Daily Democratic Wire 1-22-2010

George Wenschhof

Today, President Barack Obama returns to Elyria, Ohio, a town he visited while campaigning for President - an area hard hit by the recession, he will review impacts from his stimulus bill and hold a economic town hall meeting. The Washington Post has more here.

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The regrouping on health care reform begins - President Obama desperately wanted the bill passed by when he gave his State of The Union address next week and then he wanted to pivot White house attention on the economy and creating jobs. His only advise so far to congress was to focus on the areas in the bills where agreement exists. This leads to speculation as to what a pared down bill would look like. The NY Times takes a stab at what may be included in a smaller version of the health care bill. You can read it here.

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Yesterday's Supreme Court 5-4 ruling opens up unlimited spending by Corporations on elections - freedom of speech under the first amendment won the day narrowly for citizens united who sued when the FEC would not allow them to show an anti Hillary Clinton movie during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Along the way, the Supreme Court threw McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform under the bus. You can read more here.

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In what many believe should have been done the day Obama took office, yesterday the President introduced measures that would limit the size of banks and reduce the amount of risky investments they take - the too big to fail argument frustrated many Americans as they saw hundreds of billions spent to prop up large banks at the end of the George W. Bush administration. The other measure is intended to stop the practice of many banks who take depositor's money and invest it and in the recent debacle, they invested it in risky ventures accelerating the demise of the larger financial institutions. Politico.com has more here.



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Ben Bernanke Senate confirmation vote expected to be close - the vote to confirm a second term for the Federal Reserve Chair has been delayed and once a sure bet to be reconfirmed, he no longer is. A student of the U.S. Great Depression, Bernanke is credited by many as being responsible for the U.S. avoiding another huge depression. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

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