Obama to refocus attention on immigration, gun control

President Obama signaled Friday a desire to refocus his attention on second-term priorities, such as immigration and gun control, after weeks of fruitless wrangling with Republicans over his fiscal agenda.

“What I want to try to do is make sure that we’re constantly focused . . . on how are we helping American families succeed,” Obama said at a news conference after failing to strike a deal with congressional leaders to avert $85 billion in mandatory budget cuts.

“Deficit reduction is part of that agenda, and an important part, but it’s not the only part,” he said. “And I don’t want us to be paralyzed on everything just because we disagree on this one thing.”

For a president who has bemoaned Washington’s penchant for lurching between self-manufactured political crises over the past two years, the inability to compromise with Republicans appeared to leave him simultaneously exasperated and emboldened.

Though he had run out of ideas on how to get Congress to support his plan on taxes and spending — “What more do you think I should do?” he asked a reporter — Obama sounded an upbeat note on other initiatives, including raising the minimum wage, expanding preschool programs and changing voting laws.

“There are other areas where we can make progress,” he said. “This is the agenda that the American people voted for. These are America’s priorities. They’re too important to go unaddressed.”

The president’s tone came as a relief to advocates who have fretted that the ongoing fight over the deficit would drain attention and critical momentum from Obama’s promise to champion reforms to gun control and immigration laws.

Though Obama touched on both during his State of the Union address Feb. 12, the last event he dedicated solely to gun control was a Feb. 4 appearance at a Minneapolis police station, and on immigration it was a Jan. 29 speech at a Las Vegas high school.

In the meantime, the administration has tried to remain engaged via less high-profile means. Vice President Biden made policy speeches and met with advocates on gun control, and Obama used phone calls to Capitol Hill and a private Oval Office meeting with two Republican senators to push quietly on immigration.

“There are plenty of issues Congress needs to be getting to,” said David Leopold, an executive committee member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Manufactured crises like the ‘fiscal cliff’ or sequester do not advance anyone’s agenda, least of all the American people’s agenda.”

Advocates acknowledged that the White House’s decision to focus on the economy made sense in light of polls showing Americans overwhelmingly believe that jobs and growth should be Obama’s top priority. But they have learned from experience that momentum for their causes can disappear quickly.

Obama promised comprehensive immigration reform in his first term but pursued a major health-care overhaul that ate up his political capital and the administration’s attention. He gave a much-heralded speech about gun violence after the mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011 that wounded former representative Gabby Giffords (D), but no changes to gun laws followed.

Obama has “got to be an effective spokesperson on [gun violence] to do a good job, but the minute he changes focus from the economy, everybody goes bananas,” said Matt Bennett, a senior vice president at Third Way, a think tank that supports stricter gun control. “That puts him in a bit of a bind.”

On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan coalition of senators is working on legislation that would require mandatory background checks for all private gun sales, closing a long-standing loophole. The bill hit a snag after Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) opposed adding language to the bill that would require gun owners to keep transactional records of private firearms sales.

Another bipartisan Senate group is drafting a comprehensive immigration bill that would likely include a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants. Senators said they hope to produce a draft in March, but the bill could be delayed until after the Easter recess, which runs through April 5, several sources said.

In a pointed reminder of the difficulty of engaging on more than one issue at a time, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) were late to a meeting with the bipartisan immigration group last week because they were on the Senate floor blasting Democrats over the mandatory budget cuts. Only after their floor speeches ended did the pair join their colleagues for more cordial discussions.

On Friday, even as he bemoaned the lack of GOP cooperation on the spending cuts, Obama made a point to praise the Republican-led House for approving a renewed Violence Against Women Act this week.

“What I’m going to keep on trying to do is to make sure that we push on those things that are important to families,” Obama said. “We won’t get everything done all at once, but we can get a lot done.”

Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.

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The NRA’s claim that Joe Biden’s gun advice is illegal

“If you want to protect yourself, get a double barrel shotgun. Have the shells for a 12 gauge shotgun, and I promise you as I told my wife, we live in an area that’s wooded and somewhat secluded. I said, Jill if there’s ever problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out, put that double barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house. I promise you whoever’s coming in is not going, you don’t need an AR15. It’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use. And in fact, you don’t need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun. Buy a shotgun.”

— Vice President Biden, remarks on a Facebook Town Hall, Feb. 19, 2013

“Great advice, Joe. Not only would that be illegal, but then a woman would face an attacker with an empty shotgun. For tips on safe and responsible gun ownership, ask the NRA, not Joe Biden.”

— Voiceover of a new National Rifle Association video mocking Biden’s remarks

The vice president’s comments on Facebook, intended to rebut the notion that assault weapons are necessary, have been widely mocked — see this Conan O’Brien spoof suggesting he also encouraged people to buy cocaine — but we wondered about the NRA’s assertion that his advice would actually be illegal.

The Facts

We assume Biden is not talking about the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory — where of course he also has Secret Service protection — but his home in Wilmington, Delaware. As it happens, there are a number of Delaware codes that would suggest Biden’s advice could land someone in legal trouble.

Here are some of the examples provided by NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam, drawing on quotes from attorneys in an article in U.S. News —“ Joe Biden’s Shotgun Advice Could Land Jill Biden in Jail” — and also the NRA’s own legal analysis.

n Aggravated menacing, which occurs “when by displaying what appears to be a deadly weapon that person intentionally places another person in fear of imminent physical injury.” (11 Del. Code 602)

n Reckless endangering in the first degree, which occurs “when the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of death to another person.” (11 Del. Code 604)

n Reckless endangering in the second degree, which occurs when a “person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of physical injury to another person.” (11 Del. Code 603)

n Violation of the hunting “safety zone” law. One provision of that law prohibits discharging a firearm “so that a shot, slug or bullet lands upon any occupied dwelling, house, or residence, or any barn, stable or other building used in connection therewith.” (7 Del. Code 723, which unlike other provisions in that section, this isn’t limited to conduct while hunting.)

A person might claim self-defense (although the NRA says there don’t seem to be any reported cases of that under these provisions), but Arulanandam said Delaware follows the common rule that force must be proportional: “In repelling or resisting an assault no more force may be used than is necessary for the purpose, and if the person attacked does use in his defense more force than is necessary he, himself, becomes the aggressor.” [State v. Robinson, 36 A.2d 27, 28 (Del. 1944)].

Arulanandam said Delaware is even more restrictive on force in defense of property. The use of deadly force for the protection of property is justifiable only if the defendant believes that:

“The person against whom the deadly force is used is attempting to commit arson, burglary, robbery or felonious theft or property destruction and either:

a. Had employed or threatened deadly force against or in the presence of the defendant; or

b. Under the circumstances existing at the time, the defendant believed the use of force other than deadly force would expose the defendant, or another person in the defendant’s presence, to the reasonable likelihood of serious physical injury. (11 Del. Code 466)

One part of the NRA’s argument is not quite right, however. Arulanandam also cited a Wilmington City code that prohibits discharging a firearm “in any nonpublic place, if such discharge results in a projectile entering into, over or upon a public place.” (Wilmington City Code 36-162, page 29.) But though the Bidens’ home has a Wilmington zip code (19807), it lies just outside the city limits so that particular law would not apply.

Still, on the face of it, the NRA’s case seems fairly strong. However, State Prosecutor Kathleen Jennings, who heads the Delaware Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, disagreed. “In Delaware, a person can legally fire a weapon to protect themselves and others from someone intruding onto her dwelling,” she said in an interview.

Jennings pointed to several parts of the Delaware criminal code relating to defending the use of the force (including the 11 Del. Code 466 cited by the NRA) to back up her statement. In particular, she mentioned:

■“The use of force upon or toward another person is justifiable when the defendant believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting the defendant against the use of unlawful force by the other person on the present occasion….The use of deadly force is justifiable under this section if the defendant believes that such force is necessary to protect the defendant against death, serious physical injury, kidnapping or sexual intercourse compelled by force or threat.” (11 Del. Code 464)

■The use of force is justified against an intruder unlawfully in your dwelling (home), even if it results in death or injury if “the encounter between the occupant and intruder was sudden and unexpected, compelling the occupant to act instantly; or the occupant reasonably believed that the intruder would inflict personal injury upon the occupant or others in the dwelling; or the occupant demanded that the intruder disarm or surrender, and the intruder refused to do so.” (11 Del. Code 469)

Jennings said that Delaware laws allows for a fairly “subjective test” of self-defense, particularly in the case of a woman alone at night who believes she faces imminent danger in her dwelling. “A person is justified in using force if she believes it is necessary for self-protection,” she said, but she added that “clearly you can’t just fire a gun if you are not in a self-protection scenario.”

Jennings would have the final decision on whether to bring a case, so her interpretation of the law has some authority.

One caveat, of course. Who does Jennings work for? Beau Biden, the vice president’s son. He appointed her to her current job in 2011, though she notes that she was a prosecutor for 16 years and a criminal defense lawyer for 16 years.

Indeed, Arulanandam disputed Jennings’ citations. He said 11 Del. Code 464 concerns situations not similar to what Biden “vaguely described, which sounded more like a potential burglary at most,” whereas 11 Del. Code 469 involved a much more dangerous showdown.

“Vice President Biden described a situation that hadn’t gotten nearly to that point yet — no killing or injury, and no sudden encounter, circumstances leading to apprehension of injury, or verbal challenge to the intruder that would justify killing or injuring the intruder in any event,” he said.

An aide to the vice president offered this explanation for his remarks:

“The Vice President’s comments were made in the response to a question about whether a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines will prevent law-abiding citizens from using a firearm in self-defense. Consistent with the premise of that question, the Vice President’s comments presupposed a situation in which self-defense was at stake. The point of his example was that access to assault weapons is not necessary for self-defense.”

The Pinocchio Test

We find ourself in a maze of conflicting interpretations here. The NRA certainly can point to provisions in Delaware law that suggest Biden’s advice crosses a legal line.

But would such a case ever be brought? That appears unlikely, given Jennings’ interpretation of the law. One would suspect the NRA also would not be keen for Delaware officials to begin prosecuting people who used a firearm to ward off an intruder, especially if no one was harmed by stray bullets.

We don’t give Pinocchios for foolhardy ideas, so Biden’s off the hook, but the NRA does not quite earn either a Pinocchio or a Geppetto Checkmark; we do not award half-Pinocchios. In any case, Biden’s ill-considered remarks certainly provided an opening for the pro-gun lobby to stake out the higher ground on gun safety.

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Obama’s new political group to lure unlimited donations

In close consultation with President Obama, two of his top political strategists are designing an ambitious new organization funded by donations from wealthy individuals and corporations aimed at making political and legislative gains at the federal and state levels.

The fledgling Organizing for Action says it will be nonpartisan and steer clear of election activity. But the line between issue disputes and electoral politics can be a fuzzy one. The first of an expected wave of ads on gun control, for example, has targeted only Republicans. And OFA board member Jim Messina, who managed Obama’s reelection campaign, has been talking with Democratic Party leaders, including those responsible for success in the 2014 midterm elections.

Over the past month, Messina and Jon Carson, a leading strategist, have traveled the country meeting with members of the Obama 2012 National Finance Committee, who are being pressed back to work to find support for the new organization.

In huddles with Hollywood studio executives, California energy investors and Chicago business titans, they have suggested $500,000 as a target level for OFA bundlers and that top donors get invitations to quarterly OFA board meetings attended by the president.

The next step in converting Obama’s election apparatus to grass-roots lobbying is a “founders summit” March 13 that includes a $50,000-per-person meeting at the Jefferson hotel in Washington led by Messina and Carson. Those planning to attend said they hope the president will be part of the day’s agenda, though the White House and OFA declined to comment on that possibility.

A one-page memo accompanying the invitation lays out the goals of the new OFA: Building grass-roots support for Obama proposals on issues ranging from climate change to immigration reform to women’s health.

In addition, the memo says, the OFA will help “strengthen the progressive movement and train our next generation of leaders.”

It also promises to engage in “state-by-state fights” over issues such as “ballot access and marriage equality.”

Advocates for campaign finance reform see the organization’s goal of raising tens of millions of dollars as a new channel to allow wealthy individuals and corporations to seek favors from the administration. And they criticize Obama for abandoning reform rhetoric in favor of a group that can raise unlimited sums with limited transparency, the very circumstances he complained about publicly in 2010 when the Supreme Court granted corporations and unions the opportunity to contribute to groups seeking to influence elections.

Unlike political parties and other organizations set up to win elections, the OFA is not subject to federal election fundraising restrictions and disclosure requirements, meaning the public will have only limited opportunities to learn about its operations, including how revenue is collected and spent.

OFA officials say they have adopted a voluntary disclosure system that goes beyond that required by law and that will provide sufficient public review.

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White House warns of flight delays if sequester is not averted

More than 100 air traffic control towers could be closed and travelers could expect lengthy flight delays beginning in April, the White House warned Friday in its latest bid to raise public alarm over the mandatory spending cuts set to kick in next week.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood vowed that airline security would not be compromised, but he emphasized that the Federal Aviation Administration would have no alternative but to furlough thousands of employees as it seeks to slash $600 million.

LaHood’s surprise appearance in the White House briefing room aimed to put a spotlight on the real-world consequences of the political standoff over the across-the-board spending cuts, known as the sequester that will take effect next Friday.

Even as LaHood painted a dire picture, a Pew Research Center/USA Today poll released Thursday shows that most Americans have heard little to nothing about the potential cuts. Only 27 percent said they had heard “a lot” about them.

The White House has sought to change that this week with a public relations campaign that included President Obama’s appearance Tuesday with emergency medical workers and an announcement by the Pentagon that it would furlough up to 800,000 civilian employees one day a week.

But it was the specter of widespread travel delays — up to 90 minutes during peak flight periods — that the White House hoped would rally public opinion and put pressure on Republican lawmakers.

“Your phones are going to start ringing off the hook when these people are delayed at airports,” said LaHood, a former GOP congressman from Illinois. “Nobody likes a delay. Nobody likes waiting in line.”

The sequester was put into motion by the August 2011 debt-ceiling deal, and there have been few signs of progress in negotiations to avert them. Obama has proposed a mix of budget cuts and new revenue through closing corporate loopholes, but Republicans have said they will not raise taxes and instead have pushed to cut federal health spending.

During a photo op in the Oval Office after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the president said Friday that the impact of the budget cuts would slow growth in an already soft economy.

“It also means that we are not going to be driving down unemployment as quickly as we should,” Obama said. He added that his fellow world leaders understand that drastic budget cuts are the “wrong prescription” for the U.S. economy.

“I don’t need to persuade world leaders of that,” Obama said. “I’ve got to persuade member of Congress, and that can be harder sometimes.”

House Republicans continued to blame Obama for the sequester, which the White House proposed in 2011 and Congress approved.

Several Republicans who serve as leaders on transportation policy released a statement Friday accusing the administration of exaggerating the impact of the scheduled cuts on air travel.

“We are disappointed by the Administration creating alarm about sequestration’s impact on aviation,” said the statement from Sen. John Thune (S.D.) and Reps. Bill Shuster (Pa.) and Frank A. LoBiondo (N.J.). “Before jumping to the conclusion that furloughs must be implemented, the Administration and the agency need to sharpen their pencils and consider all the options. Prematurely outlining the potential impacts before identifying other savings is not helpful.”

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Group releases list of 90 medical ‘don’ts’

Don’t use feeding tubes in patients with advanced dementia. Don’t use drugs to aggressively treat diabetes in those older than 65. Don’t automati­cally use imaging technology for minor head injuries in children and headaches in adults. And don’t give antacids to babies with reflux.

Those are among the 90 medical “don’ts” on a list being released Thursday by a coalition of doctor and consumer groups. They are trying to discourage the use of tests and treatments that have become common practice but may cause harm to patients or unnecessarily drive up the cost of health care.

It is the second set of recommendations from the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s “Choosing Wisely” campaign, which launched last year amid nationwide efforts to improve medical care in the United States while making it more affordable.

The recommendations run the gamut, from geriatrics to opthalmology to maternal health. Together, they are meant to convey the message that in medicine, “sometimes less is better,” said Daniel Wolfson, executive vice president of the foundation, which funded the effort.

“Sometimes, it’s easier [for a physician] to just order the test rather than to explain to the patient why the test is not necessary,” Wolfson said. But “this is a new era. People are looking at quality and safety and real outcomes in different ways.”

The guidelines were penned by more than a dozen medical professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and ­Gynecologists.

The groups discourage the use of antibiotics in a number of instances in which they are commonly prescribed, such as for sinus infections and pink eye. They caution against using certain sedatives in the elderly and cold medicines in the very young.

In some cases, studies show that the test or treatment is costly but does not improve the quality of care for the patient, according to the groups.

But in many cases, the groups contend, the intervention could cause pain, discomfort or even death. For example, feeding tubes are often used to provide sustenance to dementia patients who cannot feed themselves, even though oral feeding is more effective and humane. And CT scans that are commonly used when children suffer minor head trauma may expose them to cancer-causing radiation.

While the recommendations are aimed in large part at physicians, they are also designed to arm patients with more information in the exam room.

“If you’re a healthy person and you’re having a straightforward surgery, and you get a list of multiple tests you need to have, we want you to sit down and talk with your doctor about whether you need to do these things,” said John Santa, director of the health rating center at Consumer Reports, which is part of the coalition that created the guidelines.

Health-care spending in the United States has reached 17.9 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and continues to rise, despite efforts to contain costs. U.S. health-care spending grew 3.9 percent in 2011, reaching $2.7 trillion, according to the journal Health Affairs.

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Rand Paul’s misleading budget cuts

(James Crisp/AP)

“Where would we cut spending? Let’s start with ending all foreign aid to countries that are burning our flag and chanting ‘Death to America.’ In addition, the president could begin by stopping selling or giving F-16s and Abrams tanks to Islamic radicals in Egypt.”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in the tea party response to the State of the Union speech, Feb. 12, 2013

We once gave Four Pinocchios to the American people for failing to understand the basics of the federal budget. A range of surveys showed huge misimpressions about the federal budget, with a majority incorrectly believing that the federal government spends more on defense and foreign aid than it does on Medicare and Social Security.

But where do such strange notions come from? Politicians, of course. Let’s see how big a chunk of the budget Sen. Rand Paul would save with his proposal.

The Facts

Paul’s comment came just before he said that the looming automatic spending cuts known as the sequester would not reduce the budget deficit fast enough. He quoted “many pundits” as saying that “we need $4 trillion in cuts” over the next decade.

Paul’s spokeswoman did not return a query about which countries Paul had in mind when he referred to burning the flag and chanting “Death to America.”

But we searched news reports over the past year and came up with a list of five countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Lebanon and Iran. Many of those protests were in response to a video that was considered anti-Muslim, so they were not necessarily in opposition to U.S. policies.

Iran, of course, receives no foreign aid from the United States, so scratch it off the list. The demonstrations in Lebanon were organized by Hezbollah, which the United States regards as a terrorist organization. But Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government, so we will keep it on the list.

Here’s the proposed 2013 level of aid for each of the countries:

Afghanistan: $4.6 billion

Pakistan: $2.4 billion

Yemen: $76 million

Lebanon: $167 million

Total: $7.243 billion

(These numbers come from a State Department fact sheet and the nifty interactive Web site foreignassistance.gov.)

The F-16 jets and tanks for Egypt are part of $1.3 billion in annual military aid for Egypt after the Egypt-Israel peace treaty was signed 34 years ago. (Egypt receives about a quarter of all U.S. foreign military aid, while Israel gets 60 percent, according to the Congressional Research Service.)

The fighter jets cost about $14 million each, and 20 are supposed to be delivered this year. So that’s another $280 million. The 125 Abrams M1A1 tanks would be assembled at a facility in Egypt, at an estimated cost of $1.329 billion over several years, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

Of course, the big winners of such deals are often American workers. Lockheed Martin is building the F-16s. General Dynamics signed a $395 million contract to deliver necessary parts for the Egyptian tank plant. (Recipients of U.S. military assistance, with the exception of Israel, are required to use all of the money to buy U.S. weapons and technology.)

But let’s add $1.6 billion to the aid numbers — which is generous, because the tank deal is over several years. This would bring the total to nearly $9 billion. Over ten years, that adds up to $90 billion. (Traditional congressional baseline budgeting, which assumes inflation growth, would bring the 10-year figure even higher, but Paul in his speech suggested he rejects that approach.)

So Paul, in theory, has identified about 2 percent of the $4 trillion in cuts he says is necessary. But let’s note that more than 70 percent of this money goes to Afghanistan and Pakistan, two major foreign-policy priorities for the United States. So it probably is not very realistic to assume that this aid could be cut immediately without real-world consequences.

So, at best, Paul could claim to have found ½ of 1 percent of the needed savings.

There’s a simple reason why cutting foreign aid does not result in much savings, even when you take aim at some of the biggest recipients of foreign aid. That’s because foreign aid represents only about 1 percent of the total budget.

To be fair, Paul last year unveiled a budget plan that he said would balance the budget in five years, and it included many specific program reductions. In his response to the State of the Union, Paul said he would reintroduce the plan, but oddly he mentioned none of its proposals, such as eliminating four Cabinet agencies and cutting foreign aid from its current level of about $50 billion a year to just $5 billion.

The Pinocchio Test

Some readers might argue that Paul was simply making a rhetorical point. But even rhetorical points need to be rooted in reality.

Paul has an obligation to acknowledge that he was proposing at best symbolic cuts that would have virtually no impact on the budget, especially when he claimed that $4 trillions in reductions are necessary. Otherwise, in a high-profile speech, he simply perpetuated damaging myths that continue to mislead the American public.

Three Pinocchios

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Congressional staffers often travel on tabs of foreign governments

About a dozen congressional staffers flew business class on a trip to China last summer and stayed at luxury hotels while touring the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and receiving a “briefing on ancient artifacts and dynasties” at the Shanghai Museum.

The all-expenses-paid visit came courtesy of China. The Chinese government hosted a day of meetings with officials in Beijing followed by eight days packed with outings to destinations often frequented by tourists along with a stop at a missile frigate and two others related to national security — the official theme of the trip.

More and more foreign governments are sponsoring such excursions for lawmakers and their staffs, though an overhaul of ethics rules adopted by Congress five years ago banned them from going on most other types of free trips. This overseas travel is often arranged by lobbyists for foreign governments, though lobbyists were barred from organizing other types of congressional trips out of concern that the trips could be used to buy favor.

The overseas travel is covered by an exemption Congress granted itself for trips deemed to be cultural exchanges.

A Washington Post examination of congressional disclosures revealed the extent of this congressional travel for the first time, finding that Hill staffers had reported taking 803 such trips in the six years ending in 2011. Lawmakers themselves are increasingly participating, disclosing 21 trips in 2011, more than double the figure in prior years.

The number of congressional trips could be far higher, because only lawmakers and senior congressional staff members are required to disclose the travel. A former senior aide on a congressional committee said that junior staffers were usually sent on the trips because they rarely had the chance to take official trips paid for by the U.S. government.

Some Hill employees have gone on repeated trips to the same country, and others chain them together, traveling directly from one expenses-paid visit to another.

China is by far the biggest sponsor of these trips, with senior staffers reporting more than 200 trips there over the six-year period, according to The Post’s review of 130,000 pages of disclosures collected by the Web site Legi­Storm. Taiwan accounts for an additional 100 trips.

But other regions of the world are also well represented.

On a trip to Jordan, for instance, congressional staffers stayed at the Four Seasons in Amman, where they received an audience with the king. The group also visited the Dead Sea and the famed mosaics in Madaba and spent two days at the ancient cities of Petra and Jerash, according to an itinerary for the trip.

In Switzerland, staffers took a helicopter ride through the Alps to Monte Bre, hiking up the mountain for coffee at a summit cafe overlooking a lake, according to another itinerary.

Organizers of the trips say they’re an important way for U.S. government staff members to learn about the world with no cost to taxpayers. The trips are supposed to include visits to historical and cultural sites, including those frequented by tourists, to foster international understanding.

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Dominican Republic port contract scrutinized, along with senator, eye doctor’s relationship

SANTO DOMINGO — When the U.S. Embassy set out to press the Dominican government over a long-stalled contract to provide port security, American officials took on some tough opponents. The deal had languished for more than a decade amid stiff resistance from the American Chamber of Commerce, which represents the interests of American and local businessmen in the Dominican Republic, and the country’s customs authorities.

Ambassador Raul Yzaguirre’s team pushed the government to enforce the contract — which calls for operating X-ray scanners to screen cargo at the country’s ports — despite objections over its merits and its price tag.

The port deal has come under heightened scrutiny in the United States in recent weeks because of its chief investor, a wealthy Florida eye doctor named Salomon Melgen who stood to gain a windfall if the contract was enforced, and his close friend Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

Menendez, whose relationship with Melgen is the subject of a Senate ethics inquiry, was a major beneficiary of the doctor’s generosity, repeatedly flying on his private plane to the Dominican Republic, staying as a guest at his seaside mansion and receiving large campaign contributions. Melgen donated $700,000 to Menendez and other Senate Democrats last year. The senator was also the most powerful champion of the port deal, publicly urging U.S. officials to pressure Dominican authorities to enforce the contract.

Menendez pointed to the port security deal at Yzaguirre’s confirmation hearing to become ambassador, an aide to the senator said, asking him to put a priority on security efforts aimed at countering drug trafficking through the Dominican Republic. Melgen, too, sought Yzaguirre’s help in enforcing the contract.

Yzaguirre, for his part, received help from both men in becoming ambassador. They had provided a crucial boost to his nomination when it ran into trouble.

The details of efforts by Yza­guirre and embassy staff on behalf of the port security contract remain sketchy. But the ambassador spoke approvingly of stepping up drug interdiction measures when Dominican reporters specifically asked him about the port deal. And embassy officials told the American Chamber of Commerce that they were seeking a resolution of the contract favorable to an American investor, according to William Malamud, the chamber’s executive vice president.

Though it was unusual for a U.S. Embassy to cross swords with the local American chamber, embassy officials said they were doing what U.S. diplomats around the world do when American investors get ensnared in legal or bureaucratic problems.

But this was no routine case because of the relationship among the three men: the senator, the eye doctor and the envoy.

When Yzaguirre’s nomination in 2009 to become ambassador to the Dominican Republic was held up by Republicans in Congress over other disputes with the State Department, Melgen and Menendez came to his aid. At the time, Menendez chaired the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that handled Caribbean affairs. With the nomination stalled, Melgen spoke with the senator and registered once again his support for Yzaguirre being confirmed, according to Melgen’s lawyer.

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Will young adults face ‘rate shock’ because of the health-care law?

Many young, healthy Americans could soon see a jump in their health insurance costs, and insurance companies are saying: It’s not our fault.

The nation’s insurers are engaged in an all-out, last-ditch effort to shield themselves from blame for what they predict will be rate increases on policies they must unveil this spring to comply with President Obama’s health-care law.

Insurers point to several reasons that premiums will rise. They will soon be required to offer more-comprehensive coverage than many currently provide. Also, their costs will increase because they will be barred from rejecting the sick, and they will no longer be allowed to charge older customers sharply higher premiums than younger ones.

Supporters of the law counter that concerns about price hikes are overstated, partly because federal subsidies will cushion the blow.

The insurers’ public relations blitz is being propelled by a growing cast of executives, lobbyists, conservative activists and state health officials. They increasingly use the same catchphrase — “rate shock” — to warn about the potential for price surges.

Aetna chief executive Mark T. Bertolini invoked the term at his company’s recent annual investor conference, cautioning that premiums for plans sold to individuals could rise as much as 50 percent on average and could more than double for particular groups such as the young and healthy.

The danger of rate shock has also become the favored weapon of conservative opponents of the law, repeated in a drumbeat of op-eds and policy papers in recent weeks.

The argument is a powerful one because the success of the law, which was the signature domestic accomplishment of Obama’s first term, depends on enough people signing up for insurance, particularly healthy people. The issue is surfacing as the most recent significant challenge in implementing the health-care overhaul.

Supporters of the law complain that the warnings amount to a smear attack by special interests and political partisans, akin to earlier claims that the law would allow bureaucrats to deny life-saving care to save money.

“‘Rate shock’ is the new ‘death panels,’ ” said Wendell Potter, a former head of communications for the health insurer Cigna who is now a critic of the industry. “They’ve chosen these words very carefully to scare people. It’s the ideal term for what is, at its core, a fear-based campaign.”

Yet even analysts who favor the law concede that it will result in higher costs for some young, healthy people.

Most of the new rules that could push up premiums will not apply to plans sponsored by large employers, only to those sold to individuals and small businesses. These policies will be available on insurance marketplaces, or “exchanges,” that the law sets up in each state beginning in 2014, and that are ultimately expected to serve about 26 million people.

The law will require insurers to offer a generous package of benefits for exchange plans, including coverage of maternity care, prescription drugs and treatment for mental illness. It also caps customers’ out-of-pocket expenses.

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Postmaster takes case for five-day mail delivery to skeptical senators

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe took his controversial plan for five-day mail delivery before a congressional hearing Wednesday, where he told senators that the Postal Service “needs your help.”

Donahoe’s refrain was familiar.

●The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is losing $25 million a day.

●Last year, the Postal Service lost $15.9 billion.

●It defaulted on $11.1 billion owed to the Treasury.

As he has before, Donahoe pleaded with Congress, this time the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to approve comprehensive postal reform legislation. Now, more than before, it looks as though Congress will do so.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the Senate panel that after two months of negotiations, “we are close, very close” to agreement on a bipartisan, bicameral bill.

Without some assistance from Congress, said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate committee, “the Postal Service will drift toward insolvency and, eventually, the point at which it must shut its doors. . . . We have never been closer to losing the Postal Service.”

Although in some ways Donahoe’s appearance echoed his many other pleas for congressional action, this hearing drew a standing-room-only crowd on the third floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. That was probably influenced by all the attention generated by his surprise announcement last week that Saturday mail delivery will end in August.

Donahoe’s written testimony outlined several key legislative goals, but five-day mail delivery was not specifically listed among them. After repeatedly urging Congress to end the six-day requirement, Donahoe said postal officials had determined that he could take that action without congressional approval.

Moving to five-day delivery would close just 10 percent of the postal budget gap, Donahoe said, yet the controversy surrounding it stole the focus from other important financial issues.

Among them is a controversial proposal to move postal employees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which serves all federal workers, to a health insurance program run by the USPS.

Donahoe presented an updated health insurance proposal, but it received little attention compared with his five-day delivery plan.

Last year the Senate approved legislation, co-sponsored by Carper, that would allow five-day delivery two years after its enactment. The delay was designed to allow the Postal Service to study the impact of five-day delivery. Carper was among those who have expressed disappointment with Donahoe’s plan to implement it unilaterally.

“We are taking every reasonable and responsible step in our power to strengthen our finances immediately,” Donahoe told the committee. “We would urge Congress to eliminate any impediments to our new delivery schedule.

“Although discussion about our delivery schedule gets a lot of attention, it is just one important part of a larger strategy to close our budgetary gap,” he added. “It accounts for $2 billion in cost reductions while we are seeking to fill a $20 billion budget gap.”

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Obama urges a move away from narrow focus on politics of austerity

Just about every argument in Washington since the 2010 midterm elections, which returned control of the House to Republicans, has centered on reducing the federal deficit. On Tuesday night, President Obama leaned into his second term by declaring that a single-minded focus on deficit reduction would jeopardize the nation’s future. And he sounded an urgent call to rebuild.

Reelected by an ascendent coalition, the president spoke from a position of strength in his fourth State of the Union address. The economy is improving. The Republican Party is in disarray. The time has come, Obama indicated, to pivot away from the politics of austerity.

“Most of us agree that a plan to reduce the deficit must be part of the agenda,” he said. “But let’s be clear: Deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan. A growing economy that creates good middle-class jobs — that must be the North Star that guides our efforts.”

The president rejected the fiscal brinkmanship that defined the past two years. Instead, he framed future fiscal debates as opportunities to shape a “smarter government” — one with new investments in science and innovation, with a rising minimum wage, with tax reform that eliminates loopholes and deductions for what the president labeled “the well-off and well-connected.”

Second-term presidents have a narrow window of time to enact significant change before they become lame ducks, and Obama, while echoing campaign themes of reinforcing the middle class, made an urgent case for a more pragmatic version of populism, one that emphasizes economic prosperity as the cornerstone of a fair society.

Over and over, he noted that the time to rebuild is now.

The “Fix-It-First” program that Obama outlined to put people to work on “urgent repairs,” such as structurally deficient bridges, bore echoes of President Bill Clinton’s call in his 1999 State of the Union address to “save Social Security first.” Clinton’s was an effective line, one that stopped — at least until President George W. Bush took office two years later — a Republican drive to use the budget surplus to cut taxes.

Although Obama’s speech lacked the conciliatory notes of some of his earlier State of the Union addresses, he did make overtures to Republicans and cited Mitt Romney, his presidential challenger, by name.

He combined tough talk about securing the border, which brought Republicans to their feet, with a pledge to entertain reasonable reforms to Medicare, the federal entitlement program that fellow Democrats are fighting to protect.

“Those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms,” he said.

Obama also pledged to cut U.S. dependence on energy imports by expanding oil and gas development. And he singled out one area where he and Romney found agreement in last year’s campaign: linking increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living.

Obama set a bipartisan tone at the start of his speech, quoting from President John F. Kennedy’s address to Congress 51 years earlier when he said, “The Constitution makes us not rivals for power, but partners for progress.”

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Obama’s 2012 State of the Union proposals: what flopped and what succeeded

(Evan Vucci/AP)

Every president announces a slew of initiatives in his State of the Union address. Here, in order of delivery, is a summary of the key proposals, pledges or priorities announced by President Obama a year ago — and what happened to them.

Given election-year politics and conflicts with congressional Republicans, Obama’s success rate on legislative proposals in 2012 is relatively poor — at least until the year-end “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

The Proposals

Obama:
“We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas.  Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.  So let’s change it.”

 No progress has been made on reforming the tax code. Obama has repeatedly proposed changing tax breaks to reward companies that stay in the United States and punish those that leave, but there is little enthusiasm in Congress, even when Democrats controlled the House.

Obama:
“We’re also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world.  Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years.  With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we’re on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule.” 

 Oops, Obama spoke too soon. Obama’s goal was already set from a fairly low bar — the depths of the recession, after exports had fallen 15 percent — but export growth lagged dramatically in 2012. Exports in 2012 are only up about 39 percent above 2009, making it increasingly unlikely Obama’s goal can be met in the next two years. As we have noted, just counting exports — rather than a gain in net exports — does not tell you much.

Obama: “Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trading practices in countries like China.” 

 By executive order, Obama created the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center (ITEC), and it has challenged trade practices by China, India, Indonesia, and Argentina.

Obama: “Join me in a national commitment to train 2 million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job.”

 This has been a frequent refrain for the president. He first proposed in 2009 a $12-billion “American Graduate Initiative” for community colleges, but the plan was scaled back to just $2 billion over four years; only $1 billion in grants have been awarded. After the State of the Union address, the president called for an $8 billion fund called the “Community College to Career Fund.” But the plan had gone nowhere.

Obama:
“Tonight, I am proposing that every state — every state — requires that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.”

One state, Maryland, in the past year has adopted legislation that would eventually require students to stay in school until age 18, bringing the number to 22 states plus the District of Columbia.

Obama:
“At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July.”

 Congress acted to extend the 3.4 percent interest rate on federally subsidized Stafford loans for another year.

Obama:
“Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves millions of middle-class families thousands of dollars.”

 The American Opportunity Tax Credit was extended for another five years as a result of the end of the year deal between the White House and Congress that averted the so-called fiscal cliff.

Obama:
“Give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.”

 As part of this proposal, the president had hoped to add an additional 110,000 federal work-study jobs in fiscal year 2013, on top of about 700,000 students. But not only was his plan not accepted by Congress but the program now is threatened with a cut of 50,000 jobs because of the looming automatic sequester.

Obama:
“So let me put colleges and universities on notice:  If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.”

 This proposal has met with resistance in Congress and no action has been taken.

Obama:
“We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now.”

Virtually nothing happened in the election year but prospects are much brighter for a deal this year.

Obama:
“We’ve subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that rarely has been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits. Create these jobs.”

 Obama made no progress on taking away tax benefits for oil companies — which he has long advocated — but did win an extension of wind energy tax credits as part of the fiscal cliff deal.

Obama:
“Here’s a proposal:  Help manufacturers eliminate energy waste in their factories and give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings. Their energy bills will be $100 billion lower over the next decade, and America will have less pollution, more manufacturing, more jobs for construction workers who need them. Send me a bill that creates these jobs.”

This idea went nowhere in Congress, and no bill was passed.

Obama:
“I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low rates.”

 Congress has balked at Obama’s plan, but the White House is now considering taking action via an executive order.

Obama:
“Tonight, I’m asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorney general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis.”

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was appointed to head the task force and in October it filed a civil suit against JP Morgan Chase alleging a “systemic fraud on thousands of investors.” The task force also filed a lawsuit against Credit Suisse in November over an alleged $11 billion scheme.

Obama:
“Our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay. Let’s get it done.”

 Republicans, who had balked at extending the payroll tax cut, caved quickly and extended it for another year — in what was seen as a clean win for Obama. But the tax cut died a quiet death at the end of 2012 as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Obama:
“If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.” 

 Obama’s proposal of a minimum tax for the wealthy was largely ignored by Congress.

Obama:
“On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up.”

  In the fiscal cliff negotiations, Obama did win a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for individuals making less than $400,000 and couples making less than $450,000 as well as a modest increase in taxes on wealthier Americans. That’s not quite what he wanted, but we’ll count it as a win.

Obama:
“I ask the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.”

 No such idea — especially with a time frame — had been adopted by the Senate, though the time for debate has been reduced after there is already a bipartisan consensus for a final vote.

Obama:
“In Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change cannot be reversed, and that human dignity cannot be denied.  ….We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings — men and women; Christians, Muslims and Jews.”

 The Pentagon’s top leaders recently revealed that they supported a plan — advocated by then CIA director David Petraeus and then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — to supply weapons to rebels fighting against the Syrian government in a brutal civil war. But the president rejected the idea, and there is little indication it will be revived. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains in power and a report for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that at least 60,000 people have died in the conflict.

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Who is responsible for the looming ‘sequester’ spending cuts?

(Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Question: “Looking at all this, do you regret that this White House suggested this in the first place?”

White House spokesman Jay Carney: “The notion much propounded by the spin doctors on the Republican side that the sequester is somehow something that the White House and the president alone wanted and desired is a fanciful confection. The fact of the matter is, as I think you all recall in the wake of the passage of the Budget Control Act, it was the Republicans, including the Republican Leader of the House, who celebrated it as getting 98 percent of what they wanted.”

Question: “But does he regret it anyway? I mean, regardless of whose idea it was, does he now, looking at all of the consequences that are --”

Carney: “What he regrets is that we ever had a circumstance like this country was forced to contend with in the summer of 2011 that there was a certain amount of enthusiasm even within the Republican Party, especially within the House, for the prospect of the United States defaulting on its obligations for the first time in its history.”

--exchange at the White House press briefing, Feb. 8, 2013

Who is responsible for the notorious automatic spending cuts contained in the sequester — the White House or congressional Republicans?

It’s a little like asking what came first — the chicken or the egg?

Carney’s remarks above indicate how the answer differs depending on when you start counting.

In a bit of elegant spin, Carney first denies that the sequester is something “the White House and the president alone wanted and desired.” That actually wasn’t the question. Rather, the reporter wondered whether the president regretted proposing the sequester.

Then, Carney skips back, and pins the blame on the Republicans for using the debt ceiling as a tool to force the White House to make spending cuts, including the threat of default.

In other words, the sequester never would have been proposed if not for the threat of default. (You could play this backwards game of leapfrog for a while. Republicans might argue that the debt ceiling fight would not have been happened if Obama had been more diligent about reducing the deficit. And then Obama might reach back and blame the Bush tax cuts for keeping revenue so low. And so on.)

We’ve taken two deep dives on this issue in the past, so here is a summary of our conclusions, along with links to the original articles.

Who first suggested the sequester?

During one of the presidential debates, Obama declared that he did not propose the sequester, but that Congress did. Drawing largely on the reporting of our colleague Bob Woodward, we concluded that claim was worth Four Pinocchios.

In sum, during the debt-ceiling showdown, the White House originally proposed the idea of a compulsory trigger, with White House aide Gene Sperling calling it an “automatic sequester.” Initially, the White House plan was to include tax revenue, not just spending cuts. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was “nervous” about using it as a budget tool.

But once tax increases were off the table, the White House staff came up with a sequestration plan that only had spending cuts and sold Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the idea. The White House put together the plan for sequester, using language from a congressional law approved 25 years ago.

Under the plan, a congressional “supercommittee” was tasked with finding ways to reduce the deficit by an additional $1.2 trillion over 10 years. If the committee failed — which it did — then automatic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion would take effect at the beginning of 2013. (The effective date was delayed until March 1 as part of the “fiscal cliff” agreement.)

Who is responsible for the looming cuts?

No matter who first came up with the idea, it took bipartisan votes to make it a reality. In other words, the sequester was part of a negotiation in which the two sides were haggling over an enforcement trigger that would cause pain on both sides. We examined this question when we awarded Two Pinocchios to the Mitt Romney campaign for trying to blame the defense cuts contained in the sequester only on President Obama.

As noted above, the Obama administration originally wanted the trigger to hinge on repeal of Bush tax cuts on the wealthy. Republicans responded by saying the trigger should be balanced by repeal of the individual mandate in Obama’s health-care law.

Ultimately, that was too much for both sides, so they settled on security spending (pain for Republicans) balanced by nonsecurity spending (pain for Democrats). But the fact remains that both sides agreed to take this step together.

In other words, Republicans cannot hide from the consequences of their own actions, especially because at the time they crowed that they had won a great victory.

Here, for instance, is a statement by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the Budget Committee, about the law that contained the sequester: “The Budget Control Act represents a victory for those committed to controlling government spending and growing our economy.”

The Bottom Line

The sequester was clearly an idea advanced by the White House in order to avoid a second debt ceiling showdown in Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Thus, the sequester was structured to include only spending cuts — and to take effect after the election if the supercommittee was unable to reach a deal.

But Republicans agreed to this plan and thus also are equally responsible for the looming across-the-board cuts, absent a bipartisan agreement to delay or change them.

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Many 2011 federal budget cuts had little real-world effect

Late on the night of April 8, 2011, Washington’s leaders announced that they’d just done something extraordinary. They had agreed to cut the federal budget — and cut it big.

“The largest annual spending cut in our history,” President Obama called it in a televised speech. To prevent a government shutdown, the parties had agreed to slash $37.8 billion: more than the budgets of the Labor and Commerce departments, combined.

At the Capitol, Republicans savored a win for austerity. There would be “deep, but responsible, reductions in virtually all areas of government,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.)
promised a few days later, before the deal passed.

Nearly two years later, however, these landmark budget cuts have fallen far short of their promises.

In some areas, they did bring significant cutbacks in federal spending. Grants for clean water dried up. Cities got less money for affordable housing.

But the bill also turned out to be an epic kind of Washington illusion. It was stuffed with gimmicks that made the cuts seem far bigger — and the politicians far bolder — than they actually were.

In the real world, in fact, many of their “cuts” cut nothing at all. The Transportation Department got credit for “cutting” a $280 million tunnel that had been canceled six months earlier. It also “cut” a $375,000 road project that had been created by a legislative typo, on a road that did not exist.

At the Census Bureau, officials got credit for a whopping $6 billion cut, simply for obeying the calendar. They promised not to hold the expensive 2010 census again in 2011.

Today, an examination of 12 of the largest cuts shows that, thanks in part to these gimmicks, federal agencies absorbed $23 billion in reductions without losing a single employee.

“Many of the cuts we put in were smoke and mirrors,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a hard-line conservative now in his second term. “That’s the lesson from April 2011: that when Washington says it cuts spending, it doesn’t mean the same thing that normal people mean.”

Now the failures of that 2011 bill have come back to haunt the leaders who crafted it. Disillusionment with that bill has persuaded many conservatives to reject a line-by-line, program-by-program approach to cutting the budget.

Instead, many have embraced the sequester, a looming $85 billion across-the-board cut set to take effect March 1. Obama and GOP leaders have said they don’t like the idea: the sequester is a “dumb cut,” in Washington parlance, which would cut the government’s best ideas along with its worst without regard to merit.

But at least, conservatives say, you can trust that this one is for real.

“There has been a shift in resolve. They have been burned in these fictional cuts. And so the sequester is like real cuts,” said Chris Chocola, a former congressman who now heads the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group. “So I think that there is a willingness to say, ‘We’ve really got to cut stuff, and [the cuts] have got to be real.”

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Lawmakers divided on Postal Service plan

Lawmakers wrestled Thursday with how to address Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe’s announcement that the U.S. Postal Service plans to end Saturday mail delivery in August.

Donahoe moved to circumvent Congress’s long-standing resistance to the proposal for five-day delivery, a move the Postal Service thinks will save about $2 billion annually and help ease its financial losses. The agency lost $15.9 billion in the last fiscal year.

The postmaster took advantage of legislators’ own dysfunction over budget matters this week, gambling that lawmakers will not thwart his plan after Congress’s temporary spending measure expires March 27.

The spending plan includes language requiring six-day delivery, but lawmakers have not said whether they will insist on the language in the next spending bill.

It appeared Thursday that the issue was shaping up among lawmakers like the discussions over the automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, which are set to kick in March 1.

Legislators questioned the legality of Donahoe’s plan and pointed fingers over Congress’s inability last year to achieve comprehensive postal reform, but none outlined a strategy to prevent the Postal Service’s effort.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement Thursday that such a drastic policy move requires congressional approval.

“The Postmaster General relied on flawed legal guidance to claim that he can circumvent Congress’s authority,” he said.

Reid also expressed frustration at lawmakers’ failure last year on postal reform. “This unfortunate scenario could have been wholly prevented if the House had passed the Senate’s bipartisan postal reform bill in the last Congress,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee and supported the Senate’s bill last year, said, “The Postal Service’s decision to eliminate Saturday delivery is inconsistent with current law and threatens to further jeopardize its customer base.”

Other Republicans applauded Donahoe.

Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which oversees the Postal Service, supports the plan. His office said the Postal Service could legally alter Saturday mail services despite any future provisions Congress might enact to require six-day delivery. “In its announced change, USPS is not eliminating a day of delivery, but rather altering what products are delivered on that day,” a spokesman said.

The Postal Service did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. Although it plans to end Saturday mail delivery, it has said that it will continue delivering packages on Saturdays and that post offices will be open to sell stamps and other materials. Post office boxes will receive mail on Saturdays, but magazines and some newspapers, catalogues and Netflix will not reach homes that day.

Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), who opposes Donahoe’s decision, said in an interview Thursday that he would fight any effort to remove the six-day-delivery requirement from the next spending bill. But he stopped short of saying he would vote against an appropriations bill that does not include the mandate.

“The future of the Postal Service is very important, but it has to be looked at in a broader context,” Sanders said.

Last year, the House and Senate produced competing bills to help staunch the Postal Service’s financial losses. The Senate approved legislation that would have delayed five-day mail delivery for two years while trying out other cost-saving tactics, but the House never voted on the measure. A House bill that would have ended Saturday delivery right away never reached the floor.

House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) said he had no idea what his committee would do about the postal plan.

Said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.): “I think the problem is the will of the Congress has not been expressed. Congress has not acted, and I think that left a vacuum.”

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Obama’s careful claim about entitlement savings

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

“I’ve offered sensible reforms to Medicare and other entitlements, and my health care proposals achieve the same amount of savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms that have been proposed by the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission.”

— President Obama, remarks to reporters, Feb. 5, 2013

People in Washington can debate forever who is responsible for the sequester. We previously documented how reporting by Bob Woodward shows this originally was a White House idea, but then lawmakers in both parties embraced it. But when the president met with reporters Tuesday to discuss the looming sequester, it was this line about entitlement savings that jumped out at us.

Regular readers may recall that we took a rather long look at this question in November, back when Democrats tried to suggest that Obama’s health-care proposals yielded more savings than Bowles-Simpson. This sentence appears carefully crafted to avoid such problems. So let’s take a look — is this Fact Checker bait?

The Facts

Bowles-Simpson, or more accurately the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, is considered by many in Washington to be the model for a bipartisan approach for deficit reduction — even though the commission actually failed to endorse the final report. Former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.), were the co-chairs of the 18-member commission. But you need to be wary when politicians make favorite comparisons between their policies and Bowles-Simpson proposals.

For instance, the Bowles-Simpson report, which was released in December 2010, proposed a budget plan for the years 2012 to 2020, which is effectively a 9-year budget. The Obama budget, released last year, proposed a budget for 2013 to 2022 — that’s 10 years, and also a different budget window.

Now, look at Obama’s careful phrasing — “my health care proposals achieve the same amount of savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms that have been proposed by the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission.”

When we listened to Obama, we thought “beginning of the next decade” meant 2020. But an administration official said that he meant the next decade’s budget.

In other words, Obama wants us to compare the savings in 2022. Granted, that would be six years after Obama’s second term ends. But administration officials argue that changes in health-care policies take time to achieve budget savings, but that the right mix can produce greater savings in the long run.

Using Congressional Budget Office estimates of the president’s budget, we see that over 10 years, Obama’s proposals would achieve $337 billion from 2013 to 2022, compared to $483 billion for Bowles-Simpson in the same time period.

However, in 2022, both would achieve exactly the same amount of savings — $68 billion.

Administration officials say they believe their proposals would achieve greater savings than Bowles-Simpson after 2022, which would be consistent with the increase in savings toward the end of the first 10-year budget window. When we last looked at this issue, at least one budget expert said that assertion is credible, though of course we have no real way of knowing for sure now.

The Pinocchio Test

The president appears to have carefully tweeked his statement to address the concerns we had raised when we previously examined this question.

We are concerned that an ordinary listener might be confused by Obama’s wording; it would certainly make more sense to emphasize savings over the “long term,” rather than “beginning of the next decade.” And some might question why such careful parsing is necessary.

But at least the president is not claiming, as Democrats had before, that he achieves greater savings than Bowles-Simpson in near term. So, with his very careful wording, he earns the prized Geppetto Checkmark.

Geppetto Checkmark

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Strengthening security at the nation’s airports

Most people think of airport security as their walk through the metal detector and the eyeballing by transportation security officers (TSOs). Dan Liddell, whose job it is to protect the flying public at seven airports in central New York, instead sees 17 zones of worker responsibility and hundreds of different tasks.

In pursuit of safeguarding the public, Liddell, a federal security director based in Syracuse, has written a book that is now used to train TSOs. It’s called the “National Standardization Guide to Improving Security Effectiveness.” Tasks at each duty area have been inventoried and cataloged, and the “knowledge, values and skills” associated with the airport security jobs have been identified under what Liddell describes as a systems approach to training.

As important as it is to use X-ray machines and explosive trace-detection equipment and to have the correct rules and procedures in place, Liddell said transportation security relies on the skills of the people responsible for it.

“People performance is the cornerstone,” he said. “When I set out to improve things, I look at the people. I look at their proficiency, their skill in doing something and how well they’re doing that job.”

Even when people have the skills to do their jobs, they don’t necessarily do them well each time, especially when conditions can vary with each day and every passenger. To keep performance high, TSOs are tested covertly at unexpected times. A banned item will be sent through a checkpoint and the reaction and activities that take place are monitored.

Whether or not TSOs spot contraband, everyone at that checkpoint during the test participates in an “after-action” review. “It’s the learning experience that’s relevant,” Liddell said. “We’re doing a review of actual performance and you can always improve.”

Liddell is sensitive to the pressure that airport security personnel face. TSOs have the tough of performing multiple tasks under constant camera surveillance and public scrutiny, often interacting with tired or irritated travelers. The testing and training helps them continually up their game.

Thirty airports around the country that helped test the training system and now use a version of it. Paul Armes, federal security director at Nashville International Airport, was interested in creating such a system with a colleague when they both worked in Arizona, but it “never got traction.”

When he learned about what Liddell was doing, he was eager to participate. “Typical of Dan, he built it himself and practiced it so he had hard metric results, and then he started reaching out to some of us, working with his counterparts around the country to get a good representative sample,” Armes said. “He sees things others don’t see sometimes and he has the capability to drill down into the details.”

Liddell began the “pretty long process” of analyzing how people were performing at checkpoints in 2009. He sat down with subject-matter experts to produce the task inventory he now uses. In 2010, he improved the review and reporting process that occurs after covert tests events and instituted the security practices he refined at the other New York airports he oversees, including Greater Binghamton, Ithaca and four others. “I love breaking it down,” he said. “I’ve got a quest for improvement.”

In a less sneaky version of the television show, “Undercover Boss,” Liddell went through the new-hire training program for his employees to understand as much as he could about the jobs and the training provided for them, he said.

If pursuing knowledge is in Liddell’s genes, it may be because his parents were both in education. His father was a high school principal and his mother was a fifth-grade teacher. His teaching manifested itself instead in the training realm, where he strives to educate security employees as effectively as possible, inside the classroom and out.

“It’s always a challenge to meet that right balance of really great effectiveness and really great efficiency,” he said. “There are always challenges. It’s what gets me up in the morning, trying to improve.”

This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Go to http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/fedpage/players/ to read about other federal workers who are making a difference.

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How budget baselines affect claims of deficit savings

(JUSTIN LANE/EPA)

“The bipartisan deals we made in 2011 have cut discretionary spending by almost $1.5 trillion for fiscal years 2013 to 2022”

—memo to her colleagues from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Jan. 24, 2013

“Over the past two years, I’ve signed into law about $1.4 trillion in spending cuts.”

—President Obama, remarks at news conference, Jan. 14, 2013

As Washington begins another round of torturous budget talks, much of the discussion will be on how much deficit reduction has already been achieved—and how much is needed in the years going forward.

In order to even begin that discussion, all sides need to agree on the “baseline,” or the starting point. Amazingly, just adding or subtracting a few months from the baseline will result in a difference of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Democrats like to start the clock in August 2010, but Republicans argue that is a high point for discretionary spending, thus inflating the actual savings.

In a report last week, the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFRB) used the August 2010 yardstick, since that’s when the “deficit reduction conversation” began. But it pointedly noted that this “is by no means the only way to measure past savings” and “there is no simple answer to the question of how much deficit reduction has been enacted so far.” As the report put it:

It is worth noting that the discretionary savings in this number are in fact calculated from the high point of discretionary spending. Measuring either from a year later or from a year earlier would result in a smaller savings number because base discretionary spending (excluding the effects of the stimulus) actually increased between 2009 and 2010 due to larger-than-projected appropriations.

Some readers may regard this discussion as a bunch of Washington funny numbers, but stakes are high. The more lawmakers believe they have already cut spending, the less compelled they will be to cut more in the future.

The CRFB, in its report, argued that $2.35 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years has been enacted so far, including tax increases, but that another $2.2 trillion was needed to reduce ratio of debt-to-gross-domestic-product to 70 percent by the end of decade. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities makes the case instead that $1.4 trillion is needed to achieve a 73-percent ratio. The difference in those numbers could have real world consequences for government programs.

The Congressional Budget Office this week will release a new economic and budgetary forecast, which will result in a new set of spending and debt projections that could upend all of these calculations, particularly if it forecasts higher economic growth.

To further educate readers, we will take a look at the arguments for and against using the August 2010 baseline—and then what happens when we use a different yardstick. We have consulted with various budget experts around town, on both sides of the issue, and thus summarize the argument below.

Why the August 2010 baseline?

Arguments for

■The deficit reduction commission headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson relied on the August 2010 baseline, with adjustments, in crafting their report and thus this is a logical starting point for measuring progress since the release of their report in December 2010.

■Later baselines include substantial cuts in discretionary spending demanded by Republicans, starting in December 2010, and thus minimize the savings that began to be achieved with the election of a Republican-controlled House. (Senate Republicans, for instance, threatened to filibuster appropriations in December 2010 unless they were frozen in a continuing resolution.)

■The 2010 actual level of non-defense discretionary funding, excluding war costs, was 3.84 percent of the gross domestic product, virtually identical historical average from 1976 through 2010. Thus it is not a high point but close to the norm—and the baseline projected a decline by 2022 to the lowest percentage on record.

Arguments against

■This baseline picks the high point of spending in all possible recent baselines, thus making it easier to show progress. For instance, the one-year surge in spending for the 2010 Census adds, over the course of 10 years, some $80 billion in spending. (That’s because CBO takes that year’s spending numbers and assumes they continue at that level, adjusted for inflation.) Moreover, four supplemental appropriations bills were passed between March and August, such as disaster relief for Haiti and more money for customs and border agents.

■The baseline emphasizes the discretionary side of the ledger, and ignores increases in spending that have occurred in other areas, such as extending unemployment insurance ($69 billion) and emergency relief for Hurricane Sandy ($55 billion). So it allows lawmakers to pat themselves on the back without looking at the broader picture of government spending.

What difference does the baseline make?

It is worth remembering that these 10-year baselines are only crude estimates into the future. Lawmakers have a tendency to describe savings as money in the bank, when in fact just about anything can be changed according to the whim of Congress.

The infamous $5.6 trillion surplus that George W. Bush inherited in 2001, was just a long-term prediction (which included the misguided assumption that capital gains revenue would continue to flow into government coffers), but that did not stop Congress for passing a massive tax cut.

The CFRB report makes this point in arguing for greater budget savings. The group says that just focusing on supposed deficit savings, not on reducing the level of debt to gross domestic product, could result in not enough deficit savings. “Settling for a stable debt path this decade would leave no margin for error in the case that economic or technical budget projections are off or policymakers enact future deficit-increasing policies,” the report says.

A GOP staff member for the Senate Budget Committee produced the following numbers at our request. For budget wonks, we have embedded the full year-by-year numbers below, along with a description of how 2010 Census funding affects the baseline over 10 years. Essentially this shows the difference in claimed deficit reduction depending on the budget baseline; the August 2010 figure is highlighted.

Reduction in non-war discretionary budget authority

March 2010 baseline: $1.029 trillion

August 2010 baseline: $1.472 trillion

January 2011 baseline: $1.055 trillion

May 2011 baseline: $812 billion

Comparison of budget baselines by Glenn Kessler

The Bottom Line

As the CFRB put it, there is “no simple answer” to how to calculate deficit savings, which is why we will not offer a Pinocchio rating. We respect the different, and often passionate, views of the budget experts we consulted.

For better or worse, the August 2010 baseline has become the metric of choice for determining recent budget savings. It certainly has been a useful comparison for comparing recent budget progress with the goals outlined in the Simpson-Bowles report. (Simpson-Bowles, however, was a 9-year plan, and some experts argue that it is a misnomer to claim that Simpson-Bowles used CBO’s August 2010 baseline because claimed deficit savings are compared to Obama’s budget request. We understand the case each side has made but decided ultimately it is a bit in the weeds.)

As the debate unfolds, readers should be aware that different politicians will draw their numbers from the source that makes their policy position look the most attractive. Moreover, the 10-year window makes the numbers sound more impressive then they probably are.

Just as lawmakers a decade ago were wrong to assume the government had a surplus in the bank, it is also wrong to assume spending cuts are banked for the next 10 years. It will take diligence and patience in the coming years to shrink the ratio of debt to the size of the nation’s economy.

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Along the U Street corridor, her honor finds all the comforts of home

The Social Committee at the U Street corridor condo building was planning a “progressive” holiday dinner party for its residents. People on the ground floor would provide cocktails and snacks; hors d’oeuvres would be on the next floor; and courses 1 to 3 would be on the next three levels up. ¶ One person, at least, couldn’t make the original date but still wanted to pitch in. ¶ “Dear Neighbors,” the new woman on the third floor wrote to the building’s e-mail group. “I hate to miss this get together, but I understand that if everyone else can make it, you can’t change it for me. I will contribute a couple bottles of wine before I leave. Warm regards, Sonia Sotomayor.” ¶ Along the U Street corridor — a Northwest Washington hotbed of urban renewal — neighbors and take-out joints are embracing a relatively new arrival: Sotomayor, the nation’s first Hispanic and third female justice on the Supreme Court. ¶ Sotomayor, who moved first to staid Cleveland Park after her 2009 appointment, now lives side by side with members of the city’s diverse class of professionals in a hip, transforming Washington neighborhood once known as the cultural hub of black D.C.

When Sotomayor, a former federal judge in New York, lived in Manhattan’s West Village, she seized on her neighborhood’s offerings, going twice a week to a bakery on Bedford Street for coffee and breadsticks and hosting friends at her apartment for Spanish or Thai take-in.

Now, Sotomayor is trying to re-create some of those rhythms in Washington.

Near her sleek U Street area condo building, where prices for units range from $350,000 to a little more than $1 million, the staff at the “green eatery” chicken place knows whom to expect when the name on the take-out order is “Sonia.” At The Greek Spot, the owner says that Sotomayor sometimes swings by on her way home from work for the $9.75 gyro platter.

Other Supreme Court justices — who live in Fairfax and Montgomery counties, Georgetown, near Adams Morgan or at the Watergate building — have been fairly involved in their neighborhoods, too.

The court’s proceedings are not televised, so they can maintain some level of anonymity when they venture out. The big exception: Clarence Thomas, who’s been a recognizable figure ever since his contentious 1991 confirmation hearings.

Then there’s Sotomayor. Last month, she took center stage, swearing in Vice President Biden during the inauguration ceremonies. Also, she’s been busy plugging her new memoir, “My Beloved World,” on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and other TV shows.

Within her condo building, Sotomayor has already engendered such affection that last month another resident e-mailed the group list to remind everyone about her upcoming “60 Minutes” appearance:

“[M]ake sure to set your DVR’s to tape or watch 60 Minutes who will have our most famous and esteemed neighbor Justice Sotomayor on, speaking about her amazing life story from the Bronx to the Supreme Court. . . . 7 PM tomorrow! CBS.”

Slav Gatchev, 39, who is an emerging-markets finance specialist, said he occasionally runs into Sotomayor in the building. One recent night, Gatchev, dressed in sweatshirt and sweatpants, dropped off items for recycling in the garage and bumped into Sotomayor on her way home from work.

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to a two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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