter R. Orszag ja:�?��?�タ�?��?��?��??�?��?��?��?�オ�?�ザグ no:Peter R. Orszag sh:Peter Orszag sv:Peter Orszag

Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
Name	Charlie Rose
Birthname	Charles Peete Rose, Jr.
Birth date	January 05, 1942
Birth place	Henderson, North Carolina, U.S.
education	Duke University B.A. (1964) Duke University J.D. (1968)
occupation	Talk show hostJournalist
years active	1972–present
credits	''Charlie Rose'', ''60 Minutes II'', ''60 Minutes'', ''CBS News Nightwatch'', ''CBS This Morning''
url	http://www.charlierose.com/ }}

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted ''Charlie Rose'', an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored ''CBS This Morning'' since January 2012. Charlie, along with Lara Logan, has revamped the CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted by the legendary Edward R. Murrow.

Early life

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven.. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (''née'' King), while attending Duke.

Career

After his wife was hired by the BBC (in New York), Rose handled some assignments for the BBC on a freelance basis. In 1972, while continuing to work at Bankers Trust, he landed a job as a weekend reporter for WPIX-TV. His break came in 1974, after Bill Moyers hired Rose as managing editor for the PBS series ''Bill Moyers' International Report''. In 1975, Moyers named Rose executive producer of ''Bill Moyers Journal''. Rose soon began appearing on camera. "A Conversation with Jimmy Carter," one installment of Moyers's series ''U.S.A.: People and Politics'', won a 1976 Peabody Award. Rose worked at several networks honing his interview skills until KXAS-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth hired him as program manager and gave him the late-night time slot that would become the ''Charlie Rose'' show.

Rose worked for CBS News (1984–1990) as the anchor of ''CBS News Nightwatch'', the network's first late-night news broadcast. The ''Nightwatch'' broadcast of Rose's interview with Charles Manson won an Emmy Award in 1987. In 1990, Rose left CBS to serve as anchor of ''Personalities'', a syndicated program produced by Fox Broadcasting Company, but he got out of his contract after six weeks because of the tabloid-style content of the show. ''Charlie Rose'' premiered on PBS station Thirteen/WNET on September 30, 1991, and has been nationally syndicated since January 1993. In 1994, Rose moved the show to a studio owned by Bloomberg Television, which allowed for improved satellite interviewing.

Rose was a correspondent for ''60 Minutes II'' from its inception in January 1999 until its cancellation in September 2005, and was later named a correspondent on ''60 Minutes''.

Rose was a member of the board of directors of Citadel Broadcasting Corporation from 2003 to 2009. In May 2010, Charlie Rose delivered the commencement address at North Carolina State University.

On November 15, 2011, it was announced that Rose would return to CBS to help anchor ''CBS This Morning'', replacing ''The Early Show'', commencing January 9, 2012, along with co-anchors Erica Hill and Gayle King.

Cameo appearances

Rose has appeared as himself in the 1998 film ''Primary Colors'', in a 2000 episode of ''The Simpsons'' and in the 2008 movie ''Elegy''. He and his show were also used in the Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums. He also appears as himself in the 2011 George Clooney directed film, ''The Ides of March''.

Accusations of conflict of interest

While hosting the 2002 Coca-Cola Company shareholders' meeting, Rose said "few companies are able to connect as completely with consumers in the way that Coca-Cola is. It is a privilege to be associated with [The Coca-Cola family] ... This is the business of Coca-Cola: being part of a family, being worldwide, doing well and doing good at the same time." Afterward, Coca-Cola agreed to become what Rose called "a leading underwriter" of ''The Charlie Rose Show'', paying "six or possibly seven figures." Even the Charlie Rose mugs used on his PBS show feature a Coca-Cola logo on one side. Although CBS News policy bars correspondents from doing commercials and product endorsements, the ''Washington Post'' reported CBS was "comfortable" with Rose's actions. Rose insists he "would never do a story on ''60 Minutes II'' about anybody who underwrites my PBS show."

Quiet influence

''The New York Times'' reported that Rose encouraged a discussion between the leaders of NBC and Fox, that led eventually to a mutual reduction in ad hominem attacks between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly on their respective news programs.

Rose has attended several Bilderberg Group conference meetings, including meetings held in the United States in 2008; Spain in 2010; and Switzerland in 2011. These unofficial conferences hold guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are political leaders and businessmen. Details of meetings are closed off to the public and strictly invitation-only, and critics speculate the controversial nature of these meetings of highly influential people. Accusations from conspiracy theorists against The Charlie Rose show claim that it has become the US media outlet for Bilderberg.

Personal life

Rose's twelve-year marriage to Mary Rose (née King) ended in divorce in 1980. Mary is the sister-in-law of Morgan Stanley Chairman John J. Mack. Since 1993, his companion has been socialite and city-planning advocate Amanda Burden, a stepdaughter of CBS founder William S. Paley.

On March 29, 2006, after experiencing shortness of breath in Syria, Rose was flown to Paris and underwent surgery for mitral valve repair in the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital. His surgery was performed under the supervision of Alain F. Carpentier, a pioneer of the procedure. Rose returned to the air on June 12, 2006, with Bill Moyers and Yvette Vega (the show's executive producer), to discuss his surgery and recuperation.

In a 2009 Fresh Dialogues interview Rose described his life as "great and glorious." He added, '"I get up every morning with a new adventure. The adventure is fueled by interesting people. I get a chance to control my own destiny. I do something that is immediately either appreciated or not. I get feedback."

Rose owns a farm in Oxford, North Carolina, an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York City, a beach house in Bellport, New York, an apartment in Washington D.C..and an apartment in Paris, France.

References

External links

Charlie Rose Official website of his eponymous show

Charlie Rose official channel on ''YouTube''

Charlie Rose collected news and commentary at the ''Los Angeles Times''

Charlie Rose shows on Hulu

celebritynetworth.com, Celebrity Net Worth, Charlie Rose

Why Business Loves Charlie Rose David A. Kaplan, ''Fortune'', September 28, 2009

Category:American journalists Category:American television talk show hosts Category:New York television reporters Category:CBS News Category:60 Minutes correspondents Category:Duke University alumni Category:New York University alumni Category:People from Henderson, North Carolina Category:1942 births Category:Living people

bg:Чарли Ро�?з de:Charlie Rose fa:چارلی رز fr:Charlie Rose he:צ'�?רלי רוז ro:Charlie Rose ru:Ро�?з, Чарли sv:Charlie Rose

Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
Name	Paul Ryan
State	Wisconsin
District	1st
Party	Republican
Term start	January 3, 1999
Predecessor	Mark Neumann
Successor	Incumbent
Office2	Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget
Term start2	January 3, 2011
Predecessor2	John Spratt
Birthname	Paul Davis Ryan
Birth date	January 29, 1970
Birth place	Janesville, Wisconsin
Religion	Catholic
Spouse	Janna Ryan
Children	3 children
Residence	Janesville, Wisconsin
Alma mater	Miami University (B.A.)
Website	U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan }}

Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1999. He is a member of the Republican Party and has been ranked among the party's most influential voices on conservative economic policy.

Born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan graduated from Miami University in Ohio and reportedly worked as a marketing consultant to an earth-moving company run by a branch of his family. In the mid-to-late 1990s he worked as an aide to United States Senator Bob Kasten, as legislative director for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and also as a speech writer for former U.S. Representative and 1996 Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Jack Kemp of New York. He won a 1998 election to succeed two-term Representative Mark Neumann in the United States House of Representatives.

Ryan is the chairman of the House Budget Committee, where he played a prominent public role in drafting and promoting the Republican Party's long-term budget proposal. He introduced the plan, ''The Path to Prosperity'', in April 2011 to counter the budget proposal of President Barack Obama. Ryan is one of the three co-founders of the Young Guns Program, an electoral recruitment and campaign effort by House Republicans.

Early life, education and career

The youngest child of Betty and Paul Murray Ryan, a lawyer, Ryan was born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin. Ryan's mother is an outdoors enthusiast who led her husband and four kids (a sister, Janet, and two brothers, Tobin and Stan) on regular trips to hike and ski in the Colorado Rockies. He is a fifth-generation Wisconsin and Janesville native and a great-grandson of Patrick W. Ryan, who founded the Ryan Incorporated Central construction business in 1884.

Ryan attended Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville and was sixteen years old when he found his father in bed, dead of a heart attack at age 55. Ryan's grandfather had also died of a heart attack at age 57, as had his great-grandfather also similarly died of a heart attack at age 59. Ryan began collecting his Social Security survivor's benefits until age eighteen, which he saved for college tuition and expenses.

Ryan briefly worked during college for the Oscar Mayer meat and cold cut production company as a Wienermobile driver. He went on to graduate from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, with a B.A. in economics and political science in 1992. Ryan also studied at the Washington Semester program at American University. Ryan was a member of the Delta Tau Delta social fraternity.

Ryan worked within the private sector as a marketing consultant to an earth-moving company run by a branch of his family after he returned to Wisconsin from Washington, D.C. .

Early political career

During his junior year at Miami University, Ryan worked as a college intern opening mail for the foreign affairs advisor assigned to Wisconsin Sen. Bob Kasten. In his early years as a D.C. staffer, Ryan moonlighted on Capitol Hill as a waiter at the Tortilla Coast restaurant and as a fitness trainer at Washington Sport and Health Club, among various other side jobs.

Out of fear that Ryan "...was destined to become a ski bum", Betty Ryan reportedly nudged her son to accept another congressional position as a staff economist attached to the office of U.S. Senator Bob Kasten.

After Kasten was defeated by Democrat Russ Feingold in 1992, Ryan became a speechwriter and a volunteer economic analyst with Empower America, an advocacy group formed by Jack Kemp, former education secretary Bill Bennett, the late diplomat Jeane Kirkpatrick and former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber.

Ryan worked as a speechwriter for Vice-Presidential candidate Kemp during the 1996 United States presidential election and later worked as legislative director for U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Ryan then returned to Wisconsin where he worked as a consultant to an earth-moving company and began campaigning for the 1998 U.S. congressional elections.

U.S. House of Representatives

Following his first election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998, one of Ryan's priorities as a new congressman was to convert a truck into a rolling district office. This allowed him to keep regular congressional office hours with his constituents at various and far-flung locations across the Wisconsin First U.S. House District.

Ryan is one of the three founding members of the House GOP Young Guns Program.

In 2008, Ryan voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Wall Street bailout that precipitated the Tea Party, and the bailout of GM and Chrysler.

In 2010, ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked Ryan the ninth most influential US conservative. In 2011, Ryan was selected to deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union address.

Committee assignments

Committee on the Budget (Chairman)

Committee on Ways and Means

*Subcommittee on Health

Caucus memberships

Congressional Middle East Economic Partnership Caucus

International Conservation Caucus

Sportsmen's Caucus (Co-Chair)

Roadmap for America's Future

On May 21, 2008, Ryan introduced H.R. 6110, titled "Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2008". This proposed legislation outlined a plan to deal with entitlement issues. Its stated objectives were to ensure universal access to health insurance; strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; lift the debt from future generations; and promote economic growth and job creation in America. The act would have abolished the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 2010. It did not move past committee.

On April 1, 2009, Ryan introduced his alternative to the 2010 United States federal budget. This proposed alternative would have eliminated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, lowered the top tax rate to 25%, introduced an 8.5% value-added consumption tax, and imposed a five-year spending freeze on all discretionary spending. It would also have replaced the Medicare system. Instead, it proposed that starting in 2021, the federal government would pay part of the cost of private medical insurance for individuals turning 65. Ryan's proposed budget would also have allowed taxpayers to opt out of the federal income taxation system with itemized deductions, and instead pay a flat 10 percent of adjusted gross income up to $100,000 and 25 percent on any remaining income. Ryan's proposed budget was heavily criticized by opponents for the lack of concrete numbers. It was ultimately rejected in the house by a vote of 293-137, with 38 Republicans in opposition.

In late January 2010, Ryan released a new version of his "Roadmap." It would give across the board tax cuts by reducing income tax rates; eliminating income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolishing the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the alternative minimum tax. The plan would privatize a portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, and privatize MediCare.

On April 15, 2011, the House passed the Ryan Plan by a vote of 235-193. No Democrats voted for it, and only four Republicans voted against. A month later, the bill died in the Senate by a vote of 57-40.

Economist and ''New York Times'' columnist Paul Krugman took issue with the contention that Ryan's plan would reduce the deficit, alleging that it only considered proposed spending cuts and failed to take into account the tax changes. According to Krugman, Ryan's plan "would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population" but would produce a $4 trillion revenue loss over ten years because of the tax cuts for the rich. Krugman went on to label the proposed spending cuts a "sham" because they depended on making a severe cut in domestic discretionary spending without specifying the programs to be cut, and on "dismantling Medicare as we know it", which is politically unrealistic.

In response to Krugman, economist and former American Enterprise Institute scholar Ted Gayer was more positive toward the Ryan plan. Gayer agreed that, as written, the plan would cause a $4 trillion revenue shortfall over 10 years. He noted, however, that Ryan had expressed a willingness to consider raising the rates in his tax plan. Gayer concluded that "Ryan’s vision of broad-based tax reform, which essentially would shift us toward a consumption tax, ... makes a useful contribution to this debate."

Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in National Review, argued that the revenue loss to which Krugman refers is based on a comparison between Ryan's plan and current law, which "includes middle-class tax increases...cuts in payment to Medicare providers...[and] the expansion of the Alternative Minimum Tax." He added that "current law automatically raises the tax rates to pre-Bush levels in 2013...so if you're comparing the tax level with current law, Ryan's plan represents a tax cut" and "the CBO's actual projections for the Ryan plan show a debt level in 2021 that is $4.7 trillion lower than its projections for Obama's budgets."

Rick Foster, the chief actuary of Medicare, endorsed Ryan's plan as the best way to save Medicare from going bankrupt: "I would say that the Roadmap has that potential. There is some potential for the Affordable Care Act price reductions, although I'm a little less confident about that."

Political campaigns

Ryan was first elected to the House in 1998 when two-term incumbent Mark Neumann retired from his seat in order to make an unsuccessful bid for the Senate. Ryan won both a Republican primary over 29-year-old pianist Michael J. Logan of Twin Lakes, and the general election against Democratic opponent Lydia Spottswood. Ryan successfully defended his seat against Democratic challenger Jeffrey C. Thomas in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.

2008

Ryan defeated Democratic nominee Marge Krupp by a wide margin in the 2008 general election.

2010

Ryan defeated both Democratic nominee John Heckenlively and Libertarian nominee Joseph Kexel by a wide margin in the 2010 general election.

Electoral history

Year			! District	Democrat		Republican		Other
style="text-align: left;">1998
style="text-align: left;"	2000
style="text-align: left;"	2002
style="text-align: left;"	2004
style="text-align: left;"	2006

Personal life

Ryan married Janna Little, a tax attorney, in December 2001. The Ryans live in Janesville with their three children: Elizabeth Anne Ryan, Charles Wilson Ryan, and Samuel Lowery Ryan.

Ryan is a practicing Catholic and is a member of St. John Vianney’s Parish.

References

External links

Congressman Paul Ryan ''official U.S. House site''

Paul Ryan for U.S. Congress ''official campaign site''

A Roadmap for America's Future Paul Ryan's alternative to the United States federal budget

Profile at SourceWatch

Health Care Reform: The Long-Term Perspective at Cato Institute, June 2009

Monitor Breakfast conversation on medicare voucher reform at Christian Science Monitor, December 2010

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:American Roman Catholics Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Wisconsin Category:Miami University alumni Category:People from Janesville, Wisconsin Category:Wisconsin Republicans

de:Paul Ryan (Politiker) it:Paul Ryan ja:�?��?��?��?��?�イア�?� pl:Paul Ryan (polityk) sh:Paul Ryan (političar) sv:Paul Ryan (politiker)

Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
order	44th
office	President of the United States
term start	January 20, 2009
vicepresident	Joe Biden
predecessor	George W. Bush
birth date	August 04, 1961
birth place	Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
birthname	Barack Hussein Obama II
nationality	American
party	Democratic
spouse	Michelle Obama (m. 1992)
children	Malia (b.1998) Sasha (b.2001)
residence	The White House
alma mater	Occidental CollegeColumbia University (B.A.)Harvard Law School (J.D.)
profession	Community organizerAttorneyAuthorConstitutional law professorUnited States SenatorPresident of the United States
religion	Christian, former member of United Church of Christ
signature	Barack Obama signature.svg
website	WhiteHouse.gov
footnotes	}}

The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009, when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama is the first African-American president of the United States, as well as the first born in Hawaii.

His policy decisions have addressed a global financial crisis and have included changes in tax policies, legislation to reform the United States health care industry, foreign policy initiatives and the phasing out of detention of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He attended the G-20 London summit and later visited U.S. troops in Iraq. On the tour of various European countries following the G-20 summit, he announced in Prague that he intended to negotiate substantial reduction in the world's nuclear arsenals, en route to their eventual extinction. In October 2009, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Transition period

The presidential transition period began following Obama's election to the presidency on November 4, 2008. The Obama-Biden Transition Project was co-chaired by John Podesta, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse. During the transition period, Obama announced his nominations for his Cabinet and administration. Shortly after the election on November 4, Obama chose Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois as White House Chief of Staff.

Cabinet nominations included former Democratic primary opponents Hillary Rodham Clinton for Secretary of State and Bill Richardson for Secretary of Commerce (although the latter withdrew on January 4, 2009). Obama appointed Eric Holder as his Attorney General, the first African-American appointed to that position. He also nominated Timothy F. Geithner to serve as Secretary of the Treasury. On December 1, Obama announced that he had asked Robert Gates to remain as Secretary of Defense, making Gates the first Defense head to carry over from a president of a different party. He nominated former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, which he restored to a Cabinet-level position.

During his transition, he maintained a website Change.gov, on which he wrote blogs to readers and uploaded video addresses by many of the members of his new cabinet. He announced strict rules for federal lobbyists, restricting them from financially contributing to his administration and forcing them to stop lobbying while working for him. The website also allowed individuals to share stories and visions with each other and the transition team in what was called the Citizen's Briefing Book, which was given to Obama shortly after his inauguration. Most of the information from Change.gov was transferred to the official White House website whitehouse.gov just after Obama's inauguration.

Inauguration

Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. He officially assumed the presidency at 12:00 noon, EST, and completed the oath of office at 12:05 PM, EST. He delivered his inaugural address immediately following his oath. After his speech, he went to the President's Room in the House Wing of the Capitol and signed three documents: a commemorative proclamation, a list of Cabinet appointments, and a list of sub-Cabinet appointments, before attending a luncheon with congressional and administration leaders and invited guests. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of former President Abraham Lincoln, the same Bible that was used for Lincoln's inauguration was used in Obama's inauguration.

In administering the oath, Chief Justice John G. Roberts misplaced the word "faithfully" and erroneously replaced the phrase "President of the United States" with "President to the United States" before restating the phrase correctly; since Obama initially repeated the incorrect form, some scholars argued the President should take the oath again. On January 21, Roberts readministered the oath to Obama in a private ceremony in the White House Map Room, making him the seventh U.S. president to retake the oath; White House Counsel Greg Craig said Obama took the oath from Roberts a second time out of an "abundance of caution".

First 100 days

Expectations

Obama's 100th day in office was April 29, 2009. In his first post-election interview with ''60 Minutes'', Obama said that he has been studying Franklin Roosevelt's first 100 days, while adding, "The first hundred days is going to be important, but it's probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference."

Obama's first 100 days were highly anticipated ever since he became the presumptive nominee. Several news outlets created web pages dedicated to covering the subject. Commentators weighed in on challenges and priorities within domestic, foreign, economic, and environmental policy. CNN lists a number of economic issues that "Obama and his team will have to tackle in their first 100 days", foremost among which is passing and implementing a recovery package to deal with the financial crisis. Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer, expressed hopes that the new president will close Guantanamo Bay detention camp in his first 100 days in office. After aides of the president announced his intention to give a major foreign policy speech in the capital of an Islamic country, there were speculations in Jakarta that he might return to his former home city within the first 100 days.

''The New York Times'' devoted a five-part series, which was spread out over two weeks, to anticipatory analysis of Obama's first hundred days. Each day, the analysis of a political expert was followed by freely edited blog postings from readers. The writers compared Obama's prospects with the situations of Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 16, Jean Edward Smith), John F. Kennedy (January 19, Richard Reeves), Lyndon B. Johnson (January 23, Robert Dallek), Ronald Reagan (January 27, Lou Cannon), and Richard Nixon.

Legislation and executive orders

Within minutes of taking the Oath of Office on January 20, Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, issued an order suspending last-minute federal regulations pushed through by outgoing President George W. Bush, planning to review everything still pending. Due to the economic crisis, the President enacted a pay freeze for Senior White House Staff making more than $100,000 per year, as well as announcing stricter guidelines regarding lobbyists in an effort to raise the ethical standards of the White House. He asked for a waiver to his own new rules, however, for the appointments of William Lynn to the position of Deputy Defense Secretary, Jocelyn Frye to the position of director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady, and Cecilia Muñoz to the position of director of intergovernmental affairs in the executive office of the president, leading to some criticism of hypocrisy and violation of his pledge for governmental openness.

In his first week in office, Obama signed Executive Order 13492 suspending all the ongoing proceedings of Guantanamo military commission and ordering the detention facility to be shut down within the year. He also signed Executive Order 13491 - Ensuring Lawful Interrogations requiring the Army Field Manual to be used as a guide for terror interrogations, banning torture and other coercive techniques, such as waterboarding. Obama also issued an executive order entitled "Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel", setting stricter limitations on incoming executive branch employees and placing tighter restrictions on lobbying in the White House. Obama signed two Presidential Memoranda concerning energy independence, ordering the Department of Transportation to establish higher fuel efficiency standards before 2011 models are released and allowing states to raise their emissions standards above the national standard. He also ended the Mexico City Policy, which banned federal grants to international groups that provide abortion services or counseling.

In his first week he also established a policy of producing a weekly Saturday morning video address available on whitehouse.gov and YouTube, much like those released during his transition period. The first address had been viewed by 600,000 YouTube viewers by the next afternoon.

The first piece of legislation Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on January 29, which revised the statute of limitations for filing pay discrimination lawsuits. Lilly Ledbetter joined Obama and his wife, Michelle, as he signed the bill, fulfilling his campaign pledge to nullify ''Ledbetter v. Goodyear''. On February 3, he signed the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIP), expanding health care from 7 million children under the plan to 11 million.

| format = Ogg | type = speech }} After much debate, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was passed by both the House and Senate on February 13, 2009. Originally intended to be a bipartisan bill, the passage of the bill was largely along party lines. No Republicans voted for it in the House, and three moderate Republicans voted for it in the Senate (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania). The bill combined tax breaks with spending on infrastructure projects, extension of welfare benefits, and education. The final cost of the bill was $787 billion, and almost $1.2 trillion with debt service included. Obama signed the Act into law on February 17, 2009, in Denver, Colorado.

On March 9, 2009, Obama lifted restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and in doing so, called into question some of George W. Bush's signing statements. Obama stated that he too would employ signing statements if he deems upon review that a portion of a bill is unconstitutional, and he has issued several signing statements.

Early in his presidency, Obama signed a law raising the tobacco tax 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes. The tax is to be "used to finance a major expansion of health insurance for children", and "help some [smokers] to quit and persuade young people not to start".

In October 2011, Obama instituted the We Can't Wait program, which involved using executive orders, administrative rulemaking, and recess appointments to institute policies without the support of Congress. The initiative was developed in response to Congress's unwillingness to pass economic legislation proposed by Obama, and conflicts in Congress during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis.

Approval ratings and opinion

2009

After his transition period, Obama entered office with an approval rating of 82%. At the end of his first week, 68% of respondents in a Gallup poll approved of how Obama was handling his job, the second highest approval rating for a President shortly after being elected since World War II. Throughout early February polls showed scattered approval ratings: 62% (CBS News), 64% (USA Today/Gallup), 66% (Gallup), and 76% in an outlier poll (CNN/Opinion Research). Gallup reported the congressional address in late February boosted his approval from a term-low of 59% to 67%.

Throughout autumn 2009, Rasmussen estimated Obama's approval as fluctuating between 45% and 52% and his disapproval between 48% and 54%; as of November 11, Pew Research estimated Obama's approval between 51% and 55% and his disapproval between 33% and 37% since July.

Handling of the economy

Rasmussen reported in mid-February 2009, that 55% of voters gave Obama good or excellent marks on his handling of the economy. In early March, a ''The Wall Street Journal'' survey of 49 economists gave Obama an average grade of 59 out of 100, with 42% of the respondents surveyed giving the administration's economic policies a grade below 60 percent. In comparison, only 30% of those same economists considered the response of governments around the world to the global recession to have been adequate. In April, a Gallup poll showed trust in Obama's economic policy with 71% saying they had "a fair amount" or "a great deal" of confidence in Obama's handling of the economy, higher than for Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, or leaders of Congress. Another Gallup poll in June showed 55% of Americans approved Obama's overall handling of the economy, but 48% and 51% disapproved of his handling of the federal budget deficit and controlling federal spending, respectively. A CBS News poll taken August 27–31 showed 53% of those polled approved of his handling of the economy. A Rasmussen poll taken on November 12 found 45% of Americans rating Obama's handling of the economy as poor and 39% rating him as doing a good or excellent job. They found 72% of Democrats rated his handling of the economy as good or excellent, while only 10% of Republicans and 27% of voters not affiliated with either party agreed.

2010

On March 25, 2010, following his signing of landmark health care reform legislation into law, Obama's polling was revealed by Bloomberg to be 50%, with higher marks for relations with other countries (58%) and his running of the war in Afghanistan (54%). "Obama's approval rating is roughly equal to what Bill Clinton had at this point in his presidency, according to data maintained by Gallup (and) higher than the 45 percent Ronald Reagan recorded in April 1982" and more favorable than Democrats or Republicans office in 2010. They found Obama's approval rating was at 85% among Democrats, compared with 46% among independents and 11% among Republicans.

Fox News released the results of two polls on April 8–9, 2010. The first showed a drop in Obama's approval rating to 43%, with 48% disapproving. In that poll, Democrats approved of Obama's performance 80–12%, while independents disapproved 49–38%. The other poll, which concentrated on the economy, showed disapproval of Obama's handling of the economy by a 53–42% margin, with 62% saying they were dissatisfied with the handling of the federal deficit. According to a Gallup Poll released April 10, 2010, President Obama had a 45% approval rating, with 48% disapproving. In a poll from Rasmussen Reports, released April 10, 2010, 47% approved of the President's performance, while 53% disapproved.

2011

Obama's approval rating jumped to a high following the death of Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011. A GfK poll conducted May 5, 2011 found his approval rating to be 60%. During the debt ceiling debate in August 2011, Obama's approval rating dropped to the low-40s.

Major legislation

2009

January 29: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

February 4: Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act

February 11: DTV Delay Act

February 17: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

March 30: Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009

April 21: Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act

May 20: Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act

May 20: Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009

May 22: Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009

June 22: Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

August 6: Cash For Clunkers Extension Act

October 22: Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act

October 28: Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

October 28: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010

October 30: Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act

November 6: Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009

2010

January 27: Emergency Aid to American Survivors of Haiti Earthquake Act

March 4: Travel Promotion Act

March 18: Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE Act)

March 23: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

March 30: Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

May 5: Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010

May 17: Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act

July 1: Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act

July 21: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

July 22: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010

July 22: Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010

August 10: SPEECH Act

September 27: Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010

December 9: Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010

December 13: Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010

December 17: Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010

December 22: Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010

2011

January 2: James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 () January 4: Food Safety and Modernization Act, ,

January 7: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

August 2: Budget Control Act of 2011

October 21: United States-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implemention Act

October 21: United States-Panama Free Trade Agreement Implemention Act

October 21: United States-South Korea Free Trade Agreement Implemention Act

December 31: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Personnel

Cabinet appointees

Twenty-two members of the Obama administration are either in the United States Cabinet (15) or are in positions considered to be Cabinet-level (7). The members of the Cabinet are the heads of the fifteen major departments (State, Defense, Justice, etc.), and the seven cabinet-level positions are the Vice President, White House Chief of Staff, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador to the United Nations, and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Since Robert Gates was a member of the previous administration, his letter of resignation (a formality at the end of a President's term) was simply not accepted, and he did not need confirmation. On January 19, 2009, Senate Democratic leaders requested fifteen of the twenty positions to be ratified by unanimous consent, and seven gained unanimous confirmation by voice vote the next day: Ken Salazar, Steven Chu, Arne Duncan, Peter Orszag, Eric Shinseki, Tom Vilsack, and Janet Napolitano. On January 21, Obama presided over the swearing in of the seven unanimous nominees. Later that day, the Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton by a 94–2 vote. On January 22, several more confirmations were approved unanimously: Susan E. Rice, Ray LaHood, Lisa P. Jackson, and Shaun Donovan. On January 26, the Senate confirmed Geithner by a 60–34 margin.

At the conclusion of Obama's first week as President, Hilda Solis, Tom Daschle, Ron Kirk, and Eric Holder had yet to be confirmed, and there had been no second appointment for Secretary of Commerce. Holder was confirmed by a vote of 75–21 on February 2, and on February 3, Obama announced Senator Judd Gregg as his second nomination for Secretary of Commerce. Daschle withdrew later that day amid controversy over his failure to pay income taxes and potential conflicts of interest related to the speaking fees he accepted from health care interests. Solis was later confirmed by a vote of 80-17 on February 24, and Ron Kirk was confirmed on March 18 by a 92-5 vote in the Senate.

Gregg, who was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program in the Senate, after publication that he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America, on February 12, withdrew his nomination as Secretary of Commerce, citing "irresolvable conflicts" with President Obama and his staff over how to conduct the 2010 census and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Former Washington governor Gary Locke was nominated on February 26 as Obama's third choice for Commerce Secretary and confirmed on March 24 by voice vote.

On March 2, Obama introduced Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius as his second choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also introduced Nancy-Ann DeParle as head of the new White House Office of Health Reform, which he suggested would work closely with the Department of Health and Human Services. At the end of March, Sebelius was the only remaining Cabinet member yet to be confirmed.

Six high-ranking cabinet nominees in the Obama administration had their confirmations delayed or rejected among reports that they did not pay all of their taxes, including Tom Daschle, Obama's original nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Though Geithner was confirmed, and Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, thought Daschle would have been confirmed, Daschle withdrew his nomination on February 3. Obama had nominated Nancy Killefer for the position of Chief Performance Officer, but Killefer also withdrew on February 3, citing unspecified problems with District of Columbia unemployment tax. A senior administration official said that Killefer's tax issues dealt with household help. Hilda Solis, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Labor, faced delayed confirmation hearings due to tax lien concerns pertaining to her husband's auto repair business, but she was later confirmed on February 24. While pundits puzzled over U.S. Trade Representative-designate Ron Kirk's failure to be confirmed by March 2009, it was reported on March 2 that Kirk owed over $10,000 in back taxes. Kirk agreed to pay them in exchange for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus's aid in speeding up the confirmation process; he was later confirmed on March 18. On March 31, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, revealed in a letter to the Senate Finance Committee that her Certified Public Accountant found errors in her tax returns for years 2005-2007. She, along with her husband, paid more than $7,000 in back taxes, along with $878 in interest.

Notable non-Cabinet positions

Appointees serve at the pleasure of the President and were nominated by Barack Obama except as noted.

Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

*Sheila Bair¹ (2009–2011)

Special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

*Richard Holbrooke (2009–2010)

*Marc Grossman (2011–present)

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

* Retired General James L. Jones (2009–2011)

* Thomas E. Donilon (2011–present)

Special envoy to the Middle East

* George J. Mitchell (2009–2011)

* David Hale (2011–present)

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

* Robert Mueller² (2009–present)

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

* Leon Panetta (2009–2011)

* Michael Morell (Acting-2011)

* David Petraeus (2011–present)

Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers

* Christina Romer (2009–2010)

* Austan Goolsbee (2010–2011)

* Alan Krueger (2011–present)

Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission

* Mary Schapiro (2009–present)

Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of National Economic Council

* Lawrence Summers (2009–2010)

* Gene Sperling (2011–present)

Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board

* Paul Volcker (2009–2011)

* ''Replaced by Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in 2011''

Chairperson of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

* Jeffrey R. Immelt (2011–present)

¹Appointed by George W. Bush in 2006 to a five-year term ²Appointed by George W. Bush in 2001 to a ten-year term

Judicial nominees

United States Supreme Court

Obama appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: Sonia Sotomayor2009 Elena Kagan2010

Other courts

Outside of the Supreme Court, by October 2009, Obama had nominated fewer than two dozen judges to fill judicial vacancies, of which there were close to 100. This has prompted some Democrats to criticize the pace of Obama's judicial appointments as too slow. In December 2009, Senator Patrick Leahy criticized Republicans for stalling those judicial nominations that had been made, noting that the Senate confirmed more district and circuit court nominees during the first year of the George W. Bush administration than it had approved by that point during the Barack Obama presidency.

As of July 2010, Obama's nominees to the district and circuit courts had been confirmed at a rate of only 43.5 percent, compared to 87.2 percent during Bill Clinton's administration and 91.3 percent for George W. Bush. The Center for American Progress, which compiled the data, commented:

Judicial confirmations slowed to a trickle on the day President Barack Obama took office. Filibusters, anonymous holds, and other obstructionary tactics have become the rule. Uncontroversial nominees wait months for a floor vote, and even district court nominees—low-ranking judges whose confirmations have never been controversial in the past—are routinely filibustered into oblivion. Nominations grind to a halt in many cases even after the Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously endorsed a nominee.

Policies

Economy

Upon entering office, Obama planned to center his attention on handling the global financial crisis. Even before his inauguration he lobbied Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill, which became the top priority during his first month in office. As President, Obama made a high profile trip to Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. to dialog with Congressional Republicans and advocate for the bill. On February 17, 2009, Obama signed into law a $787 billion plan that included spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals. The tax provisions of the law reduced taxes for 98 percent of taxpayers, bringing tax rates to their lowest levels in 60 years.

As part of the 2010 budget proposal, the Obama administration has proposed additional measures to attempt to stabilize the economy, including a $2–3 trillion measure aimed at stabilizing the financial system and freeing up credit. The program includes up to $1 trillion to buy toxic bank assets, an additional $1 trillion to expand a federal consumer loan program, and the $350 billion left in the Troubled Assets Relief Program. The plan also includes $50 billion intended to slow the wave of mortgage foreclosures. The 2011 budget includes a three-year freeze on discretionary spending, proposes several program cancellations, and raises taxes on high income earners to bring down deficits during the economic recovery.

In a July 2009 interview with ABC News, Biden was asked about the sustained increase of the U.S. unemployment rate from May 2007 to October 2009 despite the administration's multi-year economic stimulus package passed five months earlier. He responded "The truth is, we and everyone else, misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there ... the truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited." The White House indicates that 2 million jobs were created or saved due to the stimulus package in 2009 and self reporting by recipients of the grants, loans, and contracts portion of the package report that the package saved or created 608,317 jobs in the final three months of 2009.

The unemployment rate rose in 2009, reaching a peak in October at 10.1% and averaging 10.0% in the fourth quarter. Following a decrease to 9.7% in the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.6% in the second quarter, where it remained for the rest of the year. Between February and December 2010, employment rose by 0.8%, which was less than the average of 1.9% experienced during comparable periods in the past four employment recoveries. GDP growth returned in the third quarter of 2009, expanding at a 1.6% pace, followed by a 5.0% increase in the fourth quarter. Growth continued in 2010, posting an increase of 3.7% in the first quarter, with lesser gains throughout the rest of the year. Overall, the economy expanded at a rate of 2.9% in 2010.

During November–December 2010, Obama and a lame duck session of the 111th Congress focused on a dispute about the temporary Bush tax cuts, which were due to expire at the end of the year. Obama wanted to extend the tax cuts for taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. Congressional Republicans agreed but also wanted to extend the tax cuts for those making over that amount, and refused to support any bill that did not do so. All the Republicans in the Senate also joined in saying that, until the tax dispute was resolved, they would filibuster to prevent consideration of any other legislation, except for bills to fund the U.S. government. On 7 December, Obama strongly defended a compromise agreement he had reached with the Republican congressional leadership that included a two-year extension of all the tax cuts, a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, a one-year reduction in the FICA payroll tax, and other measures. On December 10, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) led a filibuster against the compromise tax proposal, which lasted over eight hours. Obama persuaded many wary Democrats to support the bill, but not all; of the 148 votes against the bill in the House, 112 were cast by Democrats and only 36 by Republicans. The $858 billion Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which ''The Washington Post'' called "the most significant tax bill in nearly a decade", passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress and was signed into law by Obama on December 17, 2010.

Ethics

Lobbying reform

Early in his presidential campaign, Obama stated that "they [lobbyists] won't find a job in my White House", but softened his stance later in the campaign. On January 21, 2009, Obama issued an executive order for all future appointees to his administration, which stated, no appointee who was a registered lobbyist within the two years before his appointment could participate on matters in which he lobbied for a period of two years after the date of appointment. Three formal waivers were initially issued in early 2009, out of 800 executive appointments: to William J. Lynn III, a lobbyist for Raytheon, to hold the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense; to Jocelyn Frye, former general counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families, to serve as Director of Policy and Projects in the Office of the First Lady; and to Cecilia Muñoz, former senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, to serve as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Executive Office of the President. As of March 21, 2009, at least thirty officials appointed by Obama had been lobbyists in the past five years. Ten additional waivers were announced in September 2009.

Not all recent former lobbyists require waivers; those without waivers write letters of recusal stating issues from which they must refrain because of their previous jobs. ''USA Today'' reported that 21 members of the Obama administration have at some time been registered as federal lobbyists, although most have not within the previous two years. Lobbyists in the administration include William Corr, an anti-tobacco lobbyist, as Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and Tom Vilsack, who lobbied in 2007, for a national teachers union, as Secretary of Agriculture. Also, the Secretary of Labor nominee, Hilda Solis, formerly served as a board member of American Rights at Work, which lobbied Congress on two bills Solis co-sponsored, and Mark Patterson, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's chief of staff, is a former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have criticized the administration, claiming that Obama is retreating from his own ethics rules barring lobbyists from working on the issues about which they lobbied during the previous two years by issuing waivers. According to Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director, "It makes it appear that they are saying one thing and doing another."

Transparency

The Obama administration has said that all executive orders, non-emergency legislation, and proclamations will be posted to the official White House website, whitehouse.gov, allowing the public to review and comment for five days before the President signs the legislation. The pledge was twice broken during Obama's first month in office when he signed SCHIP legislation and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act with less than the full five days of "sunlight before signing". The administration has said that they are still "working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar".

During his first week in office, Obama announced plans to post a video address each week on the site, and on YouTube, informing the public of government actions each week. During his speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Obama stated, "I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy."

On January 21, 2009, by executive order, Obama revoked Executive Order 13233, which had limited access to the records of former United States Presidents. Obama issued instructions to all agencies and departments in his administration to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act requests. In April 2009, the United States Department of Justice released four legal memos from the Bush administration to comply voluntarily with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The memos were written by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, then Principal Assistant Attorneys General to the Department of Justice, and addressed to John A. Rizzo, general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency. The memos describe in detail controversial interrogation methods the CIA used on prisoners suspected of terrorism. Obama became personally involved in the decision to release the memos, which was opposed by former CIA directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch. Former Vice President Dick Cheney criticized Obama for not releasing more memos; Cheney claimed that unreleased memos detail successes of CIA interrogations.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act requires all recipients of the funds provided by the act to publish a plan for using the funds, along with purpose, cost, rationale, net job creation, and contact information about the plan to a website Recovery.gov so that the public can review and comment. Inspectors General from each department or executive agency will then review, as appropriate, any concerns raised by the public. Any findings of an Inspector General must be relayed immediately to the head of each department and published on Recovery.gov.

On June 16, 2009, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration in order to get information about the visits of coal company executives. Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for CREW, stated "The Obama administration has now taken exactly the same position as the Bush administration... I don't see how you can keep people from knowing who visits the White House and adhere to a policy of openness and transparency." On June 16, MSNBC reported that its more comprehensive request for visitor logs since Obama's January 20 inauguration had been denied. The administration announced that White House visitor logs will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis, with certain limitations, for visits occurring after September 15, 2009. Beginning on January 29, 2010, the White House did begin to release the names of its visitor records. Since that time, names of visitors (which includes not only tourists, but also names of union leaders, Wall Street executives, lobbyists, party chairs, philanthropists and celebrities), have been released. The names are released in huge batches up to 75,000 names at a time. Names are released 90–120 days after having visited the White House. The complete list of names is available online by accessing the official White House website.

Obama stated during the 2008 Presidential campaign that he would have negotiations for health care reform televised on C-SPAN, citing transparency as being the leverage needed to ensure that people stay involved in the process taking place in Washington. This did not fully happen and Politifact gives President Obama a "Promise Broken" rating on this issue. After White House press secretary Robert Gibbs initially avoided addressing the issue, President Obama himself acknowledged that he met with Democratic leaders behind closed doors to discuss how best to garner enough votes in order to merge the two (House and Senate) passed versions of the health care bill. Doing this violated the letter of the pledge, although Obama maintains that negotiations in several congressional committees were open, televised hearings. Obama also cited an independent ethics watchdog group describe his administration as the most transparent in recent history.

The Obama administration has been characterized as much more aggressive than the Bush and other previous administrations in their response to whistleblowing and leaks to the press. Three people have been prosecuted under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917. They include Thomas Andrews Drake, a former National Security Agency (NSA) employee who was critical of the NSA's Trailblazer Project, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor who allegedly had a conversation about North Korea with James Rosen of Fox News, and Jeffrey Sterling, who allegedly was a source for James Risen's book State of War. Risen has also been subpoenaed to reveal his sources, another rare action by the government.

Foreign policy

In his inaugural address, Obama suggested that he plans to begin the process of withdrawing from Iraq and continuing to focus on the war in Afghanistan. He also mentioned lessening the nuclear threat through "working tirelessly with old friends and former foes". He spoke about America's determination to combat terrorism, proclaiming America's spirit is "stronger and cannot be broken — you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." To the Muslim world, Obama extended an invite to "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect". He also said the USA would "extend a hand" to those "who cling to power through corruption and deceit" if they "are willing to unclench" their fists. Shortly after his inauguration President Obama first called President Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Calls were also made to President Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Olmert of Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named George Mitchell as Special Envoy for Middle East peace and Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan on January 23, 2009. At the same time, Obama called on Israel to open the borders of Gaza, detailing early plans on his administration's peace plans for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. On February 18, 2009, Obama announced that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would be bolstered by 17,000 new troops by summer. The announcement followed the recommendation of several experts including Defense Secretary Robert Gates that additional troops be deployed to the war-torn nation.

Obama declared his plan for ending the Iraq War on February 27, 2009, in a speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, before an audience of Marines stationed there. According to the president, combat troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by August 2010, leaving a contingent of up to 50,000 servicemen and servicewomen to continue training, advisory, and counterterrorism operations until as late as the end of 2011.

Other characteristics of the Obama administration on foreign policy include a tough stance on tax havens, continuing military operation in Pakistan, and avowed focus on diplomacy to prevent nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea.

On April 1, 2009, Obama and China's President, Hu Jintao, announced the establishment of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue and agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century.

In that same month, Obama requested that Congress approve $83.4 billion of supplemental military funding, mostly for the war in Iraq and to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. The request also includes $2.2 billion to increase the size of the US military, $350 million to upgrade security along the US-Mexico border, and $400 million in counterinsurgency aid for Pakistan.

In May 2009, it was reported that Obama plans to expand the military by 20,000 employees.

On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt. The wide ranging speech called for a "new beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States. The speech received both praise and criticism from leaders in the region. In March 2010, Secretary of State Clinton criticized the Israeli government for approving expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem.

On April 8, 2010, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the latest Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), a "major" nuclear arms control agreement that reduces the nuclear weapons stockpiles of both countries.

In March 2011, international reaction to Muammar Gaddafi's military crackdown on rebel forces and civilians in Libya culminated in a United Nations resolution to enforce a no fly zone in Libya. Obama authorized U.S. forces to participate in international air attacks on Libyan air defenses using Tomahawk cruise missiles to establish the protective zone.

Guantánamo Bay detention camp

On his first day in office, Obama requested a 120-day suspension of all trials for alleged terrorists held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, so the new administration could "review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases pending before military commissions , specifically". Another order established a task force to lead a review of detention policies, procedures and individual cases. Obama addressed the State Department that "the United States will not torture" and drafted an executive order to close Guantánamo within a year. On January 22, 2009, Obama signed an executive order ensuring safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals detained in armed conflicts. This order restricts interrogators to methods listed and authorized by an Army Field Manual. A detainee released since Obama took office claimed in an interview with Agence France-Presse that conditions at Guantánamo had worsened, stating guards wanted to "take their last revenge" before the facility is closed. On March 13, 2009, the administration announced that it would no longer refer to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay as enemy combatants, but it also asserted that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges.

The case review of detainee files by administration officials and prosecutors was made more difficult than expected as the Bush administration had failed to establish a coherent repository of the evidence and intelligence on each prisoner. By September 2009, prosecutors recommended to the Justice Department which detainees are eligible for trial, and the Justice Department and the Pentagon worked together to determine which of several now-scheduled trials will go forward in military tribunals and which in civilian courts. While 216 international terrorists are already held in maximum security prisons in the U.S., Congress was denying the administration funds to shut down the camp and adapt existing facilities elsewhere, arguing that the decision was "too dangerous to rush". In November, Obama stated that the U.S. would miss the January 2010 date for closing the Guantánamo Bay prison as he had ordered, acknowledging that he "knew this was going to be hard". Obama did not set a specific new deadline for closing the camp, citing that the delay was due to politics and lack of congressional cooperation. The state of Illinois has offered to sell to the federal government the Thomson Correctional Center, a new but largely unused prison, for the purpose of housing detainees. Federal officials testified at a December 23 hearing that if the state commission approves the sale for that purpose, it could take more than six months to ready the facility.

Killing of Osama bin Laden

Starting with information received in July 2010, intelligence developed by the CIA over the next several months determined what they believed to be the location of Osama bin Laden in a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a suburban area 35 miles from Islamabad. CIA head Leon Panetta reported this intelligence to Obama in March 2011. Meeting with his national security advisers over the course of the next six weeks, Obama rejected a plan to bomb the compound, and authorized a "surgical raid" to be conducted by United States Navy SEALs. The operation took place on May 1, 2011, resulting in the death of bin Laden and the seizure of papers and computer drives and disks from the compound. Bin Laden's body was identified through DNA testing, and buried at sea several hours later. Within minutes of Obama's announcement from Washington, DC, late in the evening on May 1, there were spontaneous celebrations around the country as crowds gathered outside the White House, and at New York City's Ground Zero and Times Square. Reaction to the announcement was positive across party lines, including from predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and from many countries around the world.

Overseas Contingency Operation

Obama discontinued use of the term "War on Terror" and instead uses the term "Overseas Contingency Operation". However, Obama has stated that the U.S. is at war with Al-Qaeda, saying "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred."

In April 2010, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them.

Gun control

During the presidential campaign, Obama announced that he favors measures that respect Second Amendment rights, while at the same time keeping guns away from children and criminals. On February 25, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration would seek a new assault weapons ban across the United States, saying that it would have a positive impact on the drug-related violence in Mexico. After the statement drew criticism from the NRA and some House Democrats, the Administration reportedly ordered the Justice Department to end public discussion of the issue. Obama has signed into law two bills containing amendments reducing restrictions on gun owners, one which permits guns to be transported in checked baggage on Amtrak trains and another which allows carrying loaded firearms in national parks located in states allowing concealed carry.

Science and technology

Cybersecurity

Obama initiated a 60-day review of cybersecurity by Melissa Hathaway, a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, appointed Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace.

''The New York Times'' reported in 2009, that the NSA is intercepting communications of American citizens including a Congressman, although the Justice Department believed that the NSA had corrected its errors. United States Attorney General Eric Holder resumed the wiretapping according to his understanding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 that Congress passed in July 2008, but without explaining what had occurred.

Environment

On January 27, 2009, Obama issued two presidential memoranda concerning energy policy. One directed the Department of Transportation to raise fuel efficiency standards incrementally to by 2020, and the other directed the Environmental Protection Agency to allow individual states to set stricter tailpipe emissions regulations than the federal standard.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides $54 billion in funds to double domestic renewable energy production, renovate federal buildings making them more energy-efficient, improve the nation's electricity grid, repair public housing, and weatherize modest-income homes.

On February 10, 2009, Obama overturned a Bush administration policy that had opened up a five-year period of offshore drilling for oil and gas near both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been quoted as saying, "To establish an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions based on sound information, we need to set aside" the plan "and create our own timeline".

On May 19, 2009, Obama announced a plan to increase the CAFE national standards for gasoline mileage, by creating a single new national standard that will create a car and light truck fleet in the United States that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016, than it is today, with an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. Environmental advocates and industry officials welcomed the new program, but for different reasons. Environmentalists called it a long-overdue tightening of emissions and fuel economy standards after decades of government delay and industry opposition. Auto industry officials said it would provide the single national efficiency standard they have long desired, a reasonable timetable to meet it and the certainty they need to proceed with product development plans.

On March 30, 2010, Obama partially reinstated Bush administration proposals to open certain offshore areas along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. The proposals had earlier been set aside by President Obama after they were challenged in court on environmental grounds.

On May 27, 2010, Obama extended a moratorium on offshore drilling permits after the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill which is considered to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Although BP took responsibility for the disaster and its ongoing after effects, Obama began a federal investigation along with forming a bipartisan commission to review the incident and methods to avoid it in the future. Obama visited the Gulf Coast on May 2 and May 28 and expressed his frustration on the June 8 ''NBC Today Show'', by saying "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick." Obama's response to the disaster has drawn confusion and criticism within segments of the media and public.

NASA

Obama set up the Augustine panel to review the Constellation program in 2009, and announced in February 2010, that he was cutting the program from the 2011 United States federal budget, describing it as "over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation." After the decision drew criticism in the United States, a new "Flexible path to Mars" plan was unveiled at a space conference in April 2010. It included new technology programs, increased R&D; spending, a focus on the International Space Station and contracting out flying crew to space to commercial providers. The new plan also increased NASA's 2011 budget to $19 billion from $18.3 billion in 2010.

In July 2009, Obama appointed Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, to be administrator of NASA.

Stem cell research

On March 9, 2009, Obama repealed a Bush-era policy that prevented federal tax dollars from being used to fund research on new lines of embryonic stem cells. Such research has been a matter of debate between those who emphasize the therapeutic potential of such research and those who suggest that elements of this research breach ethical limitations. Obama stated that "In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values...In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."

Social policy

On January 23, 2009, Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy, a measure from the Reagan and Bush eras that required any non-governmental organization receiving U.S. Government funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries.

On June 17, 2009, Obama authorized the extension of some benefits (but not health insurance or pension benefits) to same-sex partners of federal employees. Obama has chosen to leave larger changes, such as the repeal of Don't ask, don't tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, to Congress.

On October 19, 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a directive to federal prosecutors in states with medical marijuana laws not to investigate or prosecute cases of marijuana use or production done in compliance with those laws.

On December 16, 2009, President Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010, which repealed a 21-year-old ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs.

On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, a bill that provides for repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy of 1993, that has prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces. Repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" had been a key campaign promise that Obama had made during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Health care reform

Once the stimulus bill was enacted, health care reform became Obama's top domestic priority. On July 14, 2009, House Democratic leaders introduced a 1,000 page plan for overhauling the US health care system, which Obama wanted Congress to approve by the end of the year.

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the ten-year cost to the federal government of the major insurance-related provisions of the bill at approximately $1.0 trillion. In mid-July 2009, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the CBO, testified that the proposals under consideration would significantly increase federal spending and did not include the "fundamental changes" needed to control the rapid growth in health care spending. However after reviewing the final version of the bill introduced after 14 months of debate the CBO estimated that it would reduce federal budget deficits by $143 billion over 10 years and by more than a trillion in the next decade.

After much public debate during the Congressional summer recess of 2009, Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 where he addressed concerns over his administration's proposals. In March 2010, Obama gave several speeches across the country to argue for the passage of health care reform. On March 21, 2010, after Obama announced an executive order reinforcing the current law against spending federal funds for elective abortion services, the House, by a vote of 219 to 212, passed the version of the bill previously passed on December 24, 2009, by a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. The bill, which includes over 200 Republican amendments, was passed without a single Republican vote. On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the bill into law. Immediately following the bill's passage, the House voted in favor of a reconciliation measure to make significant changes and corrections to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was passed by both houses with two minor alterations on March 25, 2010, and signed into law on March 30, 2010.

Education reform

On March 30, 2010, Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which ended the role of private banks in lending out federally-insured student loans. By directly lending to students, the government is projected to save taxpayers $68 billion dollars over the next several years. Federally-insured student loans will instead be distributed by the Department of Education. The law also increased the amount of Pell Grant awards given each year, doubling its current funding. Starting in 2014, the law permits borrowers to cap the amount they spend on student loans each year to ten percent of their discretionary income and have their balance forgiven if they have faithfully paid the balance of their loan over 20 years. Additionally, the law seeks to make it easier for parents to qualify for Grad PLUS loans, and spends billions on poor and minority schools and $2 billion for community colleges.

Gates arrest controversy

On July 16, 2009, prominent African American Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by a local white police officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, for disorderly conduct. Gates, who was locked out of his house, had attempted to break into his own property, thus causing the initial alarm from a neighbor who called 9-1-1. The incident sparked national controversy over whether Gates's civil rights had been violated by Crowley. On July 21, the Cambridge Police Department dropped charges against Gates. On July 22, President Barack Obama, commented on the incident over national and international television, criticized the arrest, and stated the police acted "stupidly" in handling the incident. National law enforcement organizations and members objected to Obama's comments and criticized his handling of the issue. In the aftermath, Obama stated that he regretted his comments exacerbating the situation, and hoped that the situation could become a "teachable moment". To reduce tensions, on July 24, Obama invited both parties to the White House to discuss the issue over beers, and on July 30, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden joined Crowley and Gates in a private, cordial meeting in a courtyard near the White House Rose Garden; this became known colloquially as the "Beer Summit".

Wall Street reform

On July 21, 2010, Obama signed Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, considered to be the largest financial system overhaul since the New Deal. The law recognizes complex financial derivatives and makes rules to protect consumers from unfair practices in loans and credit cards by establishing a new consumer protection agency. At the signing ceremony in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington D.C. Obama proclaimed, "There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period." Obama also mentioned that "These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history." At the ceremony were Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the two committee chairmen who sponsored the bill.

2010 midterm elections

Due in large part to voter frustration over high unemployment and a stalled economy, Republicans won control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections. On reflection after the election, Obama blamed himself, in part, for the many Democrats who went down to defeat knowing that they had risked their careers to support his agenda of economic stimulus legislation and a landmark health care bill. Democrats narrowly retained the Senate majority and will continue to control it through the 112th Congress.

Obama called the elections "humbling" and a "shellacking". He said that the results came because not enough Americans had felt the effects of the economic recovery.

2012 re-election campaign

On April 4, 2011, President Obama announced that he would seek re-election in the 2012 presidential election. The campaign will be based in Chicago and is being run by many former members of the White House staff and members of the successful 2008 campaign.

References

External links

"Obama's People" (photography: Nadav Kander)

The Official White House YouTube page

"President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address". The White House.

"Wrapping Up Open for Questions". The White House.

"President Obama's State of the Union Address" C-SPAN.

Obama, Barack

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Coordinates	45°30′″N73°40′″N
Name	Judd Gregg
Jr/sr2	Senior Senator
State2	New Hampshire
Party	Republican
Term start2	January 3, 1993
Term end2	January 3, 2011
Preceded2	Warren Rudman
Succeeded2	Kelly Ayotte
Order3	76th Governor of New Hampshire
Term start3	January 4, 1989
Term end3	January 7, 1993
Predecessor3	John H. Sununu
Successor3	Steve Merrill
Order4	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Hampshire's 2nd district
Term start4	January 3, 1981
Term end4	January 3, 1989
Preceded4	James C. Cleveland
Succeeded4	Charles Douglas III
Order5	Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget
Term start5	January 4, 2005
Term end5	January 3, 2007
Preceded5	Don Nickles
Succeeded5	Kent Conrad
Order6	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Term start6	January 3, 2003
Term end6	January 3, 2005
Preceded6	Ted Kennedy
Succeeded6	Mike Enzi
Order7	Member of the Executive Council of New Hampshire
Term start7	1978
Term end7	1980
Birth date	February 14, 1947
Birth place	Nashua, New Hampshire
Occupation	PoliticianAttorney
Residence	Nashua, New Hampshire
Spouse	Kathleen MacLellan Gregg
Children	Molly GreggSarah GreggJoshua Gregg
Alma mater	Columbia UniversityBoston University School of Law
Religion	United Church of Christ
Footnotes	}}

Judd Alan Gregg (born February 14, 1947) is a former Governor of New Hampshire and former United States Senator from New Hampshire, who served as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He is a member of the Republican Party and was a businessman and attorney in Nashua before entering politics. He currently serves as the Chair of the Public Advisory Board at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. Gregg was nominated for Secretary of Commerce in the Cabinet by President Barack Obama, but withdrew his name on February 12, 2009. He would have been up for re-election in 2010, but chose not to run. In the November 2010 elections, former State Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, also a Republican, was elected to succeed Gregg in the Senate. On May 27, 2011, Goldman Sachs announced that Gregg had been named an international advisor to the firm.

Early life

Born in Nashua, New Hampshire, he is the son of Hugh Gregg, who was Governor from 1953 to 1955. Gregg graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1965. Gregg received his baccalaureate from Columbia University in 1969 and, from Boston University School of Law, a Juris Doctor in 1972 and a Master of Laws in 1975.

Early political career

The first elective office held by Gregg was a seat on the Executive Council of New Hampshire, a post which he held from 1978 to 1980. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1980, and was reelected in 1982, 1984 and 1986.

He declined to run for re-election in 1988, and ran for Governor of New Hampshire instead. He won that election and was re-elected in 1990, New Hampshire being one of two states (Vermont is the other) that continues to elect its governors to two-year, rather than four-year, terms. As Governor, he balanced the budget, leaving the office in 1993 with a $21 million surplus. Although, his political opponents in the 1990s attacked Judd for the state's weak economy and his Vietnam War deferments.

U.S. Senate tenure

Elections

In 1992, Gregg decided to run for a Senate seat. He successfully defeated Democrat John Rauh, and took his seat as a United States Senator in 1993. He was re-elected to a second term in 1998 after defeating George Condodemetraky, and ran for a third term. That year, 2004, he defeated campaign finance activist Doris "Granny D" Haddock, the then 94-year-old Democratic nominee, by 66% to 34%.

After withdrawing from his nomination to become United States Secretary of Commerce in the presidential administration of Democrat Barack Obama on February 12, 2009, Gregg said he would "probably not" seek reelection in 2010, when his term of office is set to expire.

Leadership

In January 2005, Gregg was elected to chair the U.S. Senate Committee on Budget by the Senate Republican Conference. While chairman of this committee Gregg has been a steadfast supporter of lower spending. Throughout his Senate career he has been highly supportive of lower taxes as well. On November 14, 2008 Gregg was appointed by United States Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to serve on the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. Gregg "stepped aside" on December 1, citing his Senate workload: }}

Platform

Republicans for Environmental Protection issued Gregg an "environmental harm demerit" for sponsoring the 2006 S.C. Resolution 83, which according to REP "included only one revenue-raising instruction to Senate appropriations committees, an abuse of the congressional budget process in order to force oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge", and "would perpetuate America's dangerous oil dependence and damage the most scenic, wildlife-rich reserve in the circumpolar north." The organization also praised Gregg, together with John E. Sununu, for their work to pass the New England Wilderness act, which classified nearly 100,000 acres (400 km²) of New Hampshire and Vermont as wilderness. In 2006, Gregg received a score of 43% from the nonpartisan League of Conservation Voters.

The University of New Hampshire renamed its Environmental Technology Building Gregg Hall, because Gregg used earmarks to secure $266 million of federal funds for research and development projects for the university. The Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute (JGMI), established in 2003, is the center of meteorological and atmospheric research at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, NH, which offers the only meteorology degree program in the state. The Senator was also instrumental in the establishing of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in 1999.

The libertarian Cato Institute classifies Gregg as a "Free Trader", voting against trade barriers and trade subsidies 81% and 86% of the time, respectively.

In 2007, Gregg voted for the Clean Energy Act of 2007 (H.R. 6) and the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1639).

In October 2009, Gregg said, "You talk about systemic risk. The systemic risk today is the Congress of the United States...we’re creating these massive debts which we’re passing on to our children...(the figures) mean we’re basically on the path to a banana republic-type of financial situation in this country. "

Gregg has a moderate record on social issues. In June 2006, he joined six of his fellow Republicans in voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment. In April 2007, he was among the breakaway Republicans to support the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. However, his record on the issue of abortion is a solidly pro-life one. Gregg has voted for some gun control measures and against others. He voted against the Brady Bill, but in recent years has voted for trigger control locks on firearms and in favor of the ban on assault weapons.

On December 17, 2009, Gregg voted to extend Chairman Ben Bernanke's term.

Presidential politics

During the 2004 Presidential Election, Gregg stood in for John Kerry during practice sessions held by George W. Bush in preparation for the 2004 United States Presidential Election Debates. Four years earlier he had played the part of Al Gore for the same purpose.

On October 29, 2007, Gregg endorsed Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.

Gregg has not foreclosed the possibility of running for President himself after he leaves the Senate but he has said it’s “not likely”:

"In New Hampshire we like to have a variety of candidates, so I would seriously doubt that. I expect to be actively involved in the presidential primary. That’s the fun on coming from New Hampshire and being in office,” Gregg said.

“I don't rule out anything in my future. Let's face it -- that's not likely and I wouldn't expect to be doing that,” he added.

Controversies

In the Senate, Gregg was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program, which bailed out financial institutions, while he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America.

In February 2009, the Associated Press reported that Gregg and his family had profited personally from federal earmarks secured by the Senator Gregg for the redevelopment of the Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire into an industrial park. According to Senate records, Gregg has collected from $240,017 to $651,801 from his investments in Pease Air Force Base, while helping to arrange at least $66 million in federal aid for the former base. Gregg has denied any wrongdoing in the matter and claimed that his withdrawal from consideration for the Commerce Secretary was unrelated to the White House's discovery during the vetting process of his involvement in his family's real estate investments in Pease. Gregg explained away his actions by saying, "I've throughout my entire lifetime been involved in my family's businesses and that's just the way our family works. We support each other and our activities."

Gregg as a member of President Barack Obama's deficit commission defended cutting Social Security by quoting Willie Sutton who, when asked why he robbed banks, replied, "because that's where the money is."

Commerce Secretary nomination and withdrawal

On February 2, 2009, ''Politico'' and CNN reported that Gregg accepted President Obama's offer to be the next United States Secretary of Commerce. If Gregg had been confirmed by the Senate, he would have had to resign his Senate seat and be replaced with an appointment by Democratic Governor John Lynch. Sources from both parties confirmed that Gregg's former chief of staff, Republican Bonnie Newman, would have been chosen to replace him. ''The Washington Post'' had alleged that Gregg would not accept the appointment unless Gov. Lynch agreed to appoint a Republican to fill his seat until 2010. In February 2009 many news outlets noted that Gregg had, in 1995, voted to abolish the United States Department of Commerce. Although he has stated that he supports the stimulus package promoted by President Obama, he has stated that he will recuse himself from voting on the package.

With reports that the Obama Administration would move the United States Census Bureau, typically run by the Commerce Department, out of Gregg's jurisdiction, Republican leaders urged Obama to allow Gregg to run the census or withdraw Gregg's nomination. On February 12, 2009, Gregg withdrew his name from consideration for the position of United States Commerce Secretary, citing disagreements with issues surrounding the census and the stimulus bill. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement regarding Gregg's withdrawal in which he accused the senator of not following through on his alleged statements of support for Obama's economic agenda made during the vetting process: While speaking to press afterward, Gregg acknowledged responsibility for his decision and accepted the blame for accepting and then rejecting the Commerce Secretary nomination.

In February 2009, the Associated Press reported that Gregg and his family had profited personally from federal earmarks secured by the Senator Gregg for the redevelopment of the Pease Air Force Base into an industrial park. According to Senate records, Gregg has collected from $240,017 to $651,801 from his investments in Pease Air Force Base, while helping to arrange at least $66 million in federal aid for the former base. Gregg claimed that his withdrawal from consideration for the Commerce Secretary was unrelated to the White House's discovery during the vetting process of his involvement in his family's real estate investments in Pease.

Personal life

Gregg belongs to the Congregationalist Church. He is married to Kathleen MacLellan Gregg. The couple have two daughters, Molly and Sarah, and a son, Joshua.

Gregg won more than $850,000 in 2005 after buying $20 worth of Powerball tickets at a Washington, D.C. convenience store.

Electoral history

References

External links

Profile at SourceWatch

Gregg as governor at New Hampshire's Division of Historic Resources

Environmental Technology building named for Senator Gregg ''The New Hampshire''

Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute

{{U.S. Senator box |state=New Hampshire |class=3 |before= Warren Rudman |after= Kelly Ayotte |years=January 3, 1993 – January 3, 2011 |alongside= Robert C. Smith, John E. Sununu, Jeanne Shaheen}}

Category:United States Senators from New Hampshire Category:Governors of New Hampshire Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from New Hampshire Category:New Hampshire lawyers Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Category:American Congregationalists Category:Lottery winners Category:New Hampshire Republicans Category:Boston University School of Law alumni Category:Members of the New Hampshire Executive Council Category:Rejected or withdrawn nominees to the United States Executive Cabinet Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:Republican Party United States Senators

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