Pastors try to pick a tax fight with IRS (BLOG)

This weekend, hundreds of pastors, including some of the nation’s evangelical leaders, will climb into their pulpits to preach about American politics, flouting a decades-old law that prohibits tax-exempt churches and other charities from campaigning on election issues.

The sermons, on what is called Pulpit Freedom Sunday, essentially represent a form of biblical bait, an effort by some churches to goad the Internal Revenue Service into court battles over the divide between religion and politics.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense group whose founders include James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, sponsors the annual event, which started with 33 pastors in 2008. This year, Glenn Beck has been promoting it, calling for 1,000 religious leaders to sign on and generating additional interest at the beginning of a presidential election cycle.

“There should be no government intrusion in the pulpit,” said the Rev. James Garlow, senior pastor at Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., who led preachers in the battle to pass California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. “The freedom of speech and the freedom of religion promised under the First Amendment means pastors have full authority to say what they want to say.”

Mr. Garlow said he planned to inveigh against same-sex marriage, abortion and other touchstone issues that social conservatives oppose, and some ministers may be ready to encourage parishioners to vote only for those candidates who adhere to the same views or values.

“I tell them that as followers of Christ, you wouldn’t vote for someone who was against what God said in his word,” Mr. Garlow said. “I will, in effect, oppose several candidates and — de facto — endorse others.”

Two Republican candidates in particular, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, would presumably benefit from some pulpit politics on Sunday, since they have been courting Christian conservatives this year.

Participating ministers plan to send tapes of their sermons to the I.R.S., effectively providing the agency with evidence it could use to take them to court.

But if history is any indication, the I.R.S. may continue to steer clear of the taunts.

“It’s frustrating,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defense. “The law is on the books but they don’t enforce it, leaving churches in limbo.”

Supporters of the law are equally vexed by the tax agency’s perceived inaction. “We have grave concerns over the current inability of the I.R.S. to enforce the federal tax laws applicable to churches,” a group of 13 ministers in Ohio wrote in a letter to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, in July.

Marcus Owens, the lawyer representing the Ohio ministers, warned that the I.R.S.’s failure to pursue churches for politicking violations would encourage more donations to support their efforts, taking further advantage of the new leeway given to advocacy groups under the Supreme Court’s decision last year in the Citizens United case.

Lois G. Lerner, director of the agency’s Exempt Organizations Division, said in an e-mail that “education has been and remains the first goal of the I.R.S.’s program on political activity by tax-exempt organizations.” The agency has posted “guidance” on what churches can and cannot do on its Web site.

The agency says it has continued to do audits of some churches, but those are not disclosed. Mr. Stanley, Mr. Owens and other lawyers say they are virtually certain it has no continuing audits of church political activity, an issue that has been a source of contention in recent elections.

The alliance and many other advocates regard a 1954 law prohibiting churches and their leaders from engaging in political campaigning as a violation of the First Amendment and wish to see the issue played out in court. The organization points to the rich tradition of political activism by churches in some of the nation’s most controversial battles, including the pre-Revolutionary war opposition to taxation by the British, slavery and child labor.

The legislation, sponsored by Lyndon Baines Johnson, then a senator, muzzled all charities in regards to partisan politics, and its impact on churches may have been an unintended consequence. At the time, he was locked in a battle with two nonprofit groups that were loudly calling him a closet communist.

Thirty years later, a group of senators led by Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, passed legislation to try to rein in the agency a bit in doing some audits. While audits of churches continued over the years, they appeared to have slowed down considerably after a judge rebuffed the agency’s actions in a case involving the Living Word Christian Center and a supposed endorsement of Ms. Bachmann in 2007. The I.R.S. had eliminated positions through a reorganization, and therefore, according to the judge, had not followed the law when determining who could authorize such audits.

Sarah Hall Ingram, the I.R.S. commissioner responsible for the division that oversees nonprofit groups, said the agency was still investigating such cases. “We have churches under audit,” Ms. Hall Ingram said. “Maybe they just aren’t the clients of the people you’re talking to.”

None of the churches involved in previous pulpit Sunday events have received anything beyond a form letter from the I.R.S. thanking them for the tapes, Mr. Stanley said. “They haven’t done anything to clarify what the law is and what pastors can and can’t say,“ he said.

Mr. Owens, the lawyer representing the Ohio churches, said that Ms. Lerner had told a meeting of state charity regulators in late 2009 that the agency was no longer doing such audits. “I have not heard of a single church audit since then,” Mr. Owens said.

He said the agency could have churches under audit for civil fraud or criminal investigation. “I know of at least one of those,” he said.

Ms. Lerner said she could not recall what she had said at the meeting. Grant Williams, an I.R.S. spokesman, declined to describe the type of church audits the agency was doing or their number.

Last year, the I.R.S. also quietly ceased its Political Activities Compliance Initiative, under which it issued reports in 2004 and 2006 detailing its findings of illegal political campaigning by charities, including churches.

Paul Streckfus, a former I.R.S. official who publishes a newsletter about legal and tax developments in the tax-exempt world, said the reports had served as an alert. “They also gave us some idea of how big the problem of noncompliance actually was, and that the I.R.S. was actually doing something about it,” Mr. Streckfus said.

Mr. Garlow said he planned to outline where the candidates stood on various issues and then discuss what the Bible said about those issues, calling on church members to stand by their religious principles.

“The Bible says render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” he said. “But Caesar is demanding more and more of what was once considered God’s matter, and pastors have been bullied and intimidated enough.”

Obama Heckled At Los Angeles Fundraiser (BLOG,VIDEO)

(AP/The Huffington Post) LOS ANGELES — A heckler shouting about Jesus Christ interrupted President Barack Obama at a fundraiser before security dragged him out.

It happened at the House of Blues in Los Angeles Monday night.

The man positioned himself up in front of the stage and started shouting loudly right after Obama started talking. The heckler proclaimed that "Jesus Christ is God" and a Christian God. According to Real Clear Politics, the outburst was met with boos from the crowd at the event.

Obama stopped talking. Then after a moment the crowd started chanting "Four more years! Four more years!" and drowned out the heckler.

As he was taken out by security the man called out that Obama is an antichrist.

Later, another, more-friendly heckler shouted out, "Don't forget medical marijuana!" Obama responded: "Thank you for that."

Obama tells African Americans to 'stop complainin' and fight (BLOG)

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.

And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too.

Obama's speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he's been giving away too much in talks with Republicans -- and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.

"It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y'all," Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened Washington convention center.

But he said blacks need to have faith in the future -- and understand that the fight won't be won if they don't rally to his side.

"I need your help," Obama said.

The president will need black turnout to match its historic 2008 levels if he's to have a shot at winning a second term, and Saturday's speech was a chance to speak directly to inner-city concerns.

He acknowledged blacks have suffered mightily because of the recession, and are frustrated that the downturn is taking so long to reverse. "So many people are still hurting. So many people are barely hanging on," he said, then added: "And so many people in this city are fighting us every step of the way."

But Obama said blacks know all too well from the civil rights struggle that the fight for what is right is never easy.

"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."

Topping the to-do list, he said, is getting Congress to the pass jobs bill he sent to Capitol Hill two weeks ago.

Obama said the package of payroll tax cuts, business tax breaks and infrastructure spending will benefit 100,000 black-owned businesses and 20 million African-American workers. Republicans have indicated they're open to some of the tax measures -- but oppose his means of paying for it: hiking taxes on top income-earners and big business.

But at times, Obama also sounded like he was discussing his own embattled tenure.

"The future rewards those who press on," He said. "I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on."

Caucus leaders remain fiercely protective of the nation's first African-American president, but in recent weeks they've been increasingly vocal in their discontent -- especially over black joblessness.

"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," the caucus chairman, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, recently told McClatchy Newspapers.

Like many Democratic lawmakers, caucus members were dismayed by Obama's concessions to the GOP during the summer's talks on raising the government's borrowing limit.

Cleaver famously called the compromise deal a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich."

But Cleaver said his members also are keeping their gripes in check because "nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

Still, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., caused a stir last month by complaining that Obama's Midwest bus tour had bypassed black districts. She told a largely black audience in Detroit that the caucus is "supportive of the president, but we're getting tired."

Last year, Obama addressed the same dinner and implored blacks to get out the vote in the midterm elections because Republicans were preparing to "turn back the clock."

What followed was a Democratic rout that Obama acknowledged as a "shellacking."

Where blacks had turned out in droves to help elect him in 2008, there was a sharp drop-off two years later.

Some 65 percent of eligible blacks voted in 2008, compared with a 2010 level that polls estimate at between 37 percent and 40 percent. Final census figures for 2010 are not yet available, and it's worth noting off-year elections typically draw far fewer voters.

This year's caucus speech came as Obama began cranking up grass-roots efforts across the Democratic spectrum.

It also fell on the eve of a trip to the West Coast that will combine salesmanship for the jobs plan he sent to Congress this month and re-election fundraising.

Obama was leaving Sunday morning for Seattle, where two money receptions were planned, with two more to follow in the San Francisco area.

On Monday, Obama is holding a town meeting at the California headquarters of LinkedIn, the business networking website, before going on to fundraisers in San Diego and Los Angeles and a visit Tuesday to a Denver-area high school to highlight the school renovation component of the jobs package.

CNN Truth Squad: Did Obama destroy the economy? (BLOG)

(CNN)"President Obama has embraced a view of government-directed temporary fixes and gimmicks. They don't work. He's destroyed the economy."

-- Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, during Thursday night's Republican presidential debate on Fox News.



The facts:

-- The recession from which the United States is still struggling to recover began in December 2007, 13 months before Obama took office in January 2009. That's according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nonprofit agency that tracks business cycles.



Romney and Perry clash at debate

-- By the fourth quarter of 2008, shortly after the banking crisis that resulted in the widely unpopular federal bailouts, the economy contracted by 8.9%, according to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.



-- The bureau found the recession officially ended in June 2009, five months after Obama took office. The economy has grown in every quarter since then, though barely in the past six months, according to the Commerce Department.



-- The unemployment rate, a more direct concern to the average American, has remained high after shooting up from 5.5 % in December 2007 to a peak of 10.1 % in October 2009. It was 7.8 % when Obama took office, and it has held at 9.1 % for the past two months.



The verdict:

False. The Obama administration's much-criticized efforts to revive the economy may not have lived up to their billing, but statistics show the bulk of the damage was done before he was sworn in.

Fed moves to push rates lower, boost economy (BLOG, VIDEO)

It's back to the future for the Federal Reserve.

Faced with a lethargic economy and a jobless rate hovering at 9 percent, the nation's central bank reached deep into its bag of tricks on Wednesday and pulled out a move to spur growth that it hadn't used in 50 years.

The move, dubbed "Operation Twist" when it was first used in 1961, is intended to push long-term interest rates lower, which the Fed hopes will spur lending, induce businesses to expand and tempt consumers into spending more.

The Fed said it will do that by selling $400 billion worth of short-term securities to buy longer-term securities, much like a homeowner swapping higher-rate credit card debt for a lower-rate home equity loan.

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"The Committee intends to purchase, by the end of June 2012, $400 billion of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 6 years to 30 years and to sell an equal amount of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 3 years or less," the Fed said in a statement after a meeting of its Federal Open Market Committee.

"This program should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and help make broader financial conditions more accommodative," the Fed said. "The Committee will regularly review the size and composition of its securities holdings and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate."

The Fed said the economy remains mired in a rut. Job growth is sluggish, household spending has been rising at a slow pace and the housing market is weak.

Its outlook wasn't much sunnier:

"The Committee continues to expect some pickup in the pace of recovery over coming quarters but anticipates that the unemployment rate will decline only gradually toward levels that the Committee judges to be consistent with its dual mandate," the Fed said, referring to its stated goals of promoting maximum employment and economic growth while keeping inflation in check.

The Fed also gave a nod to the European debt crisis, which threatens to expand and risks pushing the global economy back into recession:

"(T)here are significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets," the Fed said.

Inflation was one of the bright spots, the Fed said, as was business investment in equipment and software.

Not all the members the Fed's committee, which sets monetary policy, agreed with the move to push long-term interest rates lower. Three dissented because they did not support additional policy accomodation. The split on the FOMC was echoed in financial markets, which fell after the Fed made its announcement.

"The one thing that weighs on any decision here is that we are still seeing dissenters in the Fed. And that doesn't bode well for a stable recovery," Carl Larry, director of energy derivatives and research for Blue Ocean Brokerage, told Reuters.


bottomline

Troy Davis And Lawrence Brewer, A Tale Of Two Executions (BLOG)

Two men sitting on Death Row are scheduled to die tonight, both by lethal injection, and both in two of the most racially charged cases in recent memory.

One is Troy Davis, a black man who was convicted of killing a white off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989. The other is Lawrence Brewer, a white man who in 1998 participated in the grizzly murder of James Byrd Jr., a black man whom Brewer and two other men attacked. They slit his throat, chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him down an old country road in Jasper, Texas, until his head and limbs were torn from his body.

The two men are scheduled to die at the same time, Brewer at 6 p.m. Central Time and Davis at 7 p.m. Eastern Time.

The similarities in the two cases end there.

While an ex-president, former federal officials, the pope and millions of supporters worldwide have called for clemency in the Davis case, few have suggested that Brewer should be spared.

Davis has maintained his innocence. No weapon or physical evidence was ever found linking Davis to the killing of officer Mark MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot. Seven of nine witnesses who initially fingered him have since recanted, some saying that they were forced by police to identify Davis as the shooter.

Brewer, on the other hand, has reveled in his crime. His rap sheet included stints in prison for drug possession and burglary. He joined a white supremacist gang while locked up. In jailhouse letters written after Brewer was arrested for the Byrd murder, he boasted about the killing and the thrill of it.

"Well, I did it," Brewer wrote in a letter introduced during court proceedings, according to published reports. "And no longer am I a virgin. It was a rush, and I'm still licking my lips for more."

He also wrote to one of his co-defendants that they had become bigger stars than O.J. Simpson and that he welcomed the death penalty. Lethal injection, he wrote, would be "a little old sleeping medicine."

To this day, Brewer remains unrepentant. "As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets," Brewer told KHOU 11 News in Houston on Tuesday. "No, I'd do it all over again, to tell you the truth."

James Byrd's family has asked that Brewer's life be spared.

"You can't fight murder with murder," Ross Byrd, 32, the victim's son told Reuters on Tuesday. "Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."

"Life goes on," he said. "I've got responsibilities that I have every day. It's not on the front page of my mind. I'm looking for happy times."

The Byrd family held a vigil in Jasper on Tuesday, the eve of Brewer's execution.

"He has no remorse and I feel sorry for him, but forgiveness brings about healing. We had begun to heal a long time ago," Betty Boatner, Byrd's sister, told television station KPRC in Houston. "We're praying for his family as well as our family, and for the citizens of Jasper. We already made peace with it a long time ago."

More than 700 miles away in Jackson, Georgia, the MacPhail family have been long awaiting Troy Davis' execution.

"That's what we wanted, and that's what we got," Anneliese MacPhail, the mother of murdered officer Mark MacPhail, told the Associated Press. "We wanted to get it over with, and for him to get his punishment."

"Justice was finally served for my father," said Mark MacPhail Jr., the officer's son.

Yesterday morning Troy Davis' family got the news that their last chance of saving Davis had faded, as the pardon board refused to grant him clemency. The family visited him for a few hours, and later a group of supporters joined Davis in a prison visiting room reserved for death row inmates. They gathered around him, prayed and listened as he told them to go out and keep fighting for men like him, who he said had been falsely convicted, according to Edward DuBose, president of Gerogia's branch of the N.A.A.C.P, who was among the visitors.

Indeed, last-minute appeals were being made to the local district attorney and to the state's board of parole and pardons. Others have suggested asking President Barack Obama to intervene, though he has no jurisdiction in the case.

Others have taken to petitions and even Twitter to pressure authorities.
The hashtags #troydavis and #toomuchdoubt have shown up in the Twitter feeds of thousands of supporters.

With only hours before Davis' scheduled execution, the flooding of websites, signatures and phone calls to officials and politicians might not be enough to sway the hands of Georgia justice.

If all goes as planned in Texas and Georgia tonight, two men will die, both by lethal injection. But the circumstances surrounding these two men could not be more different.


huffingtonpost

Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani assassinated (BLOG)

Burhanuddin Rabbani, who headed an Afghan government panel trying to launch negotiations with the Taliban, was killed by a suicide bomber in his home in Kabul, officials say. In New York, President Hamid Karzai declares: 'This will not deter us from continuing down the path we have started.'

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan— Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed by a suicide bomber on Tuesday in his home in the capital, the latest in a series of high-profile assassinations to rock the country in recent months.

Rabbani was the head of a government panel set up last year to try to begin negotiations with the Taliban, and his death was seen as a serious blow to those still-nascent efforts.

The bomber, who apparently had explosives concealed in his turban, entered Rabbani's home in an upscale Kabul neighborhood on the pretext of visiting him, said Gen. Mohammed Zaher, the head of criminal investigation for the Kabul police.

The powerful blast injured at least two other people, Zaher said, possibly including at least one other member of the High Peace Council, as the reconciliation body was known.

The Associated Press reported that four of Rabbani's bodyguards were also killed, but that could not be immediately confirmed.

Rabbani's death came a short time before President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, their first face-to-face session since the American leader announced plans to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan over the coming year.

"This will not deter us from continuing down the path we have started," said Karzai, seated beside Obama at a Manhattan hotel. Karzai planned to cut short his New York visit and return home.

Rabbani served as Afghan president in the early-to-mid 1990s, and was the head of government at the time of the Taliban takeover.

He was a Tajik, one of Afghanistan's largest ethnic groups. Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Taliban or other insurgent groups, the killing is likely to heighten ethnic tensions. Most Taliban are Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group.

Afghanistan's political climate, always violent, has become much more so in recent months.

Karzai's younger half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was assassinated by a close family associate in July. A close Karzai aide, Jan Mohammed Khan, was killed that same month, as was the mayor of the southern city of Kandahar, Ghulam Haidar Hamidi.




latimes

Navy officer weds partner as 'don't ask, don't tell' ends (BLOG, VIDEO)

DUXBURY, Vt. — When Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were searching for a place to get married, they settled on a site in Vermont, in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone.

That way, the two men were able to recite their vows before family and friends at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy . Just after midnight Tuesday, the partners of 11 years were married.

"I think it was a beautiful ceremony. The emotions really hit me...but it's finally official," Ross said.

Hours before the change took effect early Tuesday, the American military was also making final preparations for the historic policy shift. The Pentagon announced that it was already accepting applications from openly gay candidates, although officials said they would wait a day before reviewing them.

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Ross, 33, and Dan Swezy, a 49-year-old civilian, traveled from their home in Tucson, Ariz., so they could get married in Vermont, the first state to allow gays to enter into civil unions and one of six that have legalized same-sex marriage.

Champagne
Ross wore his dress uniform for the ceremony beginning at 11:45 p.m. Monday at Duxbury's Moose Meadow Lodge, a log cabin bed-and-breakfast perched on a hillside about 15 miles northwest of Montpelier.

The lodge says it hosted the state's first gay wedding in 2009.

Justice of the Peace Greg Trulson proclaimed the marriage at exactly midnight.

"This is Gary's official coming out," Trulson said.

Ross and Swezy were joined by a small group of close friends and some family who shared champagne with them after the ceremony.

Pentagon press secretary George Little said Monday that the military is prepared for the end of "don't ask, don't tell," a practice adopted in 1993 that allowed gays to serve as long as they did not openly acknowledge their sexual orientation. Commanders were not allowed to ask.

Last week, the Pentagon said 97 percent of the military has undergone training in the new law.

In preparation for Tuesday's repeal, all branches of the military have spent several months updating regulations. Lifting the ban also brings a halt to all pending investigations, discharges and other proceedings that were begun under the old law.

President Barack Obama signed the law last December and in July certified that lifting the ban will not diminish the military's ability to fight. Some in Congress remain opposed to repeal, arguing that it may undermine order and discipline.

Existing standards of personal conduct, such as those pertaining to public displays of affection, will continue regardless of sexual orientation.

There will be no immediate changes to eligibility for military benefits. All service members are already entitled to certain benefits, such as designating a partner as a life insurance beneficiary or as a caregiver in the Wounded Warrior program. But Swezy won't receive military health insurance or access to a support group when Ross is at sea.

Gay marriage is an even thornier issue. A Navy proposal to train chaplains to conduct same-sex civil unions in states where they are legal was shelved earlier this year after more than five dozen lawmakers objected. The Pentagon is reviewing the issue.

Ross, a 2002 graduate of the Naval Academy, is a surface warfare officer at the Army's Fort Huachuca. He expects to return to sea next spring.

He met Swezy in early 2000 while Ross was still an academy student. At the time, he didn't think through the personal implications of the military's ban on gay and lesbian service members serving openly. But as his relationship with Swezy grew, it became important.

Their Tucson home is about a two-hour commute from Fort Huachuca, which is near the Mexican border. Under "don't ask, don't tell," Ross could not talk about his relationship with Swezy, but he said some of his co-workers must have known.

"Anyone with any moderate perception could have figured it out," he said.

'You can't be honest'
When he goes back to work Thursday, Ross isn't planning to advertise that he's married to a man.

"Even though the law goes away, it will still be the white elephant in the room until everyone comes to terms with it," he said.

Ross said the end of "don't ask, don't tell" will simplify many aspects of his life.

"It requires you to lie several times a day," Ross said of the old system. "Being in the military is extremely invasive. It becomes a web of excuses you make when you try to be as honest as possible but you can't be honest."

He hopes being able to talk about his relationship will make his work easier, too.

"If you're standing watch at midnight on a surface ship there's not much to talk about," he said. "It becomes very difficult to trust someone you can't be honest with."



AP

Obama to raise taxes on US millionaires (BLOG)

President Barack Obama on Monday will call for a higher minimum tax rate on millionaires to ensure they pay the same rate on their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to a White House official.

The plan comes as Obama engages in a months-long, countrywide trek to back his $447 billion jobs bill to reduce 9.1 percent unemployment and restore trust in his economic leadership.

The tax raise is unlikely to pass Congress as Republicans have already rejected Obama's plans to raise taxes and limit deductions for the highest earners, and would see the rule as a political gambit.

Republicans say adding to the tax burden will hit small business owners and therefore harm job creation.

An administration official said on condition of anonymity that Obama would call his millionaires plan the "Buffett Rule," a reference to an objection by billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-income workers.

Some millionaires enjoy the lower rate because investment gains -- such as capital gains, dividends and "carried interest" compensation paid to investment managers and hedge fund partners -- are taxed at a lower rate than wages.

They also only pay the Social Security payroll tax on the first $106,800 of their income, the cut-off point for the tax.

But Obama will not indicate a specific rate or provide other details such as how much revenue the plan would raise, according to The New York Times, which first reported the story.

He will unveil the tax hike as part of a broader announcement at the White House on a long-term deficit reduction proposal.

A special joint congressional committee is working on a bipartisan budget deal due by late November amid a new row between Obama and Republican lawmakers over the president's jobs bill, after Obama said he would finance the plan by ending tax breaks for oil and gas firms and individuals earning over $200,000.

Republicans rejected the blueprint this week.

The millionaires' rate would affect just 0.3 percent of taxpayers, or fewer than 450,000 as 144 million returns were filed for 2010, according to the Times.

‘Rogue’ author speaks out on Sarah Palin: ‘She is a vindictive hypocrite’ and an ‘utter fraud’ (BLOG)

Joe McGinniss, the author of the upcoming salacious new book about Sarah Palin--"The Rogue"--that has the sent the political and sports worlds in a frenzy, appeared in a segment on the Today show on Thursday.

McGinniss, who spent four months living in Wasilla, Alaska, in a rented house next to Palin's, said he interviewed approximately 200 of Palin's former associates, acquaintances and friends for the 318 page tell-all. The book includes a number of bombshell claims that have already stirred wide attention, including a report that Palin snorted cocaine, and slept with former University of Michigan basketball star Glen Rice while she was a sports reporter at a local Alaskan television station.

"An utter fraud," McGinniss said of the former Alaskan governor. "An absolute and utter fraud."

McGinniss continued: "At best, she is a hypocrite. At worst, she is a vindictive hypocrite. The thing that I found that really surprised me was that the people who know her best like her least."

The segment comes a day after the National Enquirer published leaked excerpts from the book--and thereby sent the media world buzzing on Wednesday.

McGinniss told the Today show that the book doesn't include any revelations gleaned from his tour as a neighbor to the Palin family. He is, however, a character in the book, though McGinniss claims that was not his intent.

"Sarah made me a character," McGinniss said. "She's a phenomenon. I said that to Todd when he came tromping across my lawn to confront me for living next door. He said 'Why are you writing about her anyway?' I said, 'Well Todd, I've been writing about politics since 1968. Your wife is a phenomenon. There's been no one like her in American politics before, no one who has come from nowhere to get so far.'"

He continued: "I was surprised at Sarah's reaction but it taught me something very interesting. She overreacts. She has no modulation in her responses to stress. In other words, she freaks out."

According to McGinniss, Rice, a former NBA player, said of his encounter with Palin: "In a short time, we got to know a lot about one another. It was all done in a respectful way, nothing hurried. She was a gorgeous woman, super nice. I was blown away by her. Afterward, she was a big crush that I had."

Todd Palin released a statement on Wednesday disputing McGinniss' claims, calling him, among other things, a liar and a stalker:

This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us. He traffics in innuendo and falsehoods. A few years ago he interviewed members of Sarah's administration for a magazine article, and afterwards they said that he was the most disingenuous and intellectually dishonest writer they'd ever dealt with. He's spent the last year interviewing marginal figures with an axe to grind in order to churn out a hit piece to satisfy his own creepy obsession with my wife. I'd ask that people consider these facts when evaluating his latest lies. I'd ask the fathers and husbands of America to consider our privacy when one summer day I found this guy on the deck of the rental property, just 18 feet away next door to us, staring like a creep at my wife while she mowed the lawn in her shorts, unbeknownst to her that he was prying. As well as our teenage daughters while they tried to enjoy our traditional Alaskan summer days outdoors. Joe's son told the media he advised his dad not to move from the East Coast to become our next door neighbor, but said his dad 'was just waiting for Todd to be out of the picture.' Sarah has never spoken to this intruder into our lives, our friends and family don't speak to him, so we have no idea where he would come up with content for his book. He was on our doorstep one day trying to make conversation with our son until Track cut the conversation short after discerning Joe's odd behavior, and I spoke to him one time when I saw him 18 feet away, just to find out who he was. He took that conversation and reported it to the media as me 'threatening' him.

For what it's worth, McGinniss doesn't think Palin will run for president in 2012, as many have predicted.

"I think she's going for the easy money," he said. "She's going to take the path of least resistance. I don't think that she's going to run for president."

You can watch the Today Show interview below.

Clinton Calls Women Key to Fueling Asian, U.S. Economic Growth (BLOG)

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today a commitment from 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation to boost economic growth and productivity by removing barriers to women.

Clinton, in a speech, laid out an economic case for APEC members to end such discriminatory practices as taxing women, limiting their ability to own property or to get access to capital, markets, jobs, training and positions of leadership.

A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. report, cited by Clinton, found that increasing women’s participation in the economy could lead to a 14 percent rise in per capita income by 2020 in APEC countries including China, Russia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Korea.

“When everyone has a chance to participate in the economic life of nations, we can all be richer, because more of us would be contributing to the global GDP,” Clinton told an audience at an APEC meeting on women and the economy in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Declaration adopted today commits APEC’s members to pursue a “generation-long journey,” Clinton said. In doing so, they’ll create a fundamental economic shift that leaves member countries more competitive and prosperous, she said.

Clinton’s announcement married two of her strongest interests. She has focused on women and children since early in her professional life, she she has sought to leverage the State Department’s power to boost economic growth.

Women’s Impact

Clinton cited today a study by consultants McKinsey & Co. that found that approximately one-quarter of U.S. gross domestic product is attributable to productivity gains tied to the rise of women in the U.S. workplace over the last 40 years, from holding 37 percent of all jobs, to 48 percent.

“That works out to more than $3.5 trillion,” Clinton said. “More than the GDP of Germany, and more than half the GDPs of China and Japan,” she said.

And she highlighted a World Bank finding that by eliminating discrimination against female workers and managers, companies “could significantly increase productivity per worker by 25 to 40 percent.”

Getting more women into the economic life of a country has ripple effects that benefit everyone, Clinton said.

Women Save

Her list included greater political stability, fewer military conflicts, more food, more educational opportunity for children and financial stability for more families in the world.

Studies have shown that women spend more of their earned income on food, health care, home improvement and schooling -- reinvesting in ways that lead to more job growth and ensure better educated, healthier citizens, Clinton said.

Women also save more than men, according to research Clinton cited, with the higher savings rate translating into a higher tax base.

APEC has discussed the issue of women’s economic participation before and has made uneven progress toward change, Clinton said. In the U.S. and every APEC economy, women are “still sidelined.”

Only 11 of the CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies are women, Clinton said.

Clinton has already launched women’s economic projects in Africa. The African Growth Opportunity Act created an initiative to help African women entrepreneurs build export capacity and take advantage of trade opportunities.

And she has launched TechWomen, a technology program in which women from around the world have been mentored by women in the Silicon Valley. At the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Clinton has also advanced an effort to collect data on women’s education, entrepreneurship, and employment.

Speaking to the audience of government officials and private companies from APEC countries, Clinton urged data collection that’s disaggregated by gender so the group has hard statistics to ensure countries are making progress and to detail the impact of women’s participation.

Huntsman staffer says she is ‘sick and sad’ for the Republican Party after watching presidential debates (BLOG, PIC)

The behavior by some members of the audience at the most recent Republican presidential debates has at least one campaign staffer concerned about the future of the GOP.

Sarah Reidy, the national director of scheduling for Jon Huntsman's presidential campaign, had some stern words for her own party after the audience at a debate in California applauded the number of executions during Texas Gov. Rick Perry's tenure, and then some in the crowd at a debate in Floridacheered when the moderator asked if a sick person without insurance should be left to die.

In a post on her Facebook page, Reidy, who joined Huntsman's campaign in August but was not speaking on its behalf in this instance, said the behavior made her "sick and sad" for the Republican party.

"For years I have tried to prove that the GOP isn't the Party of elitist, stereotypical people that lack compassion," Reidy wrote on her Facebook account Tuesday. "When did creativity and growth become secondary to hate? Hearing the debate crowds go crazy over things like executions and the uninsured dying makes me sick and sad for my Party that I devote my time and efforts."

In an interview with The Ticket, Reidy said that she has heard similar complaints within Republican circles.

"It's a general frustration I hear among friends across the party," she said.

yahoo

Families urge action as US drafts Alzheimer's plan (BLOG)

WASHINGTON (AP) — As her mother's Alzheimer's worsened over eight long years, so did Doreen Alfaro's bills: The walker, then the wheelchair, then the hospital bed, then the diapers — and the caregivers hired for more and more hours a day so Alfaro could go to work and her elderly father could get some rest.

Alfaro and her husband sold their California house to raise money for her mother's final at-home care. Six years later, the 58-year-old Alfaro wonders if she eventually develops Alzheimer's, too, "what happens to my care? Where will I go?"

Dementia is poised to become a defining disease of the rapidly aging population — and a budget-busting one for Medicare, Medicaid and families. Now the Obama administration is developing the first National Alzheimer's Plan, to combine research aimed at fighting the mind-destroying disease with help that caregivers need to stay afloat.

"This is a unique opportunity, maybe an opportunity of a lifetime in a sense, to really have an impact on this disease," says Dr. Ronald Petersen of the Mayo Clinic, who chairs a committee that later this month begins advising the government on what that plan should include.

An estimated 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer's or similar dementias. It's the sixth-leading killer. There is no cure; treatments only temporarily ease some symptoms. Barring a research breakthrough, those numbers will worsen steadily as the baby boomers gray: By 2050, anywhere from 13 million to 16 million Americans are projected to have Alzheimer's, costing a $1 trillion in medical and nursing home expenditures.

But that's not the full toll. Sufferers lose the ability to do the simplest activities of daily life and can survive that way for a decade or more, requiring years of care from family, friends or paid caregivers. Already a recent report finds that nearly 15 million people, mostly family members, are providing more than $200 billion worth of unpaid care.

Thousands of those caregivers have turned out at public meetings since early August — and at a "telephone town meeting" organized by the Alzheimer's Association that drew 32,000 people — pleading for a national Alzheimer's strategy to bring changes.

They want primary care doctors trained to diagnose dementia earlier, describing how years of missed symptoms cost them precious time to make plans or seek treatment. That's a recommendation being echoed Tuesday in an international Alzheimer's report.

They demand to know why the National Institutes of Health spends about six times more on AIDS research than on Alzheimer's, when there are good drugs to battle back the HIV virus but nothing comparable for dementia.

Overwhelmingly, they ask for resources to help Alzheimer's patients live their last years at home without ruining their caregivers' own health and finances.

"Either you're rich and can afford $25 an hour for care at home, or you send him to a facility. We're in the middle of the road," says Shirley Rexrode of suburban San Francisco, whose 85-year-old father, Hsien-Wen Li, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's nearly three years ago.

Adult day care didn't work out — even at $90 a day, the only place with an opening couldn't handle the behaviors of Alzheimer's. Rexrode says her mother, Li's primary caregiver, has suffered some depression from the stress.

"We just have to muddle through, but we don't know how long we can," Rexrode says.

And while Medicare will pay for doctor bills and medications, even getting to the doctor can be a hurdle. When her 89-year-old mother with advanced Alzheimer's developed a urinary tract infection, Susan Lynch couldn't find a doctor willing to come to her parents' home in Fall River, Mass. Lynch flew there from her Gaithersburg, Md., home but couldn't carry her mother down the stairs. A private ambulance service didn't have an opening for weeks. Lynch wound up calling the town ambulance for a costly but Medicare-covered trip to the emergency room.

Federal health officials, who promise a first draft of the national plan by December, say they're getting the message.

"Folks desperately, desperately want to be able to provide the care themselves," says Donald Moulds, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services who oversees the project. "It's very, very hard work. Figuring out better mechanisms for supporting people who are trying to do that work is, one, the right thing to do."

It also may be cheaper for taxpayers. Nursing homes not only are pricier than at-home care, but many families only can afford them through Medicaid, the health care program for the poor. Another key, Moulds says, is better care coordination as Alzheimer's complicates the many other health problems of aging.

But given the budget crisis, the big question is whether any anti-Alzheimer's strategy can come with enough dollars and other incentives attached to spur true change.

"That's a concern, a very real one," says Mayo's Petersen.

The law that requires a national Alzheimer's plan didn't set funding, and Moulds is mum on a possible price tag. Almost complete is an inventory of all Alzheimer's-related research and care reimbursement paid for by the U.S. government, to look for gaps that need filling and possible savings to help pay for them.

Other countries including England and Australia — and 25 U.S. states, by Moulds' count — have developed their own Alzheimer's plans. But the U.S. is taking a special look at France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 pledged to invest 1.6 billion euros, about $2.2 billion, over five years for better diagnosis, research and caregiver support and training.

Sarkozy told an international Alzheimer's Association meeting in July that he wants to guarantee "that no French family is left without support."

On Tuesday, a report from the advocacy group Alzheimer's Disease International says every country should have a national dementia strategy that stresses earlier diagnosis. Most of the estimated 36 million people worldwide living with dementia, and as many as half of U.S. patients, haven't been formally diagnosed, the report says. That's in part because of stigma and the belief that nothing can be done, but the report notes that even today's imperfect medications can help, a diagnosis lets families plan ahead, and scientists are working to create treatments that one day may slow the disease.

At meetings around the U.S., families say any Alzheimer's plan must bring better understanding of a disease too often suffered in isolation.

"What I want to see is mainly awareness, awareness of this disease and what it does not only to the individual but also to the network of family and friends that are going to care for the person," says Alfaro, of Aptos, Calif.

"It should be as understood as diabetes, and as treatable," adds Audrey Wiggins of Triangle, Va., whose father has and grandmother died of Alzheimer's.

Republicans block Senate disaster aid bill (BLOG)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans blocked an effort Monday by Senate Democrats to quickly pass a $7 billion aid package for victims of recent natural disasters like Hurricane Irene, tornadoes in the Midwest and the South and floods along the Mississippi, Missouri and other rivers.

On a 53-33 vote, the Senate rejected an attempt by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to bring up a bill that Democrats had hoped to use to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency's depleted disaster fund. Democrats needed 60 votes to advance the measure.

Reid said FEMA has spent almost $400 million in the past two weeks on emergency help like food and shelter following Irene and has only about $300 million left.

President Barack Obama on Friday asked Congress for $500 million to make sure the disaster fund doesn't run out of cash before the end of the month. He also officially asked for $4.6 billion for the upcoming budget year that starts Oct. 1.

Earlier Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Republicans will attach a disaster aid package to must-pass legislation for keeping the government fully running past Sept. 30. That stopgap spending bill is likely to advance next week.

"They're playing around the edges of what really needs to be done," Reid complained, saying hundreds of millions of dollars is needed to rebuild places like Joplin, Mo., where a tornado in May destroyed more than 7,000 homes and 10 school buildings and killed 159 people.

Obama Makes New Push for Jobs Bill (BLOG, VIDEO)

President Obama says the $447 billion American Jobs Act he is sending to Congress is an insurance policy against the economy falling back into recession.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Monday the jobs bill he is sending to Congress is an insurance policy against the economy falling back into recession.

“There are still a lot of folks hurting out there. And my job as president of the United States is not to worry about my job — my task is to worry about their jobs and their economic situation,” he told NBC’s Brian Williams in an exclusive interview that aired Monday.

Obama’s comments came ahead of a press event in the White House Rose Garden during which he said he will send the $447 billion American Jobs Act to Congress and urged lawmakers to quickly pass it. Teachers, police officers, firefighters and others joined the president to call for passage of the bill.

“This is a bill that will put people back to work all across the country,” Obama said. “I am sending this bill to Congress today, and they ought to pass it immediately.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama’s comments came amid more downbeat news about the economy. A widely watched survey of business economists shows many are lowering their growth forecasts, also Monday Bank of America said it will be slashing up to 30,000 jobs over the next few years as part of a $5 billion cost-cutting plan aimed at shrinking the struggling mega-bank's unwieldy size.

Lawmakers will have to carefully examine President Barack Obama's job-creation plan and the final product should include ideas from both parties, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said Monday.

Major Market Indices"It is my hope that we will be able to work together to put in place the best ideas of both parties and help put Americans back to work," Boehner said in a prepared statement.

Lawmakers will have to take a close look at Obama's jobs proposal in light of earlier stimulus efforts, Boehner added. Republicans consider Obama's 2009 plan to be a failure.

The president will also travel across the country to build public support for the package he unveiled last week. He’ll visit the pivotal campaign states of Ohio on Tuesday and North Carolina on Wednesday to ask voters to pressure lawmakers to pass the bill.

The centerpiece of the plan is lower payroll taxes for individuals and businesses. There's also new spending to hire teachers and rebuild schools, among other things.

The Democratic National Committee is launching a television ad campaign to boost support for Obama's new jobs plan. The 30-second ads, which show portions of Obama's speech to Congress last week, will air beginning Monday in politically important states from Nevada to New Hampshire. The ads urge viewers to "Read it. Fight for it. ... Pass the President's Jobs Plan."

Last December, Congress passed a one-year cut in Social Security taxes, reducing the rate for workers from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent for 2011. Employers still pay the 6.2 percent rate, which is applied to wages up to $106,800.

Obama proposes to extend the tax cut for a year and make it bigger, reducing the Social Security taxes paid by workers to 3.1 percent for 2012. He's also now proposing to extend the payroll tax cut to businesses on the first $5 million of their payroll. About 98 percent of companies have payrolls below the $5 million threshold, according to the White House.

Extending and enlarging the payroll tax cuts costs $240 billion.

Obama urged lawmakers to "pass this jobs plan right away." But he left the responsibility for paying for the $447 billion plan to a special bipartisan House-Senate panel created to reducing deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over the coming decade.

The jobs plan also calls for $130 billion in aid to state and local governments, providing either a welcome infusion of cash for those struggling with budget gaps, government layoffs and crumbling roads or merely a temporary patch for budget holes that are likely to remain long after the federal money runs out.

The perspective of governors and state lawmakers varies but often follows political affiliation, with Democrats generally praising Obama's plan and Republicans remaining skeptical.

"It's a no-brainer: Congress should pass the bill. Now," said California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, whose state would receive some $13 billion for construction projects and teaching and public safety jobs at a time when it has the nation's second highest unemployment rate.

Many Republican lawmakers and governors are less enthusiastic about accepting the federal money, especially if it locks in costs.

"If we're given the flexibility to spend it as we see fit and not as they see fit, I could see some benefit," particularly for long-delayed infrastructure projects, said Missouri House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan Silvey, a Republican. "I'm not a big fan of using one-time money for ongoing expenses. I think that's what the state should be getting away from, not getting deeper into."

Obama's plan has to clear a politically divided Congress, which could scuttle it entirely or enact bits and pieces of it. As envisioned by Obama, state and local governments would receive $50 billion for transportation projects, $35 billion for school, police and fire department payrolls, $30 billion to modernize public schools and community colleges, and $15 billion to refurbish vacant and foreclosed homes or businesses.

It would mark the second, sizable infusion of federal cash to states in less than three years, coming just as they are burning through the last of the billions of dollars they received under the 2009 stimulus act.

In many cases, states used the original stimulus money to fill in for declining tax revenue and lessen or delay spending cuts for public schools, health care programs and other services. But those budget holes remain in many states as high unemployment persists and government tax revenue remains lackluster.

With another round of money, "the federal government may be able to play a critical role in helping states close their budget gaps," said David Adkins, executive director of the Council of State Governments.

But he said the prospects for receiving the money appear "very, very slim" given the focus on reducing government spending among Republicans in Congress. He said state government leaders are more interested in long-term stable federal funding for transportation projects and education programs.




AP

Infrastructure bank could be part of jobs package (BLOG)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A national infrastructure bank that would entice private investors into road and rail projects could be a major part of the jobs package that President Barack Obama hopes will finally bring relief to the unemployed.

The White House hasn't divulged the contents of the package that Obama is to unveil in an address to a joint session of Congress next Thursday. But the president has pushed the idea of an infrastructure bank in recent speeches and has praised Senate and House bills that create such a government-sponsored lending institution.

Whether the bank, which would need time to organize, could have any real impact on the jobs situation in the coming year — and particularly before the November 2012 elections — is in dispute.

Obama seems to think it would.

He said at a July news conference that while the bank he is proposing is "relatively small," he could imagine "a project where we're rebuilding roads and bridges and ports and schools and broadband lines and smart grids, and taking all those construction workers and putting them to work right now."

But Janet Kavinoky, director of infrastructure issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, cautioned that "even in the next two years I don't believe the bank is going to be that kind of job creator."

The best way to spur job growth in the short term is for Congress to pass long-stalled bills to fund aviation and highway programs, she said.

The Chamber of Commerce strongly supports the infrastructure bank. Kavinoky said the United States is one of the few large countries that lack a central source of low-cost financing for construction projects. But she said it's going to take time to get it running and come up with a pipeline of projects where funds can be invested.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who's sponsoring an infrastructure bank bill, argued that "we have projects all across America that are ready to go tomorrow." He said the bank "could have money flowing in the next year easily."

Michael Likosky, senior fellow at the NYU Institute for Public Knowledge and author of "Obama's Bank: Financing a Durable New Deal," says he is working with transportation agencies in California and New York that "are waiting for the federal government to say they are going to support these projects."

A commitment to a national infrastructure bank could also provide a positive spark to financial markets and encourage investment, he said.

The bank would supplement federal spending on infrastructure by promoting private-sector investment in projects of national or regional significance. The private sector currently provides only about 6 percent of infrastructure spending.

Supporters, which range from the Chamber of Commerce to the AFL-CIO, say pension funds, private equity funds and sovereign wealth funds have hundreds of billions of dollars ready to be invested in low-risk infrastructure projects.

It's better than having pension fund money go to Treasury bonds, Likosky said. "It's really about changing our approach; we're in tough economic times and we will be for a while. We have to make sure the money we have goes further."

The Kerry bill would require $10 billion in start-up money from the government to get the first loans going and cover administrative costs. The bank would be government owned, run by a board of directors, independent of any federal agency and self-sustaining after the initial expense. Public-private partnerships, corporations and state and local governments would be eligible for the loans.

The bank's directors would pick which projects to finance based on an analysis of costs, benefits and revenue streams, such as from tolls or fees, for repaying the loan. Once the terms of the loan, including interest rates and fees to cover risk, are set, the Treasury Department would disburse the loan.

Urban projects would have to be at least $100 million in size, rural ones $25 million. The infrastructure bank's loan could cover no more than 50 percent of a project's costs.

"There is going to be a revenue stream for payback and therefore the project is going to stand on its own because it will be a good enough project to attract private-sector funding," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, one of several Republican co-sponsors of the Kerry plan.

Supporters estimate the bank could set up as much as $160 billion in government loans over a decade and anchor as much as $650 billion in projects.

In the House, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., has a similar bill that relies on $25 billion in start-up money and makes use of bonds as well as loans to stimulate construction projects. Both Kerry and DeLauro would cover transportation, water and energy projects.

DeLauro would also include communications projects. She says her bill is modeled after the European Investment Bank, which has been financing infrastructure projects for 50 years and last year invested more than $100 billion.

Obama, in his 2012 budget proposal, envisioned spending $30 billion to start an infrastructure bank within the Transportation Department that would provide grants as well as loans to transportation projects.

That idea drew opposition from the House Transportation Committee chairman, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. He said in a recent article in the congressional newspaper Roll Call that it would be better to increase help for existing state infrastructure banks "rather than increasing the size of the bloated federal bureaucracy, as some advocate, by creating a national infrastructure bank."

Kerry pointed to a 2009 American Society of Civil Engineers report that said $2.2 trillion needs to be spent over five years to bring the nation's roads, bridges and water systems up to an adequate level. He said Congress needs to both pass a new highway bill and agree on alternatives like the bank.

"If we can leverage $650 billion and get money going in the transportation bill, we can begin to nibble away at the problem," Kerry said.