Statement from the President on the Confirmation of John Brennan as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

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For Immediate Release March 07, 2013 Statement from the President on the Confirmation of John Brennan as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

With the bipartisan confirmation of John Brennan as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Senate has recognized in John the qualities I value so much—his determination to keep America safe, his commitment to working with Congress,  his ability to build relationships with foreign partners, and his fidelity to the values that define us as a nation.   

With John’s 25 years of experience at the Agency, our extraordinary men and women of the CIA will be led by one of their own.  I am especially appreciative to Michael Morell for being such an outstanding Acting Director and for agreeing to continue his service as Deputy Director.  

Timely, accurate intelligence is absolutely critical to disrupting terrorist attacks, dismantling al Qaeda and its affiliates, and meeting the broad array of security challenges that we face as a nation.  John’s leadership, and our dedicated intelligence professionals, will be essential in these efforts.  I am deeply grateful to John and his family for their continued service to our nation.

Blog posts on this issue March 09, 2013 5:45 AM ESTWeekly Address: End the Sequester to Keep Growing the Economy

In his weekly address, President Obama says that businesses have created jobs every month for three years straight – nearly 6.4 million altogether, and have added 246,000 new jobs in February. We must keep this momentum going, and that’s why the President recently met with Republican leaders to discuss how we can replace the harmful, arbitrary budget cuts, called the “sequester,” with balanced deficit reduction.

March 08, 2013 6:33 PM ESTFirst Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry Present International Women of Courage Awards

Mrs. Obama and Sec. Kerry celebrate International Women's Day by honoring nine extraordinary women.

March 08, 2013 5:55 PM ESTEmpowering All Women to Reach Their Full Potential

President Obama has made promoting gender equality and advancing the status of women and girls central to our foreign policy and national security strategy, including by leading by example at home.

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Indonesia Central Bank Shuffle Plan Raises Concern

Moves by Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to put his finance minister in charge of the central bank is leading to concerns that he may be seeking someone more malleable to run the state coffers in the run up to next year's elections.

Yudhoyono made the surprise announcement on Feb. 22 that he wanted Agus Martowardojo to take over the central bank when the current governor's term expires in May. He has given no explanation for not seeking to extend Governor Darmin Nasution's term.

Nor has there been any explanation why the president wants to move Martowardojo out of the cabinet, and take charge of monetary policy for Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

On Tuesday night, parliament is due to take the first step by deciding whether Yudhoyono's sole candidate for the five-year term is eligible to face the fit and proper test that he must pass to take over the governorship of Bank Indonesia from late May.

The president had proposed Martowardojo for the central bank job before, in 2008, but parliament ruled him ineligible for consideration at the time, in a decision that was seen as a more related to politics than specific objections to Martowardojo.

(Read More: Indonesia's President Reassures Investors Economy Is Top Priority)

Some MPs have grumbled that Martowardojo lacks monetary policy skills and question his links to graft cases that have been ripping apart Yudhoyono's ruling Democrat Party. The finance minister has been questioned as a witness over one major scandal, but there has been no suggestion he was involved.

Martowardojo was also in the ministry when Indonesia introduced laws, including a controversial tax on mineral exports, which have attracted warnings that the government may be pushing away foreign investors.

So far, foreign direct investment has been at record highs and a major factor in rapid economic growth.

"We do not expect any immediate changes to the current monetary policy stance. In our view, BI will remain reluctant to tighten its policy stance," Nomura wrote in a research note, in reference to the benchmark rate which has been at a record low of 5.75 percent for a year.

Born in Amsterdam 57 years ago, Martowardojo has spent almost his entire career in the banking industry culminating in his role as head of Bank Mandiri, when he is widely credited as having turned around the fortune of the top state bank.

Who Next?

If Martowardojo does switch to the central bank, attention will turn to whether his successor at the finance ministry allows political considerations to outweigh fiscal prudence.

"Will his successor be a person of equal credibility as Martowardojo? Or would the replacement be accommodative to the political pressures prior to 2014 (elections)?" said Fauzi Ichsan, senior economist at Standard Chartered in Jakarta.

One of the biggest challenges the next finance minister will face is how to cut back on fuel subsidies which gobble up around 15 percent of the annual budget and went 54 percent over budget last year, an issue Martowardojo was able to only partially tackle.

(Read More: Indonesia Will Hike Fuel Prices, No Inflation Risk: Official)

"The worry is a more fiscally lax replacement may compromise the perception of Indonesia's fiscal soundness, more so ahead of the elections," said one Indonesia economist who asked not to be named because of bank policy over talking to the media.

Speculation over who will head the finance ministry range from the outgoing BI chief, representing a straight job swap, to the current chief economics minister Hatta Rajasa.

Rajasa, more career politician than technocrat, is close to Yudhoyono and often seen as the president's choice to be the next leader of the world's fourth largest country.

Taking Stands

Martowardojo took over in May 2010 from Sri Mulyani Indrawati, effectively driven from office by a political and business elite upset with her tough stand against graft, frequently cited as the biggest drag on one of the world's fastest growing economies.

For all the speculation that Martowardojo is being sidelined, he denies he is being pushed out of his current job.

His only comments about his proposed move to the central bank have been to say he will watch inflation and also expects reciprocity with other countries in banking.

That appears to be a direct threat to the already long-delayed bid by Singapore's DBS Group Holdings $7.2 billion for Bank Danamon, unless the island neighbour changes policy and lets Indonesian banks operate there.

In his ministerial role, Martowardojo has been prepared to take on both foreign and politically influential domestic investors. Analysts point to his willingness to confront the Bakrie Group, whose head is also in charge of the powerful Golkar party, over the purchase of a stake in a major gold mine.

He opposed a project to build a bridge to join the islands of Sumatra and Java and which is thought to be something Yudhoyono had hoped would be a legacy of his 10 years in office.

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Fed Study Suggests A Central Idea Underlying Obamacare Is Wrong

A core idea at the heart of President Obama’s healthcare reform law is the notion that while expanding coverage is expensive, there are huge offsetting savings to be had from reforming how medicine is practiced by doctors and hospitals. Who knows, maybe a third of the $2.7 trillion spent on healthcare is wasted.

Now this notion is based mostly on the research of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. It shows Medicare spending in some regions of the country is significantly higher than others. Kaiser Health News: “This geographic variation in spending, which the government has also examined, was a motivating force behind a number of government initiatives including changes in Medicare payment to reward hospitals and doctors who provide good care efficiently.”

And if that research is wrong? Well, then we have a problem. And a paper from a Federal Reserve economist suggests just that (via KHN):

[T]he variation in Medicare spending across states is attributable to factors that affect health and health behaviors, rather than practice styles. … It is not surprising that states in the South spend more on Medicare and have worse outcomes. These states perform significantly worse in numerous areas, including high school graduation rates, test scores, insurance, unemployment, violent crime, and teenage pregnancy. There are many ways that such differences can affect health utilization and outcomes, including differences in underlying health, social supports and social stressors, patient self-care and advocacy, ease of access to services, capabilities and quality of hospital and physician nurses and technicians, and cultural differences in attitudes toward care. A comparison of health spending in Mississippi with health spending in Minnesota is not likely to provide a usual metric of the ‘inefficiencies’ of the health system, nor is likely to provide a useful guide to improve the quality of care in places where it is lacking.

Certainly this is still an open issue, as the KHN article makes clear. But the fact that it is — and that we still rejiggered a fifth of the economy partly based on this research — should give policymakers pause — and perhaps a new found sense of humility.

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Study: Rick Scott’s Long Voting Lines Cost Obama A Net 11,000 Votes In Central Florida

Credit: Joe Skipper/Reuters

Thanks in large part to a law signed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), which cut early voting opportunities in that state, many Florida voters endured six hour lines simply to cast a ballot. These lines did not wind up costing Obama Florida’s electoral votes, but, according to an Ohio State University study, they reduced the President’s margin of victory by thousands of votes in central Florida alone:

[A]s many as 49,000 people across Central Florida were discouraged from voting because of long lines on Election Day, according to a researcher at Ohio State University who analyzed election data compiled by the Orlando Sentinel.

About 30,000 of those discouraged voters — most of them in Orange and Osceola counties — likely would have backed Democratic President Barack Obama, according to Theodore Allen, an associate professor of industrial engineering at OSU.

About 19,000 voters would have likely backed Republican Mitt Romney, Allen said.

This suggests that Obama’s margin over Romney in Florida could have been roughly 11,000 votes higher than it was, based just on Central Florida results. Obama carried the state by 74,309 votes out of more than 8.4 million cast.

In the wake of the long lines triggered in the wake of Rick Scott’s law, several top Republicans admitted the entire purpose of this law was to keep Democrats from the polls. Indeed, one GOP consultant explained that “cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day [from early voting] was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves.” African-American voters overwhelmingly favored President Obama last November.

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