President Obama talks about the African American community and "getting out of this together."
Congressional Black Caucus pressures White House. Rep. Elijah Cummings converses with Morning Joe show panel members.
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Pres. Obama rejects Congressional Black Caucus criticism
President Obama said today it would be wrong for him to narrowly focus on the troubles blacks face in the recession, rejecting criticism from the Congressional Black Caucus that the government was ignoring the economic plight of minorities.
"I will tell you that I think the most important thing I can do for the African-American community is the same thing I can do for the American community, period, and that is get the economy going again and get people hiring again," the president told Richard Wolf of USA TODAY and Justin Hyde of the Detroit Free Press in an exclusive joint interview.
On Wednesday, 10 members of the black caucus -- of which Obama was a member when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois -- boycotted a key House committee vote on financial reform. The group said it would push harder for Congress and the White House to tackle problems including an unemployment rate for blacks of 15.7%, higher than the national rate of 10.2%
"We can no longer afford for our public policy to be defined by the worldview of Wall Street," members of the caucus said in a statement Wednesday. "Policy for the least of these must be integrated into everything that we do."
Obama said in today's interview, held ahead of this afternoon's White House summit on job creation, that he agreed with some of the goals the CBC had outlined such as making sure black-owned small businesses had access to credit. But he stressed that he needed to keep a broader view.
"I think it's a mistake to start thinking in terms of particular ethnic segments of the United States rather than to think that we are all in this together and we are all going to get out of this together," he said.
Rich and Justin will have more on their interview with the president in Friday's editions of USA TODAY and the Free Press, which are both owned by Gannett.
See this post for Obama's comments on the White House gate crashers.
Pres. Obama Gets an "F" from Black Agenda Report
Bruce A. Dixon at Black Agenda Report, a progressive “journal of African American political thought and action,” has graded the first 100 days of Barack Obama’s Presidency on 18 general issues…
1. Health Care Reform (9 points)
2. Creating New Jobs and Preserving Old Ones (5 points)
3. Fully Funding and Preserving Public Education (6 points)
4. War & Peace (9 points)
5. Transportation (5 points)
6. Caribbean and Latin America (4 points)
7. Obama’s Africa Policy; Our Brotherman and the Motherland (5 points)
8. Wall Street Bailout (6 points)
9. Debt and Foreclosure Crises (6 points)
10. Investigating Bush-era Crimes (5 points)
11. Criminalizing Immigration, Militarizing the Border (5 points)
12. Broadband For Everyone and a Just and Fair Media (5 points)
13. Environment (5 points)
14. Agricultural Policy, and Policy Toward Black Farmers (5 points)
15. Mass imprisonment (5 points)
16. Employee Free Choice Act (5 points)
17. Urban Policy (5 points)
18. Privatization of Government Agencies and Services (5 points)
Out of 100 possible points, 55 was considered passing.
Pres. Obama scored 22.5
This is so far down in the failing scores that the most appropriate letter-grade is probably… "F-"
Frustrated Congressional Black Caucus plays hardball with White House
The long-simmering family feud between the Congressional Black Caucus and the first African-American president burst into the open on Wednesday, with members boycotting a financial overhaul vote as a warning shot at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
The 43-member caucus — which included Illinois Sen. Barack Obama from 2004 to 2008 — has chafed against President Obama and his top aides since the Inauguration, complaining that the White House takes it for granted and plays favorites with conservative Blue Dog Democrats.
Ten CBC members decided to boycott the House Financial Services Committee vote en masse after a tumultuous morning meeting at the Capitol between Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel failed to yield a deal, according to people familiar with the meeting.
The bill passed easily, but Waters suggested the CBC’s 43 members could vote with the GOP to scuttle a variety of Democratic bills if Obama and Emanuel don’t address what she thinks is a lack of understanding of the CBC’s wide-ranging goals of reducing urban unemployment, home foreclosures and bank failures.
“I think that it is important for us to educate those people around [Obama],” Waters told reporters. “We’ve got to get his people educated and moving. We have not brought these issues to him personally — it is important first to educate those people around him so they understand.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), who recently accused Obama of bowing down to the GOP on health care reform, was more pointed, shouting “Yes!” when asked if he was disappointed with Obama’s level of attentiveness to African-Americans’ needs.
He added that he had an extensive list of issues with the president — a list he said was too long to disgorge in a hallway conversation with a reporter.
“There are those who choose not to speak about African-Americans or the working class,” Waters said. “We can no longer be in denial that certain sectors of our population, including the African-American community, are feeling the recession to a greater extent.”
Waters, a former CBC chairwoman and one of its most outspoken members, clashed often with Emanuel during his days in the House and has also had a rocky relationship with the president, according to staffers.
But the volatile Los Angeles Democrat isn’t the only CBC member to have run-ins with the equally combustible Emanuel.
For years, caucus members have complained that Emanuel worked against their interests by failing to appoint a sufficient number of blacks to senior staff positions when he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Many still believe Emanuel favors the conservative, mostly white Democrats he helped elect to battleground districts in the South, West and Midwest.
CBC members have long said they would rather deal with Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is black, but have been forced to negotiate with Emanuel, Obama’s point man in the House.
But, increasingly, the members’ grievances have focused on Obama himself.
In the lead-up to February’s stimulus vote, many caucus members grumbled that Obama buckled by allowing the GOP to strip out nearly $60 billion in aid to states to make way for an extension of the alternative minimum tax that will largely benefit the middle class.
CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) is still bothered by Obama’s selection of New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg as commerce secretary — an appointment that ended with Gregg’s voluntary withdrawal over ideological differences with the White House.
And many felt Obama waited too long — nearly two months into his term — to invite them to their first White House meeting.
Waters has been meeting with Emanuel and other officials for weeks with an a-la-carte list of programmatic demands, ranging from pumping more Troubled Asset Relief Program funding into troubled inner-city banks to steering Census Bureau advertising dollars to church newsletters to appointing minority members to a consumer protection commission.
Aides say Emanuel and his staff are aware of the need to address the concerns of predominantly black inner-city districts, which often have 20-plus percent rates of unemployment. “We share the concerns raised by CBC members about struggling minority communities, and that’s why we’ve engaged in a positive way to make progress on these issues,” said Obama spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki. “We have not been informed of the reasoning behind their decision not to vote on the bill, but we continue to think it is important to move financial reform forward to prevent future crises from damaging our economy and disrupting the lives of millions of Americans, including African-Americans.”
Even though no caucus members voted for it, the administration inserted several of the CBC initiatives into the financial overhaul package, including the expansion of the consumer commission and the addition of minority liaisons at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Treasury Department.
Until Wednesday, Waters and other CBC members had been reluctant to spell out their Obama wish list, with Financial Services Committee members refusing even to say why they skipped the vote.
The caucus released a2½-page handout to answer those questions on Wednesday, with an emphasis on addressing the economic problems of members’ districts, ranging from the crisis engulfing minority-owned auto dealerships and newspapers to the need for more-targeted foreclosure mitigation programs.
But Waters says the CBC’s point was a larger one — a statement that the group would “use our strength and our influence to better represent our communities.”
Sources: USA Today, Black Agenda Report, TPM, Politico, MSNBC, Morning Joe Show, AP, Congressional Black Caucus
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