CQPolitics.com

Peter Bergen in CQ Politics | ' How to Defeat al Qaeda: Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There'

Communications — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:05:00 -0400

New America in the News:

“Islam will defeat al Qaeda, we won’t,” said Peter Bergen, a scholar with the New America Foundation and noted writer on al Qaeda.

Don’t believe him? Consider, Bergen says, al Qaeda’s strategic errors: the bombings in Indonesia in 2002 and 2005, which killed about 222 and wounded 338; the bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2003, which killed about 35 and wounded more than 160; the hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, in 2005, which killed about 60 and wounded 115; and, of course, Sept. 11, which killed nearly 3,000. Al Qaeda’s attacks have been so egregious, even Osama bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, Salman al-Awda, took, to the airwaves in 2007 to denounce the al Qaeda leader, and his tactics, by name. LINK

Maya MacGuineas in CQ Politics | 'McCain Budget Plan, Like Obama’s, Draws Criticism From Bipartisan Group'

Communications — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:22:00 -0400

New America in the News:

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) said McCain’s tax and spending proposals, which include extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (PL 107-16, PL 108-27), would cost between $524 billion and $563 billion by 2013.

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee and an Arizona senator, has proposed paying for his policies by reducing spending and growing the economy, but the group said he has been light on specifics about spending cuts. What he has outlined would still leave a deficit of between $200 billion to $300 billion by 2013, said CRFB, which is made up of former Democratic and Republican lawmakers and officials.

“It is hard to imagine that Senator McCain will be able to pass everything he has promised on the campaign trail and still balance the budget by 2013,” said CRFB President Maya MacGuineas, who served as a Social Security adviser to McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. “We are in a deep fiscal hole, and we need a serious and credible plan to get us out of it.” LINK

New America Event with Steve Coll and Susan Rice in CQ Politics | 'Democrats Confront National Security Challenge'

Communications — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:06:00 -0400

New America in the News:

“In the 21st century, the threats we face are at least as dangerous and in some ways more complex than those we’ve confronted in the past,” said Susan Rice, Obama’s top foreign policy adviser, in a speech at the New America Foundation on Aug. 15, “By definition they require cooperative solutions . . . while working with our allies and coming together in effective partnerships...”

...Already Obama initiatives have advanced the national security debate by giving policy experts the cover they need to advance those positions, argues Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation.

For example, Obama’s argument that Iraq was a distraction and that a redeployment of U.S. forces is needed has prompted military and strategic planners to move forward with the planning for that redeployment, Coll said.

”The ideas and framework of a prospective Obama presidency is already shaping the conduct of the American permanent national security bureaucracy,” said Coll. LINK

Jacob Hacker in CQPolitics | 'The Crisis of Choice'

Communications — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:25:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at the University of California Berkeley and author of “The Great Risk Shift,” said Democratic leaders have been frustrated by several factors since taking the majority of the House and Senate after the 2006 elections: comparatively thin majorities, especially in the Senate; their insistence on adhering to pay-as-you-go budget rules that often require tax increases to support any substantial new spending; and the fact that relief bills such as the housing measure are limited in scope and largely throw money at a problem, instead of solving it.

“If the major issue for middle-class Americans is the loss of overall value in their homes, helping people refinance and stay in their houses won’t fundamentally alter those concerns,” Hacker said. “You probably need to do more and create a new financial structure around housing because it’s so important to middle-class security, say by shoring up unemployment insurance and helping states deal with the effects of downturns...” LINK

Maya MacGuineas in CQ Politics | "A Softer Pay-as-You-Go Stance"

Communications — Sun, 04 May 2008 17:40:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Full article

. . .Based on what McCain has outlined so far, “the policies have been more on the blow-a-hole-in-the-deficit side than the pay-as-you-go side,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. . . The one saving grace, MacGuineas said, is that Hassett describes McCain’s economic plan as a work in progress, with plans for deeper cuts in spending likely this summer. “The McCain people will say, ‘Don’t judge us yet,’ ” she said. . .

New America in CQ Politics | 'Mandatory Spending Could Fund Vet Health Care'

Communications — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:20:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Mandatory Spending Could Fund Vet Health Care, Group Suggests (CQPolitics.com)

An outside commission has suggested major changes to government health care for veterans in an effort to improve the long-term viability of the system.

At a forum at the New America Foundation on Wednesday, members of the Commission on the Future of America’s Veterans said they planned to release a report this summer that would call for a “government-chartered entity” funded by mandatory spending to provide health care for U.S. veterans. more

Len Nichols in CQ Politics | 'Survey: Dem Candidates on Health Care'

Communications — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:46:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Survey: Dem ‘08 Candidates Savvy on Elements of Health Care Overhaul (CQPolitics.com)
New America Foundation’s Len Nichols said the survey’s findings confirm what he already believes: that most Americans want employers or the government to provide mandatory insurance. Nichols is director of the Health Policy Program at the foundation, a self-described “post-partisan” public policy think tank. “These ideas always tend to poll well,” and the Democratic plans are tailored to those ideas, Nichols said.

Steven Clemons Predicts Shift in GOP on CQPolitics.com

Communications — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:58:00 -0500

New America in the News:

For the past two years, Republican moderates in the House have grumbled as their party took up a right-leaning agenda, with votes to ban gay marriage, to make felons of illegal immigrants, and to prevent a brain-damaged Florida woman from being removed from a feeding tube, among other conservative causes...

On Tuesday, Republicans paid the price, their moderate wing says. Voters gave control of the House to Democrats for the first time since 1994 and provided cliffhanger gains in the Senate. Moderate Republicans wasted no time blaming the party’s right wing...

Steven C. Clemons, a senior fellow at the centrist New America Foundation who identifies himself as a moderate Republican, said Tuesday’s elections may prompt a shift. “A new competition has broken out for the soul of the Republican Party,” he said.

Clemons tied the moderates’ election losses to the House GOP leadership elections in February. After then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas resigned, moderate Rules Chairman David Dreier of California briefly appeared in line to claim the job. But the GOP caucus instead elected John A. Boehner of Ohio, who embraced the causes of conservatives who had supported him.

“Had David Dreier moved into Boehner’s seat, I think the picture would have been different,” Clemons said. “Before the election, you would have seen more work to position Republicans closer to the center than they did...”

“We didn’t have anything to run on,” Resnick said. She said Main Street members planned to hold a conference call Wednesday to discuss the election and how to regroup.

Doing that will be difficult, Clemons believes. “While they’re in a morally superior position, they’re in a politically inferior position,” he said...

For the complete article, please visit CQPolitics.com.