Monday, May 6, 2013

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, 2/27/2013

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

11:15 A.M. EST

MR. CARNEY:  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen -- good morning still.  Thank you for being here.  As you can see, we have with us today the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.  You saw him probably over the weekend where he discussed the impacts of sequestration, if that takes place, on areas he oversees in education.  So I brought him here today -- we’ve asked him here today to elaborate on that, take your questions on that.

As we have in the past, with Secretaries LaHood and Napolitano, I’d ask that you direct your question towards him at the top.  Then, when we’re done with that portion of the briefing, we can allow the Secretary to leave and I’ll remain to take your questions on other issues.

We do have a fairly hard stop here, because the President will be speaking on Capitol Hill around 11:50 a.m., I think -- 11:45, 11:50.  So we’ll try to move through this expeditiously.

With that, I give you Secretary Duncan.

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  Thank you.  I’ll just say a couple things and I’m happy to take any questions you might have.  I wanted to just start by sort of saying how I spent most of the past couple days. 

On Thursday -- last Thursday, the Vice President and I traveled to Connecticut to talk about the issue of gun violence, to meet with many of the families from the Sandy Hook massacre, to meet with other family members who have lost their loved ones.  And a really moving, gut-wrenching, emotional day, with just extraordinary families.

On Friday, I traveled to New York City and went to an amazing high school -- you have to take a ferry to get there -- the Harbor School.  And it’s just a unique curriculum in which young people -- this idea of college and careers, rather than one versus the other.  Marine biology, restoration -- just amazing work that they’re doing.  And I think the kind of school we’d like to see be a model for the country.

And then, on Monday, I was with Alma Powell and America’s Promise, talking about the increase in high school graduation rates.  And clearly, we have a long, long way to go.  It’s still not high enough.  But to see the high school graduation rate going up, to see dropout rates going down -- a lot less children going to dropout factories.  What’s driving the increase in graduation rates is increases amongst the Hispanic and the African American population.  Really encouraging trends.  A long way to go.  Not declaring success. 

But that’s the kind of work I like to be talking to you guys about.  Those are the kinds of meaty, real substantive issues that I think we as a nation should be focused on.  But obviously that’s not why I’m here today.  I’m here to talk about sequester.  And what I will try and do is sort of walk quickly through the impact on our cradle-to-career agenda of sequester, and then open it up for any questions.

First, on the early childhood side -- and, as you know, we want to invest a lot more there, and we keep saying that’s the best investment we can make as a country if we’re serious about closing the opportunity gap -- getting our babies ready to enter kindergarten, to be successful.  On the early childhood side, a cut of about $400 million.  What that means concretely is as many as 70,000 children would lose access to Head Start slots this fall, and as many as 14,000 teachers who teach those children would lose those jobs.  And that money does not come from our department, it obviously comes from HHS.  But this is just trying to talk about what impacts kids.

On the K-12 side, as you guys know, the vast majority of our funding goes to two different situations.  And we always are funding at the federal level.  We’re the minority investor.  We’re usually 8 to 10 percent of school districts’ budgets; 80 to 90 percent is local.  But what we do is we help support the nation’s most vulnerable children.  So the two biggest pots there are Title I money, which is money for poor children -- children who live below the poverty line.  That total pot is $14.5 billion.  And then money for students with special needs  -- special education -- and that total pot is about $12 billion.

What these cuts would mean on Title I is $725 million would be cut, and as many as 10,000 teachers could lose their jobs -- teachers and teachers’ aides.  And on the special ed side, that’s $600 million, and about 7,200 teachers would lose their jobs.  And I’m happy to get into this in Q&A.  People say, what if you had more discretion?  What if you had more choice?  Those two pots together -- about $25 billion -- they dwarf anything else we do.  So the only choice I could make would be to hurt fewer poor children and help more special needs kids, or do the opposite.  There’s a no-win proposition there.  There’s no good answer.  There’s nothing I could do to come up with a smarter way to do this.  You’re hurting poor kids or hurting kids with special needs one way -- either way you go.

On the higher education side -- a cut of about $86 million.  And, again, the President has challenged us to try and lead the world in college graduation rates.  That cut would mean for the fall as many as 70,000 students would lose access to grants and to work-study opportunities.  And we know -- and I’m sure many of you are paying tuition -- college is very expensive today.  It’s something else we’re working on.  And if young people lose access to grants and lose access to work-study, my fear -- I don’t know any numbers yet -- but my fear is many of them would not be able to enroll in college, would not be able to go back.  And, again, do we want a less-educated workforce?  Do we want fewer people going to college in this country, or do we want more?  So real clear choices there.

All of those cuts I walked through -- the early childhood piece, the K-12 piece, the higher ed piece -- those are all cuts that would be hitting in the fall.  So there’s lots of churn now, lots of -- over the next month or two you’ll see lots of pink slips go out.  That starting is still really early on.  It’s usually March and April where that happens, but these are all things that would happen for the fall.

The one set of cuts that I think is very important that you understand that hits now, that hits March 1st, are those -- it’s what called for us “impact aid.”  And this is a special funding that we do for school districts that don’t have a large property tax base.  Again, most funding in this nation comes because of those local property tax payers.  There are two populations that don’t have a large property tax base.  One are around military bases, obviously.  And the other is on Native American reservations.  And so, again, these are clearly both children of military families, children from the Native American community who we need to be doing more for and not less.  And the cuts to those schools in those districts come to about $60 million; and those are cuts, to be very clear, that those districts have to make now before the end of the school year.  And obviously, I was a superintendent for seven and a half years -- all of this is really difficult.  I’ll get into that later. 

But if I was a superintendent in one of those school districts and had to make these cuts right now before the end of the school year -- what choice, what options, what good chances are we giving them?  I don’t know what they’d do.  I think the only thing they can probably do is to cut days out of the school year.  And I’m going to do a call with these superintendents tomorrow to try and get a sense for how they handle it.  But there’s no other way to reduce your costs over the next two to three months that I’m aware of.

Just to give you a couple of concrete examples:  Killeen in Texas -- Killeen Independent School District, home of Fort Hood -- 2,300 federally connected children; 18,000 military dependents -- they will lose about $2.6 million in impact aid funds.  Two more quick examples:  Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools in New Mexico -- 7,500 federally connected children, including 6,700 who live on Indian lands -- they will lose nearly $2 million in impact aid.  And the impact aid for them makes up 35 percent of the district’s total budget.  Again, normally, we’re the minority investor -- 8 to 10 percent.  In this district, we’re 35 percent.  So it’s not just the dollar amount; the percent of that cut is huge. 

The final one I’ll give you -- and we can give you lots of information if you want -- the Chinle Unified School District in Arizona, the cut would be about $1.2 million.  Impact aid funds make up about 61 percent of that district’s total current expenditures.

So while we're having this conversation about fewer teachers, fewer school days, less opportunities to go to Head Start, less ability to pay for college -- other nations, this is not how they’re looking to improve their education system.  This is not the conversation that's happening with our competitors in Singapore, in South Korea, in China, in India.

As the President talked about in the State of the Union, we actually want to invest much more in education.  We want a lot more children having a chance to have a high quality early childhood experience.  We want to make sure that we continue to drive up graduation rates, and make sure high school is relevant, and drive down dropout rates, and make sure all our young people are college and career ready.

Our “North Star” is the President’s 2020 goal to lead the world in college graduation rates.  And to do that, we need to make sure folks have access and that college is affordable.  So for us to be thinking about taking steps backwards in all of these areas because folks in Washington can't get their act together, and a level of dysfunction in Congress that it’s just  like unimaginable to me, I can't tell you how troubling that is to me and, frankly, how angry it makes me feel. 

As a nation, we're starting -- the economy is coming back a little bit.  In my world, graduation rates are up a little bit.  But again, we're nowhere near where we need to be.  We need to be building upon that momentum, not taking a step backwards.

And to do something that would have such an impact for children, for families, for schools, for communities, and ultimately for the economy, just makes no sense whatsoever.  And I just think the American people deserve something better.  Our nation’s children, students, deserve something better.  And I just desperately hope Congress can find a way to find some common ground to compromise.

I don't think people ever came to Washington with the idea of inflicting harm on their constituents, but that's exactly what might happen here.  And I just hope -- I know we're running out of time.  I'm always an optimist.  I just hope they can come together and figure out a way to do the right thing, and do it with a sense of urgency.

I'll stop there and take any questions you might have.

Q    Thank you.  Secretary Duncan, the impact aid cuts that you talked about, are those cuts that can be reversed if the sequester is resolved maybe not by Friday but at a later date?

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  I think we would be able to restore that money.  I should confirm that for you -- yes.  But again, they have to start making those cuts.  They don't have months to -- like these other -- the other cuts we're talking about are for the fall, so folks can think these are cuts -- this money has to come out of their budget over the next -- in the next three months.  So I think they will start making those cuts.  In fact, I know they’re going to start making those cuts as of next week.

MR. CARNEY:  Major.

Q    Did the school districts suffering the impact aid -- loss of aid -- convey to you that the only real option they have is to eliminate school days?  Have you had conversations with them specifically about that?

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  I have not.  I'm actually doing a conference call with all of them tomorrow, so I can come back with further information on that.  I'm just putting on my superintendent’s hat, and with whatever -- three months left in the school year and you have to take out a big part of your budget, most school districts, 80 percent of their budget is people.  And again, as you guys all know this, it’s not like we're coming at the sequester coming from flush times.  School districts have been hit really, really hard these past couple of years.

We saved about 300,000 jobs through the Recovery Act, which we were very, very proud to do, obviously with the President’s leadership and Congress’s support.  But as a nation, we'd lost about 300,000 teacher jobs.  That's what we netted out. 

So with a couple months to go, all you can do is, I think, cut salaries and cut days out.  Maybe there are more -- maybe there’s a more creative idea.  I’ll have a much better sense tomorrow.  But I can’t envision how you take out that percentage of your budget right now.

Q    So your sense is that this is one of the cuts that could be noticed almost immediately.

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  It will be noticed immediately.  The others are more for the fall.  This one is going to play out over the next two to three months.  And let me be clear -- the other cuts impact children and impact schools for the fall, but again, every school district, every superintendent worth their salt, every school board, they’re making their budgets now in the spring for the fall.  So the layoff notices are beginning to roll, but there will be a lot more of that in March and April.  Class sizes, afterschool programs, the amount of instability that this is being injected to already a very, very difficult job.  And the one thing I always wanted as a superintendent, I just wanted to have predictability.  I just wanted to know what my assets were and let me figure out how to do that. 

But we’re going to force these leaders -- they have no choice but to start cutting people, cutting afterschool programs, cutting days out of the school year.  They have to start to put all those plans into effect now.  They’re planning for the fall.  It’s not like they can wait until August 31st to plan for the opening of school.  That’s not how the world works. 

And so it’s important for you guys to understand the magnitude of the uncertainty that Congress has now put upon educational leaders at every level -- early childhood, K-12, higher ed -- around the country.

MR. CARNEY:  Ed.

Q    Sir, can you just talk about -- I get the big picture.  You’re saying the magnitude of it, it’s a series of bad choices.  But the Republicans continue to claim on the Hill that -- you’ve heard this -- that you have legal flexibility, individual Secretaries, different accounts -- PPAs or broader budget accounts, that you could move money around.  Have you consulted with your lawyers at the Education Department?  Can you flatly say that’s not true?

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  Well, first of all, it’s not true.  Second of all, again, I’m trying to be very clear:  If I had that flexibility -- you guys help me, I’m not the smartest guy in the room -- but $25 billion, the huge share of our money are to two funding sources -- children who live below the poverty line and children who have special needs.  And, obviously -- so if you want me to shift, I can shift one way -- if I had the flexibility, I could shift one way or the other.  There’s no win there.  There’s no upside there.  There’s nowhere to go. 

And, obviously, these kids aren’t -- the money may go away, all these kids are coming back to school this fall.  These kids aren’t going -- we’re not going to have less children in poverty.  We’re not going to have less children with special needs.  And so to act like there’s some magical thing that I could do or a superintendent or a principal could do.  Kids are going to get hurt.  Kids are going to get hurt.  That’s just the reality.

MR. CARNEY:  Peter.

Q    Secretary Duncan, if you can help explain -- for years in Chicago and now here in Washington D.C. of overseeing the education systems, you know how to communicate to young people.  There are a lot of young people and their families around this country that are confused by the fact that the President as well as the congressional leaders are not going to meet for the first time on the issue of sequester until Friday, after it’s already gone into effect.  In your classrooms around the country, if there’s a fight between sides, they meet in the middle of the classroom and they come to some resolution on this.  How do you explain to them the fact there is no conversation taking place face to face between these two sides until after the cuts that damage them so badly take effect?

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  Well, my sense is actually there’s been lots of conversations back and forth -- principals, staff -- for a long time.  I think the President has laid out a plan.  And, as you guys, again, know better than I, that plan takes on some of his own interests in a pretty significant way.  And Congress I think is like parents -- you have to compromise.  You have to find common ground.  And if folks just refuse to, by definition -- any compromise, no one is going to be perfectly happy.  I negotiated union contracts -- there’s no perfect contract.  No one is ever entirely happy, but you have to come to the middle. 

And my sense, my strong sense is there’s been numerous, numerous ongoing conversations at multiple levels, but at the end of the day, if there’s this one way to do it and there’s not a sense that everybody has got to take on their own base a little bit to find a common ground and make some tough choices, I don’t see how this gets done. 

Again, what’s so infuriating to me is this is not rocket science.  We should be spending our time and energy thinking about how we reduce gun violence.  We’re losing a lot of children -- a lot of children back home in Chicago due to gun violence.  I want Congress thinking about those issues.  I want them thinking about how we increase graduation rates.  They could get this done in the next hour.  They could have gotten in done three months ago.  Intellectually, this is not hard.  It’s just finding the courage.  It takes a little courage to go to the middle, to compromise, and to have both sides take on some of their base, which I think is the only way you move this forward.

Q    Because there’s only so much political capital that any member of any administration has right now, do you believe that the sequester -- and if this does go through and the capital being spent to help find resolution for that -- is having a detrimental effect on your ability to find resolutions in terms of gun control and other issues that affect kids in your districts?

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  I think there are so many bigger -- take on reducing gun violence; take on making sure our 3- and 4-year-olds are entering kindergarten ready to be successful; take on a dropout rate that is going down but is still wildly too high; take on that we used to lead the world in college graduation rates and today we’re like 11th, and then we wonder why jobs are going to other places.  All of these are hard, meaty, complex, substantive issues.  That’s where I’d like our collective brainpower, political will -- that’s where I’d like all of us thinking about all of these pieces.

And, again, for me it’s not just about education -- we’re fighting for our country here.  We have to educate our way to a better economy.  That’s the only way we’re going to go there.  And so the fact that we are not spending time on those issues, the fact that I’m here talking to you about this silly stuff, and the fact that we may actually take a step backwards educationally at every level -- early childhood, K-12, higher ed -- is mindboggling to me.  I mean, it’s inconceivable to me that this might actually happen.

MR. CARNEY:  Zach.

Q    Secretary Duncan, you mentioned that school districts are already issuing pink slips to teachers.  Can you tell us where that’s happening?

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  It’s still early.  As most haven’t happened yet, it really has to do with union notification, so most of that stuff will start to happen over the course of March and April.  There are a couple districts -- one I know of in West Virginia that has actually already issued notices, but it’s just because they have an earlier notification date.  And to be clear, the vast majority of this is going to happen April, May, -- sorry, March and April, some into May.  And it just sort of has to do with each local district, what their notification system is.

But the numbers -- we think the aggregate number of potential layoffs is as many -- again, this is early childhood and K-12 -- we think it’s as many as 40,000 people will lose jobs.  And, again, the only other way you don’t do that, again, I think is you would reduce school days.  You could go to three-day weeks or four.  Again, you have people and time -- those are your only variable factors, and unfortunately, everything else is gone.  So, still early, but you’ll see, unfortunately, across the country a steady drumbeat of these notifications going out, which folks have a legal obligation to do.  And the exception to that, again, would be these impact aid districts where they’re going to start to do something next week.

Q    But you’re confident that teachers are already getting pink slips, as you said?

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  Yes.  I mean, I know of -- yes, there’s a district where it’s happened.  But again, it’s just because they have an earlier union notification than most -- so Kanawha County in West Virginia.  But the vast majority of them will be rolling out over the next two months.

MR. CARNEY:  Chris, and we’ll let the Secretary go.

Q    Mr. Secretary --

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  And then, sorry, quickly -- in that district, to be clear, it’s Title I teachers and Head Start teachers.  So it’s these funding sources that are going to get cut.  Whether it’s all sequester related, I don’t know.  But these are teachers who are getting pink slips now.

Q    Mr. Secretary, the issue of bullying has gotten attention of the administration in the past few years.  I’m just wondering if you could talk about how the sequester would impact those efforts.

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  So, again, as a broader -- I just think we need a lot more time, we need more afterschool programs, we need more extracurriculars, we need more resources.  I mean, it’s so ironic -- we’re not even having that conversation today, it’s all about going in the opposite direction.  So creating safe communities, creating climates in which children live free of fear, thinking about what we’re doing in the curriculum, afterschool clubs -- all the things we should be doing whether it’s around reducing bullying, or whether it’s around the arts or robotics, or whatever it might be, we’re not even having that conversation, which is, again, crazy to me.  But that’s not the world that most of these folks are living in right now.  So there’s no upside.  There’s no upside.

MR. CARNEY:  Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.  I appreciate it.

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  Thank you.

MR. CARNEY:  We’ve got to get these guys out to hear the President speak.

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  Thanks, guys.

MR. CARNEY:  With that, we’ve got a little time for some more questions.  I’ll go back to the AP -- Julie.

Q    Thank you.  Is the fact that this meeting with lawmakers and the President -- the fact that it’s happening on Friday basically a concession that the sequester is going to take effect?

MR. CARNEY:  I think you are aware that the President spoke with leaders last week.  I think he may have had a conversation with them up on the Hill earlier -- just a little while ago, prior to the President’s remarks at the Rose Parks statue dedication -- a brief one.

Q    But the same ones that he’s talking to on Friday?   

MR. CARNEY:  I believe that’s true.  This is not a meeting, but he is obviously up there with those leaders and it’s my understanding he had a brief conversation with them in anticipation of the meeting Friday.  The President did invite the four leaders to the White House for Friday, where he hopes that they will have a constructive discussion about doing something to prevent sequestration from causing the kinds of impacts that Secretary Duncan just described to you.

The fact of the matter is, as I think Secretary Duncan said, and I and others have said, compromise here in Washington can usually be measured by a willingness of one leader to put forward proposals that demonstrate tough choices by his side, or her side. 

What we have not seen from the Republicans is anything like the willingness to compromise inherent in the proposals that the President has put forward.  We’ve talked at length about the President’s offer to Speaker Boehner and how it includes not just additional revenues through tax reform -- revenues that are achieved in the same way Speaker Boehner said he would achieve them -- but spending cuts through entitlement reform, including the so-called superlative CPI and other measures.  That demonstrates tough choices.  It demonstrates a willingness to compromise. 

What we haven’t seen, when we hear Republican leaders adamantly refuse to consider revenue as part of deficit reduction, is anything like that same spirit of compromise or seriousness of purpose that I think you’ve seen demonstrated by the President and Democratic leaders.

Q    But I just want to be clear, we’re now talking about ways to prevent the sequester from having sort of the broad effects that we’re talking about through Secretary Duncan and others, not talking about --

MR. CARNEY:  We’re talking about how we buy down the --

Q    --  ways to prevent it from going into effect at all, though?

MR. CARNEY:  Well, obviously, the Senate will vote on proposals, or at least one proposal, that would eliminate -- or rather postpone the deadline for the sequester -- a balanced proposal that the President supports; a balanced proposal that a majority of the Senate will support.  Unfortunately, a proposal that, while earning a majority vote, is likely to be blocked by Republican leaders, who will thereby be making the choice that we should let the sequester go into effect rather than ask that some special interest tax breaks be eliminated; that we should have these kids who are affected by the program Secretary Duncan discussed, the ones that -- military family kids and children on Native American reservations -- that they will be suffering because of this decision that Republicans will make, a minority in the Senate -- a decision they will make to block a majority-supported resolution that would avert the sequester in a balanced way.  Hopefully, that won’t come to pass, but certainly based on what we’ve seen from Republican leaders thus far, that is a more likely outcome.

But as I said yesterday, we remain hopeful that at some point, hopefully soon, that Republicans will understand the need to compromise here, and that compromise has balance at its essence.  That’s what the American people want.  That’s what Republicans -- a majority of Republicans in the country say they want.  So the President looks forward to a conversation, when he has this meeting, that is constructive and that includes suggestions by leaders about how we can move forward towards the kind of balanced deficit reduction that this is all about. 

When the sequester was passed into law with overwhelming votes by Republicans, back in the summer of 2011, the idea was that it would never become policy because Congress would be forced and compelled to compromise, to come up with $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction -- not spending cuts alone -- in additional deficit reduction.  And from the day that passed, the President has been talking about the need for balance in our deficit reduction.  That has been his approach all along.  It has been an approach that he discussed about in the campaign.  It is an approach that the American people support.  And it’s the best economic approach for all the reasons that I think you heard Secretary Duncan speak about.

Q    I was curious, earlier this week, in advance of these cuts, ICE announced that it released a number of detainees across the country to get ready for sequestration.  Was the White House aware of this release?  And are you confident that not one of these detainees is a threat to his or her community?

MR. CARNEY:  This was a decision made by career officials at ICE, without any input from the White House, as a result of fiscal uncertainty over the continuing resolution, as well as possible sequester.  As ICE made clear yesterday, the agency released these low-risk, non-criminal detainees under a less expensive form of monitoring to ensure detention levels stayed within ICE’s overall budget.  All of these individuals remain in removal proceedings.  Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety.  This step affected a few hundred detainees, as you know, out of the over 30,000 currently in ICE detention. 

I think it’s worth noting what Secretary Napolitano said the other day, which is that we have made enormous progress in securing our border.  We have doubled the presence of border security agents along the Southwest border since 2004, and many, including Republicans in Congress, have noted the progress that has been made.

Much as Secretary Duncan discussed here, instead of talking about taking a step backward in our efforts to improve education in America -- since we have made progress in those efforts -- we should be talking about moving forward.  And when it comes to border security, I think Secretary Napolitano made clear that we should be building on the progress we've made, but unfortunately, we're talking about sequestration and --

Q    But she didn’t mention that this might be necessary as part of sequestration.

MR. CARNEY:  I think she talked very explicitly about the direct --

Q    About releasing detainees?

MR. CARNEY:  Well, about the direct impact that the budget conflicts that we have here with Congress and sequestration, as well as the upcoming continuing resolution expiration, that they have on her budget and other budgets, and the decisions that have to be made because of that.  But I would refer you for details on these specific decisions to ICE, because this was a decision made by career officials at ICE.

Q    Right, and you said without --

MR. CARNEY:  Without any input from the White House.

Q    From the White House.

MR. CARNEY:  That's correct.

Q    But let me just ask you -- as you mentioned and ICE mentioned, it says in their statement that many of these detainees are in the process of removal proceedings.  How are you supposed to bring them back in if they’ve been released?

MR. CARNEY:  Well, no, I think you're misunderstanding what ICE has said.  They continue in the program under a less expensive form of monitoring to ensure that detention levels, actual detentions, stay within ICE’s overall budget.  But they remain in the process for deportation.

Q    But it’s possible that some of them might not be brought back in?

MR. CARNEY:  Well, again, I would refer you to ICE.  I don't think this is a conversation that I can help you with in the specifics.

I think I said Steve next.

Q    Jay, are you expecting any movement at this Friday meeting?

MR. CARNEY:  Well, we hope that Republican leaders will begin to respond to the will of the American people, that they will begin to respond to some of the concerns expressed by some members of Congress in the Republican Party about the folly that allowing sequestration go into effect would represent. 

Whether it’s in Norfolk, Virginia, or Newport News, Virginia, or in some of the districts that Secretary Duncan discussed, or on the Southwest border, the impacts of sequester will be onerous and severe.  That was, after all, the purpose of designing this piece of legislation, because the sheer nature of sequester, the fact that it was so onerous, or supposed to be, for both sides was supposed to compel Congress to come together and compromise.

Q    But you're not sensing any movement?

MR. CARNEY:  Well, I think that we remain hopeful that congressional leaders, Republicans will understand the need to come together and support balance.  Again, the choice that Republicans would be making if they don't agree to that is a choice between up to 750,000 people losing their jobs, on the one hand, and asking that some special interest tax loopholes be closed on the other.  I don't think that's a choice that seems like a hard one to most Americans.  Unfortunately, it seems like a difficult one for Republicans.

Q    And Jay, secondly, is the United States preparing to offer direct military assistance to the Syrian rebels, or any sort of assistance at all, as Secretary Kerry prepares to meet with the Syrian opposition?

MR. CARNEY:  I can tell you that we are constantly reviewing the nature of the assistance we provide to both the Syrian people in the form of humanitarian assistance and to the Syrian opposition in the form of non-lethal assistance, which, as you know, we have provided.  President Obama is committed to helping accelerate a political transition in Syria to a democratic and inclusive post-Assad government that protects the rights of all its citizens. 

We are focusing our efforts on helping the opposition become stronger, more cohesive, and more organized.  As part of this effort, we will continue to analyze every feasible option that would accelerate a political transition to a post-Assad Syria.

Secretary Kerry, as you know, will be participating in a Friends of the Syrian People ministerial meeting in Rome tomorrow, and he will discuss with the Syrian Opposition Coalition leaders how the United States and our international partners can do more to help the Syrian people achieve this transition.  Vice President Biden conveyed this to Coalition President al-Khatib when they spoke earlier this week. 

We will continue to provide assistance to the Syrian people, to the Syrian opposition.  We will continue to increase our assistance in the effort to bring about a post-Assad Syria and a better path forward for the Syrian people.

Q    Jay, when did the President reach out to the congressional leaders to request this meeting?

MR. CARNEY:  I believe yesterday or the day before.  I'm not sure.  Probably yesterday.

Q    And given that McConnell today has put out a statement looking forward to the meeting, saying that the one thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to, just let me ask you:  Is there any chance of an agreement with the Republicans if they stick to this insistence of absolutely no tax increases?  Is there any chance of an agreement on those terms?

MR. CARNEY:  There is no alternative in the President's mind to balance, because what you are asking and what Senator McConnell is saying is that senior citizens, middle-class Americans, parents trying to send their kids to college, parents trying to care for disabled children should bear all the burden of continued deficit reduction while the wealthiest individuals and large corporations who enjoy tax breaks that nobody else gets are held harmless.  That is an unacceptable choice. 

And where Senator McConnell I think has it wrong is his analysis of what the American people want -- because poll after poll after poll make clear that a vast majority of the American people believe that we need to go about this in a balanced way; that everybody ought to pay their fair share, everybody ought to carry a portion of the burden so that no sector of society is unduly burdened by the effort, which should be an effort that we engage in together to reduce our deficit in a responsible way that allows the economy to grow and create jobs.  I think the data on this is overwhelming, so perhaps Senator McConnell might want to check it out.

Q    So just to be perfectly clear, unless the Republicans compromise on taxes, there is no undoing these cuts?

MR. CARNEY:  You're right that it is absolutely clear that we cannot compromise with Republicans if Republicans refuse to compromise.  There is no question.  We remain hopeful, however, that not because the President says it should be this way or that Democratic leaders say it should be this way, but because the American people are insisting that it be this way -- the Republicans come around to the notion that further deficit reduction can and must be achieved in a balanced way.  We've done that thus far.  It hasn't been pretty.  It's often been harrowing, unnecessarily so, through a series of manufactured crises.

But the fact of the matter is the President has signed into law $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction.  More than two-thirds of that has come in spending cuts.  We have now the lowest level of discretionary spending, nondefense discretionary spending, in our budget as we've seen since Dwight Eisenhower was President. 

The President has put forward -- President Obama has put forward in an offer to Speaker Boehner additional deficit reduction that would bring us beyond the goal of $4 trillion that includes further balance, but also has that balance tilted significantly in favor of spending cuts.  His proposal also includes tough choices for Democrats on the issue of entitlement savings. 

That's the kind of compromise the American people expect their leaders to embrace -- not the “my way or the highway,” “no way am I changing my position even though the American people are widely against it.”  That’s on the approach that we think people expect.

Last question -- Major.

Q    Can you just explain to the American public what might seem to them a bizarre scheduling sequence here?  That the meeting occurs after the sequester begins.  It’s not before.

MR. CARNEY:  The sequester begins I believe midnight on the 1st of March.  So --

Q    Right, but it happens after.  

MR. CARNEY:  Well, actually it happens before, because it happens midnight --

Q    But the meeting happens after these things begin.

MR. CARNEY:  No.  It begins midnight, March 1st -- so the meeting happens before. 

Q    It doesn't -- you’re talking about 11:59 p.m. Friday night?

Q    The Hill says it happens at 12:01 --

Q    Thursday going into Friday.

MR. CARNEY:  My understanding is it happens at midnight on Friday, 11:59 p.m. 

Q    Okay, it's very close, if it's not before. 

MR. CARNEY:  The President spoke with leaders last week.  And there have been discussions with --

Q    And it sounds like this is not a negotiation.  You're asking Republicans to come here to surrender.

MR. CARNEY:  No.  We're asking Republicans to compromise in the same way that the President has compromised, Major.  As I just said, what represents compromise by Democrats?  A willingness to go along with spending cuts that they don't necessarily want to see, a willingness to go along with entitlement reforms that they don't necessarily prefer?  I think the answer you would have to that is yes.  I think that's the answer that we all recognize here is a reality in Washington.  That's what the President has put forward.  He has put forward budget deficit reduction proposals that represent significantly greater deficit reduction through spending cuts and entitlement savings than through revenues.  But he insists on balance.

Q    Why not today instead of Friday?

MR. CARNEY:  First of all, the President will be meeting with them Friday.  He spoke with them last week.  He spoke with them today on Capitol Hill.  The Senate has still yet to vote -- hopefully, will vote tomorrow on a proposal that achieves the kind of postponement of the sequester deadline that would allow Congress to move forward on balanced deficit reduction in a sensible, no drama fashion that would avoid these unnecessary impacts across the economy and the country.  And hopefully, Republicans will change their minds about filibustering that, they will allow a majority of the Senate to pass a bill that would achieve that delay in a balanced way, move it to the House and perhaps -- again, hope springs eternal -- the Speaker of the House would allow that to come to a vote. 

Because I think there's a very good chance that there's a majority in the House of Representatives that would support a simple proposition, which is that we can postpone the deadline for the sequester in a balanced way just as Congress did in bipartisan fashion just two months ago.  Why not do that, and then let Congress go about the business of working on further deficit reduction?  We certainly hope they do. 

Thanks, guys.

Q    Just to be clear, how long was the meeting today?

MR. CARNEY:  It was a very brief meeting.  They just talked behind -- before the event.

Q    It was only seven minutes from when he got there to --

MR. CARNEY:  Again, it was a very -- a short meeting.  They were all together and, as you would expect, they had a short discussion.

Q    Will the administration reach something on the Prop 8 case?

MR. CARNEY:  I don't have anything for you on that.

END
11:53 A.M. EST

Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts

Rosa Parks has a Permanent Place in the U.S. Capitol

President Obama is on hand for the unveiling of the new Rosa Parks statue in the U.S. Capitol

February 27, 2013 12:00 PM EST

To mark African American History Month, as well as the 150th anniversary of the year the Emancipation Proclamation, we talked with White House Curator Bill Allman about a painting called Watch Meeting--Dec. 31st 1862--Waiting for the Hour that hangs near the Oval Office in the West Wing.

President Obama Calls for a Responsible Approach to Deficit Reduction

President Obama strongly believes we need to replace the arbitrary cuts known as the sequester with balanced deficit reduction, and today he was at a shipyard in Newport News, VA to talk about what failing to do so will mean for middle class families.

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Obamacare Is Raising Healthcare Costs, Not Lowering Them

No one really knows how much Obamacare is going to cost the American government or the American people. All we really know for certain, something that a number of public and private econometric studies have backed up, is that it will be more expensive than the president led us to believe it would be.

There are efforts underway to establish the true costs, or at least to help the American people understand what the out-of-pockets expense will be for them. In early February the House Ways and Means Committee started a website, Obamacare Burden Tracker  as a real-time resource to "help the public keep track of all of the new government mandates, rules, and red tape" resulting from the new healthcare law.

They're not the only ones. A group called SHOUTAmerica, a nonprofit group founded to "educate young Americans about healthcare and serve as a resource so that all are better equipped to navigate the system and the challenges it faces" has created Young Americans for Affordable Healthcare, a web-based group intended to help younger workers understand what the costs of Obamacare are to them.

[See a collection of political cartoons on healthcare.]

The principle feature of the Young Americans site is a calculator allowing users to plug in a few simple numbers like age and zip code and come up with an estimated change in their health insurance costs for 2014. The data it uses comes from the well-respected firm Oliver Wyman, a leading international management consulting firm that is part of Marsh and McLennan.

The numbers take into into account the federal subsidies available to purchase health insurance coverage based upon income, Medicaid eligibility, taxes and fees, new age rating rules and other insurance market reforms, essential health benefits, the transitional reinsurance program, and other factors that will have an impact on premiums under the terms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

While the calculator uses national averages, meaning actual results may be slightly different from those shown, it nonetheless is a useful tool for developing a clear understanding of just what Obamacare will do to the costs of insurance for those, especially young workers, who are not part of a group plan and are buying insurance individually. And the picture is not a pretty one.

[Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Congress Repeal the Affordable Care Act?]

The idea behind Obamacare was that it was supposed to bend the healthcare cost curve downward while allowing people to keep the doctors and insurance they already had. It was sold to the American people as a salve for rising costs that would help those who did not have insurance while inconveniencing hardly at all those who did. The reality as we already know it to be is starkly different. Costs are projected to go up, the number of people who have already lost their insurance has risen precipitously, and states are already beginning to warn they are facing a shortage of qualified doctors and other medical personnel and may not be able to keep up with future demand.

To put it simply, the American people were sold a pig in a poke. If "repeal and replace" is no longer an option—and let us hope that is not at all the case—then Congress must take the lead on reforming the mess as it considers how to fund the implementation of the new law over the next two years.


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Fed Chairman: Unemployment To Remain Above 6 Percent For Three More Years

Unemployment is likely to remain above 6 percent for at least three more years, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said during testimony in front of the House Financial Services Committee today. Responding to questions from Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Bernanke said a “reasonable guess” for when unemployment will finally come down to 6 percent is 2016:

FITZPATRICK: The Fed has indicated it believes long-term unemployment rates will settle at around 5.2 percent or 6 percent.

BERNANKE: That’s our best guess.

FITZPATRICK: An understanding I heard your testimony earlier about predicting the future. When would you say we might get to around 6 percent? And also, the American people, they believe natural unemployment is actually much lower than that given what we experienced in the 1990s. Maybe your suggestion as to how we address that expectation.

BERNANKE: Again, it’s hard to predict. But a reasonable guess for 6 percent would be around 2016.

Watch it:

That unemployment remains high and will continue to do so for at least three more years would seem yet another argument against sequestration, the automatic budget cuts that will begin taking effect Friday. Indeed, Bernanke was outspoken in his opposition to further fiscal contraction during his testimony, repeatedly saying the budget cuts could damage the economic recovery and that the Federal Reserve, which has been acting to stimulate the economy through monetary means for months, could use help from Congress.

Instead of offering that help, Congress remains focused on deficit reduction, even as evidence mounts that the only spending problem America has right now is that the government isn’t spending enough. But Republicans have repeatedly blocked efforts to further stimulate the economy, choosing instead to push spending cuts that have held back the recovery. The looming round of cuts will only make that worse: the Congressional Budget Office projects that sequestration will knock 0.6 percentage point off economic growth while resulting in the loss of more than 700,000 jobs.


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Indiana GOP Moves Closer To Mandating Invasive Ultrasounds For Women Taking The Abortion Pill

The Indiana senate advanced a measure on Tuesday to require all women to undergo an unnecessary, and potentially invasive, ultrasound procedure before taking the RU-486 abortion pill.

The original version of the bill actually mandated two tranvaginal ultrasounds — before and after women took the pill. Yesterday, before the Senate vote, GOP lawmakers agreed to remove the second ultrasound requirement to ensure the legislation’s passage. Their efforts were successful. Despite bipartisan opposition as four Republican state senators broke from the rest of their party to oppose SB 371, the measure will now advance to the GOP-controlled House:

The bill passed on a 33-16 vote despite a chorus of complaints from opponents who said it’s a step too far into doctors’’offices without improving their patients’ health.

“This bill is not about patient safety. It’s about patient harassment,” said Sen. Vaneta Becker of Evansville, who was one of only four of the Senate’s 37 Republicans to join the 12 Democrats who opposed the bill.

Now, Senate Bill 371 heads to the House, where Republican Speaker Brian Bosma of Indianapolis said he expects it to win passage as well — perhaps after some changes.

And this legislation has another anti-choice provision tucked into it, too. SB 371 also seeks to over-regulate abortion providers — requiring health clinics that prescribe the abortion pill to adhere to all of the same standards as surgical clinics, even though medication abortions are not surgical procedures — which threatens to shut down a Planned Parenthood clinic in the state.

“This bill is directly targeted to Planned Parenthood in Lafayette,” state Sen. Becker (R) pointed out in the debate on the floor. “When you do this, you’re not doing anything that will improve the health and safety of low-income women in the state of Indiana. All you’re doing is forcing them to go other ways — in particular, to the Internet — to get this same particular drug that you’re talking about regulating.”


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President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

• Jannette L. Dates – Member, Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Geoffrey R. Pyatt - Ambassador to Ukraine, Department of State

President Obama also announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:

• Teresa Isabel Leger – Member, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
• Stephen L. Mayo – Member, National Science Board, National Science Foundation

President Obama said, “These dedicated and accomplished individuals will be valued additions to my Administration as we tackle the important challenges facing America. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Dr. Jannette L. Dates, Nominee for Member, Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Dr. Jannette L. Dates was Dean of the Howard University School of Communications from 1993 to 2012.  Previously, she served as Associate Dean from 1987 to 1993, having first joined the University as an Assistant Professor in 1981.  From 1993 to 1998, she was a guest speaker on the National Public Radio shows, All Things Considered and On the Media.  From 1992 to 1993, she was a Freedom Forum Media Studies Center Fellow at Columbia University, and from 1979 to 1989, she was a panelist on Square Off.  Dr. Dates was an anchor and executive producer for the series The Negro in U.S. History from 1973 to 1974, and co-anchor on the weekly radio program North Star from 1972 to 1973.  She served as a member of the Baltimore Mayor’s Cable Communication Commission from 1988 to 1994. Dr. Dates received a B.S. from Coppin State College, an M.Ed. from the Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Geoffrey R. Pyatt, Nominee for Ambassador to Ukraine, Department of State
Geoffrey R. Pyatt, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, serves as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.  From 2007 to 2010, he was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency and International Organizations in Vienna.  Prior to that, from 2002 to 2007, Mr. Pyatt served at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, first as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs and then as Deputy Chief of Mission.  Before his assignment in New Delhi, Mr. Pyatt was an Economic Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong from 1999 to 2002 and a Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan from 1997 to 1999.  In Washington, his assignments included Director for Latin America on the National Security Council staff (1996-1997) and Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State (1995-1996).  Mr. Pyatt received a B.A. from the University of California, Irvine and an M.A. from Yale University.

President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:

Teresa Isabel Leger, Appointee for Member, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
Teresa Isabel Leger is a partner at Nordhaus Law Firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she has worked since 1989. Ms. Leger also serves as General Counsel to several Native American Tribes, including the Pueblos of Laguna, Santa Ana, and Santo Domingo.  Previously, she clerked for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California from 1987 to 1989.  She is a member of the Historic Marker Selection Committee of the New Mexico International Women’s Forum Chapter, and is President of Homewise.  Ms. Leger has served on the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession, Vice Chair of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and was a White House Fellow in 1995.  She received a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Dr. Stephen L. Mayo, Appointee for Member, National Science Board, National Science Foundation
Dr. Stephen L. Mayo is Chair of the Division of Biology and Bren Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).  He has been a member of the Caltech faculty since 1992, and in 2012, he was named the William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation Division Chair.  He served as Caltech’s Vice Provost for Research from 2007 to 2010.  He has served on the Board of Directors for the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2010.  He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004 and awarded the Johnson Foundation Prize for Innovative Research in Structural Biology in 1997.  Dr. Mayo received a B.S. from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. from Caltech.

Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts

Rosa Parks has a Permanent Place in the U.S. Capitol

President Obama is on hand for the unveiling of the new Rosa Parks statue in the U.S. Capitol

February 27, 2013 12:00 PM EST

To mark African American History Month, as well as the 150th anniversary of the year the Emancipation Proclamation, we talked with White House Curator Bill Allman about a painting called Watch Meeting--Dec. 31st 1862--Waiting for the Hour that hangs near the Oval Office in the West Wing.

President Obama Calls for a Responsible Approach to Deficit Reduction

President Obama strongly believes we need to replace the arbitrary cuts known as the sequester with balanced deficit reduction, and today he was at a shipyard in Newport News, VA to talk about what failing to do so will mean for middle class families.

view all related blog posts

View the original article here

UPDATE 1-FDA halts trials of Amgen drug in children, cites death

* FDA does not know if Sensipar had role in patient death

* Drug approved for adults to remove calcium from blood

Feb 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it has stopped all pediatric clinical trials of Amgen Inc's Sensipar after the death of a 14-year-old patient taking part in a study of the drug.

Sensipar, which is approved for adults, is used to lower dangerously high calcium levels in the blood.

The agency said it was collecting information on the circumstances of the teenager's death. It said it does not know if the Amgen drug had any role in the death.

"This communication is intended to inform health care professionals that we are evaluating the information and will communicate our final conclusions and recommendations when our review is complete," the FDA said in a statement posted on its website.

Amgen, the world's largest biotechnology company, said it had sent a letter last week to healthcare providers alerting them to the trials' halt and the patient death.

"Amgen is working as rapidly as possible to understand the circumstances of what happened. This analysis is ongoing and will be concluded as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement.

Sensipar works by decreasing the release of parathyroid hormone from the parathyroid gland to lower calcium levels in the blood. High levels of calcium in the blood can lead to serious health problems.

Sensipar, which had worldwide sales of $950 million in 2012, is approved to treat adults 18 and over. The trials were being conducted to determine the safety and efficacy of the drug in younger patients.

Drugmakers also often conduct pediatric trials because they are rewarded with an additional six months of patent protection for testing medicines in children.


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STUDY: Same-Sex Parents Are Prevalent, Ethnically Diverse, And Struggling Economically

A new report from the Williams Institute paints a compelling picture of the nation’s same-sex couples, as well as the LGBT people in general who have had children. Not only are they particular prevalent, but they are also ethnically diverse. Unfortunately, many are struggling economically, contrary to stereotype.

Here are some of the compelling new data points:

Over a third (37 percent) of LGBT-identified adults have had a child at some time in their lives.An estimated 3 million LGBT Americans have had a child and as many as 6 million Americans have an LGBT parent.Nearly half (48 percent) of all LGBT female couples and 20 percent of LGBT male couples under the age of 50 are raising children.More than 125,000 same-sex couple households (19 percent) are raising over 220,000 children under the age of 18.Same-sex couples who consider themselves to be spouses are twice as likely (31 percent) to be raising children compared to unmarried same-sex partners (14 percent).Same-sex couples are four times more likely to be raising adopted children compared to opposite-sex couples, raising more than 22,000 adopted children.About 39 percent of individuals in same-sex couples raising children are people of color (compared to 36 percent among opposite-sex couples).Half of all children living with same-sex couples are non-White (compared to 41 percent among opposite-sex couples.)Single LGBT adults raising children are three times more likely than similar non-LGBT people to report household incomes near the poverty threshold.Same-sex couples living in two-adult households with children are twice as likely to report household incomes near the poverty threshold compared to similar non-LGBT people.The median annual household income of same-sex couples with children is significantly lower than that of similar opposite-sex couples ($63,900 versus $74,000, respectively).

These results actually confirm that what conservatives claim about marriage applies to same-sex couples equally. Marriage is an important framework with key economic benefits that specifically support children. With helpful research like this made available, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for opponents of LGBT equality to claim that same-sex families are not already a significant reality.


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BRIEF-Aveo says FDA to review tivozanib for treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma

Feb 27 (Reuters) - Aveo Pharmaceuticals Inc :

* Aveo and Astellas announce FDA advisory committee to review tivozanib for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma

* Says FDA review of tivozanib NDA is expected to be complete by July 28, 2013

* U.S. FDA's oncologic drugs advisory committee will review NDA for tivozanib on may 2, 2013

* Source text * Further company coverage

((Bangalore Newsroom; +1 646 223 8780))


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