Why such a shortage of swine flu vaccine?
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Administration officials sought Monday to explain why so much less H1N1 flu vaccine is available than had been promised, blaming the manufacturers and the vagaries of science for nationwide shortages.
Public anxiety has surged as the swine flu sweeps across the country and doctors and clinics are forced to turn away many people. Confusion and frustration at immunization sites have increased the pressure on government officials and executives of the vaccine manufacturers to explain why optimistic pronouncements this summer about the vaccine’s availability ended up so far off the mark.
“Are we going to see this sort of nationwide impact that’s also going to be seared in the nation’s mind in the way Katrina was?” he said. “One of the possibilities is that the administration and state governments will lose their credibility, because the response strategies and the promises made about the vaccine, at least in the public’s eye, the promises will look again like empty promises.”
Administration officials counter that they have successfully pushed to get a vaccine developed in record time and will earn the public’s belief in their credibility as much more of the vaccine is produced and distributed beginning next month.
So far, public confidence in the government’s ability to handle the swine flu remains high, but is tepid and has slipped somewhat since August. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 69 percent of respondents said they were confident in a federal response to the outbreak, but only 19 percent expressed a great deal of faith.
But others have questioned whether officials raised unrealistic expectations by predicting more vaccine would be available than was practical. The vaccine is being produced by five companies: Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis, MedImmune, GlaxoSmithKline and CSL.
Administration officials said they have reported the production slowdowns along the way, and said they were at the mercy of a science that is highly unpredictable and unreliable. They said it did not become clear how short the production was going to fall until around Columbus Day.
“We wish this could have been smoother, that we had a larger supply. We knew it would come in waves,” Sebelius said.
While officials were predicting last week that 50 million doses of vaccine would be available by November and 150 million would be available by December, Lurie was clearly chastened by criticism that earlier estimates had been overly optimistic. On Monday, she would say only that about 10 million more doses will be available this week, with more coming every week after that.
“I don’t want to be in a position of making projections,” Lurie said. “It’s probably best not to go out on a limb.”
In July, Obama administration officials said companies could make 80 million to 120 million doses by mid-October. They outlined an aggressive response to the pandemic, spending more than $2 billion to buy 250 million doses of vaccine and promising enough to inoculate every American.
But only about 16.5 million doses have become available so far, putting the administration in an uncomfortable political position regarding what President Obama declared last week to be a national emergency.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in television interviews Monday that officials had been “relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers, and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy.”
Her deputy, Nicole Lurie, said in a separate interview with The Washington Post that when the companies “hit some stumbling blocks, they sometimes thought the fix was around the corner and didn’t always feel the need to tell us, and then sometimes it turned out the fix wasn’t around the corner.”
Representatives of the companies said they kept the government informed along the way about challenges, including a slower-than-expected growth of the vaccine inside chicken eggs.
“We have a formal call with them once a week and are in touch with them probably on a daily basis,” said Donna Cary, the top spokesperson for Sanofi Pasteur of Lyon, France. “We’re pretty much right on track.”
The administration’s response has generally received high marks from public health experts and medical observers. Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, said: “I think they’ve been fairly candid. They’ve always qualified their statements and made no excessive promises.”
But remaining unsatisfied are some other medical experts and politicians whose constituents have been unable to get the vaccine. Local governments have been forced to shift vaccination campaigns and, in many cases, limit who is allowed to get the vaccine, at least for now.
In Fairfax County, for example, school officials announced a mass weekend immunization at its schools, only to cancel it and replace it with a more targeted clinic last weekend for pregnant women and kids younger than 3, citing limited quantities of the vaccine. On Monday, Fairfax immunized more than 1,000 people, but health workers said they were forced to turn others away.
Caught in the middle are parents who have heard contradictory messages and remain unable to get their children immunized.
“I don’t know if all departments are communicating within the government,” Silver Spring mother Robyn Dixon said Monday. She left a long line in Rockville last week when it was clear that her 18-month-old son would not receive the vaccine. “I think it’s them trying to get information out too quickly without really doing their research into how involved it is to make the vaccine.
“I want them to get it right,” she added. Still, “I’m at their mercy.”
In a letter to Sebelius, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wrote Monday that she is “troubled that HHS has assured the public since August that the government would have enough vaccine to meet demand. It seems that HHS gave its assurance of sufficient supply in August without adequate information to make such a commitment.”
Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, was criticized earlier this year for opposing the inclusion of funding for pandemics in Obama’s economic stimulus bill, though she supported the funding in an appropriations measure later.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), the chairman of the committee, said he shares her concerns. And he said he intends to question Sebelius about whether her department was too slow to alter its distribution plan for the vaccine.
“My concern now is that the spread of the disease has gone beyond the government’s ability to take actions to prevent and respond to them,” Lieberman said.
David P. Fidler, a professor of health law at Indiana University, said the government’s inability to accurately predict the vaccine doses threatens to undermine its credibility.
Source: The Washington Post
SEIU rallying outside American Bankers Association Chicago meeting
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Below, from SEIU…
MORE THAN 5,000 TAXPAYERS TO CONVERGE ON AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION CONVENTION
March and Rally Launches Nationwide Campaign to Demand Banks Stop Lobbying Against Financial Reform
SEIU’s Anna Burger, AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka to Address Crowd
Chicago, IL–Today, in the largest taxpayer mobilization since the economic crisis began, more than 5,000 Americans from 20 cities will converge on the American Bankers Association (ABA) convention in Chicago. The march and rally concludes three days of demonstrations around the ABA convention and launches a nationwide campaign to demand big banks and Wall Street stop spending millions in taxpayer dollars to lobby against financial reform.
Events kicked off Sunday with a gathering of hundreds of ordinary Americans who have lost their homes, jobs, and pensions during the bank-induced economic crisis sharing their stories and hearing from Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). That evening, more than 900 people were organized to take their message directly to the ABA at a banker’s ball being held at their convention.
On Monday, FDIC Chair Sheila Bair addressed nearly 1,000 people and reaffirmed her support for much needed reforms like the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. She told the crowd she would deliver that message when she addressed the ABA convention later that morning. Following Bair’s remarks, taxpayers took their message directly to the banks at demonstrations outside of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and the ABA convention.
After taking $17.8 trillion in taxpayer bailouts and backstops, the ABA and the six largest banks have spent more than $35 million fighting Congressional action on financial reform. Meanwhile, ordinary Americans continue to face rising foreclosures, record unemployment, skyrocketing bank and credit card fees, and vanishing pensions and 401(k)s.
Taxpayers will leave Chicago today to mobilize their communities and ensure Congress acts immediately to rein in the reckless policies of big banks.
WHAT: Taxpayer march on American Bankers Association conference to demand banks stop lobbying against needed financial reform.
WHO: SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, more than 5,000 workers, clergy, and community allies and leaders from 20 cities.
WHERE: 9:45 am CDT- Prayer vigil at Intersection of Wacker and Stetson.
10:20 am CDT- March begins at Intersection of Wacker and Stetson.
11:00 am CDT- Rally outside the Sheraton Hotel, 301 E. North Water St. Crowd will assemble on Park Dr.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Hundreds line up for new Lincoln penny
Friday, August 14th, 2009
AP
This image provided by the U.S. Mint shows the newly redesigned penny depicting Lincoln’s time in Springfield.
All this for a penny?
Central Illinois and out-of-state coin collectors scrambled to be among the first to get their hands on the latest Lincoln commemorative penny after it was unveiled at the Old Capitol on Thursday morning.
In the line snaking across the Old Capitol lawn were plenty of people like Donna Park and Julia Carey of Louisville, Ky., who have traveled hundreds of miles this year to collect each subsequent Lincoln penny, four of which are being offered.
“We went to the first penny launch in Hodgenville, Ky., where they’ve built a replica of Lincoln’s birth cabin,” Park said. “We liked it so much, we went to Indiana for the launch of the second penny, which shows Lincoln’s boyhood home.”
Park, who arrived in Springfield Wednesday, said she and Carey planned to spend some time visiting the local Lincoln sites. They also plan to visit Washington, D.C., for the November launch of the fourth penny, which commemorates Lincoln’s presidency.
But unlike much of Thursday’s crowd — estimated at perhaps a couple of thousand — neither woman is a diehard coin collector, nor do they plan to sell their pennies.
“I’ll probably break one of my rolls and give the pennies to friends, especially school kids. It’s a big year for the history of Lincoln, and they can take the pennies to school for show and tell,” Park said.
Bringing up the front of the line were more serious collectors, men like Chuck Estridge of Springfield, Ohio, who left home before dawn to line up for the Lincoln penny launch.
Estridge, who said his extensive coin collection has a face value of $10,000, regretted missing the initial offering in Kentucky.
“If it’s old, I’m in on it. If it’s commemorative, I’m in on it, too,” said Estridge, on his way to go through the line a second time (the wait was 30 minutes to an hour). Each person could buy six 50-penny rolls for $3. If they wanted more coins, they had to get back in line.
Illinois’ former statehouse plays prominently into the design of the penny, which commemorates Lincoln’s professional life in Springfield. But that wasn’t always the case. The original design of the penny showed Lincoln reading a book.
That didn’t sit well with Wally Henderson, the local architect who helped restore the Old State Capitol in the 1960s. When he contacted the mint, he was told it was too late to make changes.
“That’s when I got a hold of Dick (Durbin) and started saying, ‘This is goofy.’ And it was. If you saw the two compared, you’d ask, ‘What’s this other one have to do with Illinois?’” Henderson said.
He said he wanted the penny commemorating Lincoln’s professional life to have as strong of ties to Springfield as the first coin did to Hodgenville, Ky., and the second to Lincoln City, Ind. Fortunately for Henderson, Durbin agreed.
The U.S. senator from Springfield went over the head of the woman spearheading the committee on the Lincoln commemorative coins to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The design depicting Lincoln at his desk was scraped in favor of Lincoln orating in front of the Old State Capitol.
“The story of Lincoln is only 56 years,” said Henderson. “He was born in one state and raised in another, but when he got to Illinois, he hung around for 31 years. We had 31 of those 56 years, and our (penny) should be telling as good a story about a professional man as we can.”
At Thursday’s launch, Durbin called the pennies “tiny but heartfelt symbols” of Lincoln’s legacy.
As the crowd thinned outside the Old Capitol, the line at the post office at Fourth and Monroe streets lengthened. Collectors affixed their rolls of pennies with stamps to be “canceled” by the postmaster, proving they were in Springfield for the launch.
“It validates that we got them today,” explained Eric Sutton of Louisville, Ky. “It costs 44 cents to cancel the stamp out. I’m getting a lot of things canceled.”
With his father and fiancé, Sutton has attended all three Lincoln commemorative coin launches. He keeps his pennies in a banking box already bearing stamps from the Feb. 12 and May 14 events. On Thursday, he was also getting mint $5 bills bearing Lincoln’s portrait canceled.
Sutton said he planned to travel with his father to Washington for the launch of the fourth Lincoln penny as well.
Henderson said the pennies have helped raise Lincoln’s profile in his bicentennial year.
“They dig up Roman coins now, and we suddenly learn about people from 2,000 years ago. A coin is a permanent thing. It’s going to last a long, long time.”
Source: The State Journal Register - The Oldest Newspaper In Illinois
Demand for Vegetable Seeds Is Rooted in Recession
Monday, June 15th, 2009In 1784, an Englishman named David Landreth opened a seed store in downtown Philadelphia, confident that newly independent Americans would also want the freedom of growing their own food.
The D. Landreth Seed Co., one of the oldest surviving corporations in the nation, has seen several owners and many shifts in its fortunes in the intervening 225 years. But if Landreth were looking down on his enterprise today, he probably would be grinning. After years in the doldrums, the consumer demand for vegetable seeds has abruptly climbed at a rate even industry veterans have never seen.
This spring, sales at Landreth are “up 75 percent over last year,” said Barbara Melera, a former venture capitalist who bought the company in 2003. Moving between the shelves of bulk seed containers in her warehouse in New Freedom, Pa., she pointed out varieties that are almost sold out: Detroit Dark Red beets, Danvers Half Long carrots, Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach. She had no kale or a popular beet variety, Lutz. “We have a modest amount of beans left.”
Seed producers and merchants across the United States are reporting the same phenomenon of crazy demand and even some shortages, especially of staples like beans, potatoes and lettuces. Sales of seed packets picked up last year and have grown significantly again this season, which runs from January to June.
Industry observers attribute the boost in sales to a concern for food safety following outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella poisonings and a desire by consumers to be a part of the local food movement. Michelle Obama’s new vegetable garden at the White House may also be inspiring people, they said.
But the primary reasons, they speculate, are the recession, income loss and the need for people to lower their grocery bills by growing their own.
In late April, Greg Frandano, a 35-year-old bartender, ripped up part of his lawn to extend his vegetable garden in the rear yard of his brick Cape Cod in Falls Church. “We hardly buy any produce when things are cooking,” he said, as he worked composted leaves into the clay soil before planting. He started the garden four years ago and has enlarged it every spring since to feed his family of four.
At four community gardens in Reston, coordinator Deana Demichelis said the wait list for 250 plots has climbed to 140 names, a backlog of about three years. “New gardeners are begging to get in because of the recession and the fact they can save money growing their own food,” she said.
Melissa O’Brien, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said seed sales in March were up 30 percent over last year, sales of vegetables and herbs plants had increased by 28 percent and sales of seed-starting supplies rose 40 percent.
“When times get tough, it doesn’t take long for people to realize what they can do to help themselves,” said Tom Johns, owner with his wife, Julie, of Territorial Seed Co., a mail-order retailer in Cottage Grove, Ore. Johns, who bought the 30-year-old company in 1985, said his sales grew 25 percent last year and have increased another 25 percent this year. “For a company getting as old as we are, those are big percentage increases,” he said.
Melera of Landreth Seed personally sells one-third of her vegetable and herb seeds at flower shows in late winter and early spring, bringing her in direct contact with customers.
“A year ago January, we began to see a gigantic increase in vegetable sales,” she said. It was driven by 30-something mothers “who were scared to death that their children were going to get salmonella from the [store-bought] spinach.”
This season, she said, the customers tended to be from their 20s to 40s and “many, many more males. It was much more driven by the economy.”
Melera has also seen a strong demand for staple varieties, “what I would call survival food.” These include seed potatoes, winter squash, peas, spinach, beets and pole beans, which produce more food per plant than bush beans. “Very few melons,” she said.
The seed producers that supply wholesalers and retailers have been scrambling, along with their contract growers, to meet the demand.
John Wahlert, sales and production manager for Wild West Seed Inc. in Albany, Ore., said in a normal year he would have seed stockpiles in June to get a jump on the 2010 season or to make up for crop failures, but he and other producers are low on a range of basic varieties. “Onions are short, lettuces are short, carrots are extremely short,” he said. “Beans are extremely short, peas are short.”
Trevor Clarke, a seed producer in Hamilton City, Calif., said recessions tend to bump up consumer demand for vegetables at the expense of flower seeds, but this year he and fellow producers have seen the market for vegetable seeds expand by 30 to 35 percent. “This is the best year we have had in 20 years,” said Clarke, of Western Hybrid Seeds Inc. “I have been in the vegetable-seed industry for 40 years, and this is the best year I have seen.”
The question in everyone’s mind is: Will this boom end when the economy picks up or when novice gardeners realize that raising vegetables requires some skill and a lot of commitment?
Melera said she’s talked to beginners who thought you could grow vegetables indoors (you can’t) and a customer who wanted to know how many plants he would get per seed (uh, one). She predicted as many as half the new gardeners will give up this summer. “I think we may have one more year, but I’ll be surprised if by 2011 we will be seeing the same level of activity we are now,” she said.
But Lou Zambello, director of sales and marketing for Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine, said people have turned to growing vegetables for fundamental issues of health, food safety and saving money, “so hopefully this will have more staying power.”
Frandano in Falls Church has become so canny and thrifty a gardener that he repots tomato seedlings that otherwise would be plucked to make room for others, and harvests seeds from store-bought peppers for garden plants. “I have beans ready to go” from those he saved from last year’s crop, and he intends to allow some beans to ripen on the vine this season to sow for a fall crop. “We’ll eat beans all year long,” he said.
Diane Hund, director of marketing for the Ball Horticultural Co. in West Chicago, Ill., said two factors will insure a continued interest: “You’re bitten by the bug, and second, you’ve got this big hole in your yard that you have got to fill with something.”
Source: Washington Post
Gov. Pat Quinn to create panel to probe U. of I. admissions
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009Former Judge Abner Mikva to chair Admissions Review Commission
Gov. Pat Quinn will appoint a panel Wednesday to investigate University of Illinois‘ admissions practices, stepping into the controversy nearly two weeks after the Tribune first reported the existence of a clout list for well-connected applicants.
Quinn’s seven-member Admissions Review Commission, led by well-respected retired federal Judge Abner Mikva, will have 60 days to complete its work, according to an executive order expected to be signed by the governor. Quinn has scheduled a news conference at the U. of I.’s Chicago campus.
A Tribune investigation found that some subpar applicants — including a relative of convicted influence peddler Antoin “Tony” Rezko’s — were admitted following interference from government officials and university trustees. About 800 applicants in the last five years have landed on the clout list, known internally as Category I, after individuals in powerful positions sent e-mails or placed calls on their behalf. As a group, students admitted from Category I had lower average test scores and class rankings than all U. of I. freshmen.
“This is a troubling situation. Admission to this great university should be based on merit, never on clout,” Quinn said in a statement provided to the Tribune. “This Commission is charged with investigating claims of such special treatment and making sure any and all problems are rooted out and corrected.”
Mikva, a former Illinois legislator and congressman who has received the U. of I.’s Ethics in Government Award, said the commission will not have subpoena power, but he expects President B. Joseph White to provide the panel with any records it requests.
“I can’t imagine the university president trying to deny us documents under these circumstances,” he said. He expects the commission’s meetings to be public and its records subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Since retiring from the bench, Mikva has been the area’s go-to person for blue-ribbon panels dealing with everything from the Cook County Administration Building fire in 2003 to casino disciplinary hearings.
Mikva said he agreed to oversee the U. of I. investigation after reading about the brazen ways that some legislators pushed for students.
“I was dismayed at the callousness of some of the politicians. The reputation of this great university has been tarnished,” he said.
The Tribune’s investigation found preferential treatment affected both undergraduate and competitive graduate programs, with freshmen admitted after admissions officials described them as being “weak” or having “terrible credentials.” A Law School dean complained that admitting a well-connected student would bring down the academic profile of the entire class.
The revelations sparked public outrage and led the chairman of the state House Higher Education Committee to call for the resignation of the university’s president and any trustees who meddled in the application process.
U. of I. officials announced last week that they had suspended the use of Category I and announced plans to appoint a panel to examine the process and suggest ways to avoid political pressure in future admissions decisions. The panel is to report to university trustees — some of whom repeatedly pressed for special treatment for students.
U. of I. spokesman Tom Hardy said Tuesday night that officials had no immediate comment on Quinn’s plans. He would not say whether the university would still conduct its own investigation.
In media appearances this week, White said he welcomed an external review.
“We need as independent an examination of this situation as possible in order to ensure accountability and in order to get things right going forward and restore public trust,” he said.
This is Quinn’s second task force aimed at changing entrenched practices in the state. Early this year, Quinn created the Illinois Reform Commission and charged it with suggesting ways to clean up state government. In the end, commission members criticized the General Assembly for not embracing its recommendations and Quinn’s decision to cut a deal that they said weakened campaign contribution limits.
Attorneys, journalists among panelists
The seven-member commission charged with reviewing admissions procedures at the University of Illinois includes three attorneys and two former journalists.
–Chairman Abner Mikva, Chicago, former congressman, U.S. appeals court judge and White House counsel under President Bill Clinton.
–Ted Chung, Highland Park, general counsel to Gov. Pat Quinn
–Bernard Judge, Chicago, former editor and publisher of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, previously held editing positions at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.
–Charles Scholz, Quincy, Ill., private practice attorney and member of the board of directors, Bank of Quincy.
–Doris Lowry, Chicago, president, Aspen Pine Group Inc.
–Maribeth Vander Weele, Chicago, president of Vander Weele Group LLC, a corporate investigations firm. Previously was inspector general of Chicago Public Schools and an investigative reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times.
–Ricardo Estrada, Chicago, executive director, Erie Neighborhood House.
Related links
-
University of Illinois shields data on clouted students
-
College Clout Photo -
University of Illinois admits it bowed to clout on admissions
-
Read the influential e-mails
-
U. of I. chief says clout list had little impact
-
U. of I. President talks to WGN-AM’s John Williams
Source: Chicago Tribune
President Barack Obama plans ’straight-up’ budget
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009Blueprint will include war, other expenses previously kept off the books
WASHINGTON—Following eight years of budget practices that often camouflaged the full extent of federal spending, President Barack Obama is planning a new strategy of putting as many of the expected costs on the books as possible, senior White House officials say, in order to make clear the full extent of the challenges facing the country.
Obama’s first budget, scheduled to be released in broad outline Thursday, will include money for the Iraq War, the buildup in Afghanistan, economic aid and other expenditures at the outset, instead of tucking such costly commitments into separate spending requests that would go to Congress later—a device former President George W. Bush used often.
“The president is determined to treat the American people as adults and be straight-up about what we’re facing and what we need to do to move forward,” said David Axelrod, senior adviser to the president. “He’s completely confident we can do that, but only if we face up to our challenges. You can’t finesse the situation we’re in.”
The new approach, which is likely to be set out in the president’s address to Congress on Tuesday night as well as in Thursday’s budget, follows Obama’s repeated campaign pledges to make government more transparent. But it also fits with his immediate political need—to persuade Congress and the public to accept costly and controversial measures to rescue the economy, reform health care and reshape energy and environmental policies.
Paradoxically, Obama’s strategy of piling costs into the budget could also make it easier for him to keep his promise to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term. The economic crisis is driving the deficit so high right now that, even if it were cut in half by 2012, the overall budget and the amount of red ink still could be huge by historical standards.
In other words: Loading in stimulus spending, war appropriations and other special costs will raise the deficit immediately. But barring unforeseen circumstances, those costs are likely to be gone or at least sharply reduced by the end of Obama’s present term. And because he has pledged to cut the annual deficit—not the entire national debt—in half, starting with huge deficits now, that means he can slash spending in his fourth year relative to 2009 and still afford major programs.
At a time when polls suggest a limited tolerance from taxpayers for more government spending, the president is working hard to offer reassurance that he will be more responsible than the last administration—with an emphasis on the fact that the calamity already was well under way when he walked into the Oval Office.
“One of the first requisites for recovery is recognition,” Axelrod said. “I don’t mean to sound like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. But that’s true in budgeting as well as life.”
For years, the White House and Congress have engaged in a kind of Kabuki theater around the federal deficit. In February, the president would release a budget for the forthcoming fiscal year that would show declining deficits into the future. But that budget would exclude most war costs and use several unrealistic assumptions, including overoptimistic predictions of economic growth and rising federal revenues. Budget writers also tended to assume the country would experience no significant natural disasters.
“When the budget came out, there were significant costs that were excluded from the budget because the Bush administration pretended that certain policies that everyone knew would continue wouldn’t continue,” said Jim Horney, a budget expert with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Every year the Bush administration would issue an initial deficit projection that was much higher than other economists’ projections. That way, when the final deficit count was released, the administration could claim it had brought the deficit “down.”
In fact, deficits accumulated each year that Bush was in office, from $158 billion in fiscal 2002 to $455 billion last year—totaling roughly $2.1 trillion all together.
The legacy of Bush’s deficits leaves Obama in a difficult position: He has to make deficits worse in the short term while signaling that he means what he said in the campaign about long-term deficit reduction.
As he opened a fiscal summit with lawmakers and budget experts Monday, the president emphasized the role that health-care costs are playing in the deficit, calling it the “single most pressing long-term fiscal challenge we are facing, by far.”
By 2018, more than 51 percent of all health-care spending in America will be done by federal, state and local government, totaling about $2.2 trillion, according to the latest estimates released Tuesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In 2008, government accounted for an estimated 46.6 percent of the nation’s health-care spending, with the majority provided by consumers and private insurance companies.
For some lawmakers, the way to contain health costs has nothing to do with Obama’s idea of reform.
“Looking ahead, we’re hearing from some people that we can’t reform government entitlement programs until we reform the entire health-care system,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. “The problems with our health-care system need fixing. But for a lot of people, health-care reform is code for spending more, not less.”
Source: The Chicago Tribune
Quinn to Burris: Resign
Friday, February 20th, 2009
Chicago, IL - Gov. Pat Quinn is calling on Sen. Roland Burris to resign. They appeared together at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington Feb. 3.
Gov. Quinn this morning called on his good friend Roland Burris to resign his U.S Senate seat. “There’s just too much of a cloud of controversy over the appointment process,” Quinn said. Quinn said he supports a bill to fill U.S. Senate vacancies with a temporary appointee by the governor and special primary and special general election within 115 days.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Blagojevich aide tells of Burris call in fall
Friday, February 20th, 2009
United States Senator Roland Burris
A former aide to then Gov. Rod Blagojevich says Roland Burris gave him a call last fall, during which he expressed interest in filling a senate seat should Barack Obama win the presidency.
Former Blagojevich administration chief operating officer John Filan said Burris also called after Blagojevich’s Dec. 9 arrest on federal corruption charges, during which Burris asked Filan to put in a good word with then Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn in the event Quinn became governor, the Chicago Tribune reports in Friday’s editions. Filan said he didn’t do that.
Burris’ contact with Filan was not mentioned in the first affidavits about how he got the job that was filed with state lawmakers.
Last weekend, however, Burris released an affidavit saying he had spoken to several Blagojevich advisers, including Robert Blagojevich, the former governor’s brother and finance chairman, who Burris said called three times last fall asking for fundraising help. Burris, a former state attorney general, changed his story again this week when he admitted trying, unsuccessfully, to raise money for Blagojevich.
Burris first publicly expressed his interest in the Senate seat in November. Filan said Burris called him as a courtesy to inform him of his plans to hold a news conference to announce his interest in the Senate.
“He called me the day before to give me a heads-up,’ Filan told the Tribune. “He didn’t ask me directly or indirectly for me to put a word in for him.”
Burris told the Illinois House committee that recommended Blagojevich’s impeachment that he hadn’t had contact with key Blagojevich staffers or offered anything in return for the Senate seat vacated by Obama.
The same assertion was made in an affidavit Burris filed Jan. 5, before he went before the committee.
In filing a lawsuit in an attempt to get Secretary of State Jesse White to certify his appointment to the Senate, Burris submitted that same affidavit with the Illinois Supreme Court.
The office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan told the Chicago Sun-Times that it has relayed that information to the Sangamon County state’s attorney’s office, which is investigating whether Burris committed perjury in that document or during testimony before the House panel. A preliminary U.S. Senate Ethics Committee inquiry is also under way. Burris denies lying under oath and has resisted a growing chorus of calls for his resignation, including from within his own party.
Burris is, like Obama was, the only black U.S. senator.
The questions about Burris’ honesty has caused many of the city’s most influential black pastors who backed Burris’ appointment to the U.S. Senate to waver in their support.
A faction of black ministers plans to ask for Burris’ resignation following revelations that the senator tried to raise money for the disgraced governor who appointed him, one of the ministers told The Associated Press on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because a meeting with Burris had not yet been scheduled.
Clergy Speaks Interdenominational, an umbrella group that includes hundreds of Chicago’s black churches, will meet Friday to discuss its support for Burris, spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin said. For now, the group still supports him and its leaders are unaware of discussions about asking him to resign, she said.
Burris spokesman Jim O’Connor would not say whether the senator would meet with ministers and referred to a statement from Burris asking that leaders “stop the rush to judgment.”
Current sentiment in the black community is not unanimous, but the clergy’s silence so far as the maelstrom of criticism swells around Burris “speaks volumes,” said another minister, Ira Acree, of the Greater St. John Bible Church.
“I’m a little disturbed, but because of his track record, don’t want to rush to judgment,” Acree said Thursday. “But neither will I attempt to defend his actions.”
After Blagojevich named him to the seat, Burris appeared at a New Covenant Church service, where supporters including U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and about 60 ministers condemned Senate Democratic leaders for initially rejecting Burris.
Burris’ latest revelations are “making the black community just as suspicious of him as anyone else,” said the Rev. Leonard Barr of Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church.
But Burris deserves a chance to defend himself and should not step down, he said. “I think he can do the job,” Barr said. “He would be a good senator and a conscientious senator.”
People who have supported Burris are torn between feelings of anger and betrayal and a desire to keep the only black senator in the country, said Laura S. Washington, a politics professor at DePaul University and columnist for the Sun-Times.
“They’re disappointed, embarrassed and worried that the seat will be in jeopardy,” Washington said.
Source: Daily Herald
Daley Wish List: $$$ for O’Hare
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009Chicago, Illinois - Click on link to see video regarding Mayor Daley Wish List regarding stimulus plan dollars for Chicago
Source: Fox Chicago News/WFLD Television/myfoxchicago.com
Gov appoints chief of staff, general counsel
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Quinn named Jerome Stermer, the former president of the children’s advocacy group Voices for Illinois Children, as his chief of staff, and former assistant U.S. attorney Theodore Chung to be his general counsel.
Quinn pointed to Stermer’s stewardship of Voices for Illinois Children as proof of his ability to manage the governor’s office.
“Jerry Stermer is someone who has excellent executive ability,” Quinn said at a news conference in Chicago. “He’s led a wonderful organization that’s won all kinds of national awards.”
Quinn said he was impressed by Chung’s legal background and ethics, even though the two met only recently.
“I think one of the reasons we have Ted Chung with us is to make sure that all contracts that the state enters into are fair and square,” the governor said.
Stermer pledged to help the governor enact his agenda of creating jobs, dealing with Illinois’ fiscal crisis and restoring integrity to state government. But he also promised to make children’s issues a priority.
“One of the primary reasons I accepted the governor’s challenge is his commitment … to children and to future generations,” said Stermer.
Chung had been serving as chief lawyer for Quinn’s reform commission, which will present recommendations in the next few weeks to Quinn on how to clean up state government.
Chung said he accepted the job because he believes Quinn stands “for basic, important, fundamental principles of what’s right and what’s wrong.” He promised to objectively advise Quinn and his administration on legal matters.
Springfield-area lawmakers say Stermer and Chung aren’t well known to them, but they hope the appointees will provide a new era of cooperation, in comparison to the open distrust that often characterized legislative relations with ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“I’m looking forward to working with them, and hopefully we’ll have a better relationship with them than we had with the last governor,” said Rep. Rich Brauer, R-Petersburg.
The picks bring to four the number of appointees made by Quinn since taking office Jan. 29. He also has appointed 28-year-old Iraq War veteran Dan Grant as the head of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Marc Miller, one of his senior policy advisers, as director of the Department of Natural Resources.
But many questions remain about employees left behind from Blagojevich’s departure and Quinn’s ascension from lieutenant governor. Quinn’s staff says more personnel moves will be announced mid-week.
About two-dozen employees under Quinn in the lieutenant governor’s office for now are heading to the governor’s offices in Springfield and Chicago. The lieutenant governor’s position will remain vacant for the next two years, but the office’s work continues.
“They’re part of our staff right now,” Quinn said at a news conference. “We have to, kind of, cover both offices.”
Quinn spokesman Bob Reed said Monday that some lieutenant governor workers probably will move into the governor’s office full time, while others will continue to work on lieutenant governor issues, he said.
Reed expects relief for military families, broadband deployment and other issues Quinn worked on as lieutenant governor to continue to be priorities in the governor’s office.
“We’re all pulling together to assist in the transition,” Reed said.
Employees left behind by Blagojevich in the governor’s office are still coming to work and helping with the transition, Reed said. Quinn expects them to do their jobs while they’re evaluated and he decides what personnel moves to make over the next month or so, Reed said.
“The whole point is to make this transition as easy as the circumstances allow,” Reed said.
Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, wants former Blagojevich staffers and those who worked under Quinn but now want jobs in the governor’s office to go through a vetting process to determine if they’re carrying out Quinn’s views.
“If the governor has interviewed them and feels comfortable, then I feel comfortable,” Poe said.