Word: reformer
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...strong democracy with a citizenry that is increasingly uneducated and ill informed. No, teachers' unions are not the only problem here. Troglodytic local school boards and apathetic parents are just as bad. But the unions, and their minions in the Democratic Party, have been a reactionary force in education reform for too long. Barack Obama began to change that last year with Race to the Top. It's a fight he needs to expand...
...bonuses and "fat-cat bankers" throughout his first year in office. But the latest bank-bashing does indicate a new strategic approach to his second year, inspired by the same public wrath that produced Brown's upset. As the White House shifts its top legislative priority from health care reform to financial reform, it is hoping to avoid the mistakes of the health effort that have left Obama and the Democratic Party on the wrong side of a grumpy public...
...That was a bumpy road even before Massachusetts left Democrats with only 59; months of bipartisan Senate negotiations over health care reform attracted zero Republican votes, as did the financial-reform package that passed the House in December. And White House officials admit they underestimated how ugly Capitol Hill's sausagemaking process would look in the spotlight, turning a debate about expanding health coverage, controlling costs and reining in the abuses of profit-obsessed insurers into a brawl over "death panels," taxpayer-funded abortions and congressional giveaways to Nebraska. (See the financial crisis after one year...
...Republicans are already accusing Obama of sacrificing reform on the altar of politics, and it's true that the bright-line strategy could scuttle whatever chances there might have been to build bipartisan consensus in the Senate. For example, the White House recently leaked word that it considers the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency "nonnegotiable," drawing a clear contrast with Republicans and financial lobbyists on a relatively simple issue that polls extremely well - but risking a stalemate in the Senate Banking Committee, where the GOP and several Democrats have expressed doubts about a new bureaucracy. After health...
...also no coincidence that the President made his announcement while standing next to the unlikeliest populist advocate for financial reform, 82-year-old former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, a previously marginalized Obama adviser who had chastised the Administration for making insufficient efforts to limit the size and risk profiles of big banks. The White House is tired of complaints that its economic team - especially Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the former New York Fed president who helped bail out AIG and other failing firms - is too close to Wall Street. Bringing the legendary gray eminence in from the cold - Obama...