All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

** Choosing a strategy in Afghanistan...

** Reid guns for a health care bill on the Senate floor next week...

** Dodd unveils ambitious financial regulation proposals...

PRESIDENT OBAMA TODAY: This morning, the president and Mrs. Obama host a Veterans Day breakfast in the East Room before traveling to Arlington National Cemetery where Mr. Obama will participate in the wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Following the ceremony, he will deliver remarks.

This afternoon, the president meets with his national security team on Afghanistan and Pakistan and, report the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller and David E. Sanger, the president will consider four "final options" regarding how many more troops to send to Afghanistan.

"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan, but President Obama remains unsatisfied with answers he has gotten about how vigorously the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan would help execute a new strategy, administration officials said Tuesday.

"Mr. Obama is to consider four final options in a meeting with his national security team on Wednesday, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters. The options outline different troop levels, other officials said, but they also assume different goals — including how much of Afghanistan the troops would seek to control — and different time frames and expectations for the training of Afghan security forces…

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Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

** Facing the grim challenges in Afghanistan...

** Getting to 60 for health care...

** Congress takes up the financial regulatory overhaul...

AFGHANISTAN: President Obama meets again with his national security team in the White House Situation Room to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan this morning.

Meantime, "The top military commander in Afghanistan is asking for up to 80,000 more American troops even as he warns that rampant government corruption there may prevent victory against the Taliban and al-Qaida, according to U.S. officials briefed on his conclusions," reports the Associated Press' Lara Jakes.

"A still-secret document by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal that requests more troops is expected to be among the topics discussed Wednesday when President Barack Obama meets with his national security team to hash out a strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Even with additional troops, McChrystal concluded that corruption still could let terrorists turn Afghanistan back into a haven, according to officials at the Pentagon and White House.

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On “Washington Unplugged” Monday, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller said that President Obama’s mission on Wall Street today was to convince Americans that “…he is trying to wind down the role of the government in the private sector . ”

“President Obama today is going to Wall Street in order to make the case that the government has taken steps to bring the financial markets back from the brink of financial collapse,” Knoller said of the president’s Manhattan appearance. “Plus he is going to announce steps he wants Congress to enact.”

Moderator John Dickerson asked if the president was on a public relations mission to prove that his administration does not advocate government control of the financial sector.

“You bet it is,” Knoller said. The president, he said, “wants the American people to know that some of that money [used for the financial bailout] has been paid back with interest.”

And his message to Wall Street?

“He wants to level the case that…he refuses to let Wall Street to go back to the reckless behavior that led them into the crisis,” Knoller said, adding that he is urging Congress to pass regulatory reforms on major financial companies.

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Updated 1:49 p.m. ET with the remarks as delivered.

President Obama today delivered a speech on Wall Street arguing for stronger financial regulations and reflecting on the state of the economy.

Obama Criticizes Wall Street "Complacency"

Below are his full remarks, as provided by the White House.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. It is wonderful to be back in New York after having just been here last week. It is a beautiful day and we have some extraordinary guests here in the Hall today. I just want to mention a few.

First of all from my economic team, somebody who I think has done extraordinary work on behalf of all Americans and has helped to strengthen our financial system immeasurably, Secretary Tim Geithner -- please give him a big round of applause. (Applause.) Somebody who is continually guiding me and keeping me straight on the numbers, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer is here. (Applause.) We have an extraordinary economic recovery board and as chairman somebody who knows more about the financial markets and the economy generally than just about anybody in this country, Paul Volcker. Thank you, Paul. (Applause.) The outstanding mayor of the city of New York, Mr. Michael Bloomberg. (Applause.) We have Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is here, as well; thank you. (Applause.)

We have a host of members of Congress, but there's one that I have to single out because he is going to be helping to shape the agenda going forward to make sure that we have one of the strongest, most dynamic, and most innovative financial markets in the world for many years to come, and that's my good friend, Barney Frank. (Applause.) I also want to thank our hosts from the National Park Service here at Federal Hall and all the other outstanding public officials who are here.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for your warm welcome. It's a privilege to be in historic Federal Hall. It was here more than two centuries ago that our first Congress served and our first President was inaugurated. And I just had a chance to glance at the Bible upon which George Washington took his oath. It was here, in the early days of the Republic, that Hamilton and Jefferson debated how best to administer a young economy and ensure that our nation rewarded the talents and drive of its people. And two centuries later, we still grapple with these questions -- questions made more acute in moments of crisis.

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President Barack Obama's initiative to strengthen federal authority over financial institutions strikes a "really appropriate balance" between government control and market-based solutions, a top White House economic adviser said Wednesday.

"We are not bulldozing the whole system. We're very much starting with the regulatory structure we have and improving it," Christine Romer, the chair of the White House Counsel of Economic Advisers, said on CBS' The Early Show.

The new plan, which Mr. Obama will detail Wednesday, would increase the Federal Reserve's powers and create a new consumer protection agency for the credit market.

The measures are crucial because the "status quo can't remain," Romer said.

Critics of the plan are wary that too much government intervention would choke an already struggling industry, but Romer said just the opposite is true.

"One of the crucial things that caused the mess we're in now is lax financial regulation. … We have a firm like AIG that gets in trouble [and] we don't have the tools to deal with it. The crucial thing is to make sure we don't face this kind of crisis again."

Romer also said the new regulations will be "a sensible market-based approach," particularly in the area of capital requirements.

"Let's make sure that firms making decisions have money on the table so that they don't take excessive risks," she said.

You can watch the video below:

The Senate on Thursday passed long-in-the-works legislation that will give the Food And Drug Administration power to regulate the sale, manufacture and marketing of tobacco products.

The bill, which the president plans to sign into law, will mean that regulators can do the following: limit the nicotine and tar levels in cigarettes; ban certain sorts of flavored tobacco that appeal to young people; force more prominent warning labels; ban words like "light" or "mild" in cigarette packaging; and give states the power to dictate how and where cigarettes are sold.

The legislation has been heralded by anti-smoking advocates, who say it will reduce smoking-related deaths and health care costs. Matthew Myers, president of Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids, told the Associated Press it "represents the strongest action Congress has ever taken to reduce tobacco use."

Although there appears to be widespread support for the bill – 79 senators voted for it, and even Philip Morris backs it (though perhaps for less than altruistic reasons) – there are also those who object to the government taking a stronger regulatory role. Among them is Patrick Basham, an adjunct scholar at the Libertarian-leaning CATO Institute, who tells Hotsheet that aggressive regulation and high taxes on products like alcohol and tobacco (so called "sin taxes") puts "the government in the position of imposing values on people's purchases of legal products."

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President Obama today called for quick action on new regulations for financial institutions like AIG that would allow the government to take them over in order to avoid collapse of the financial system.

"I hope it doesn't take too long to convince Congress," Mr. Obama said. "Right now we do not have resolution authority for a non-bank institution like AIG that is comparable to what we have for banks that get into trouble using the FDIC."

The administration's plan was unveiled by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner during a hearing on Capitol Hill today.

"We are already hard at work in putting forward a detailed proposal," Mr. Obama added. "We will work in consultation with members of Congress. That will be just one phase of a broader regulatory framework that we're going to have to put in place to prevent these kinds of crises from happening again."

Mr. Obama made his comments after an Oval Office meeting with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Mr. Obama said they spent the majority of their discussion talking about the global economy.

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On his fifty-seventh day in office, President Obama called for greater regulation on AIG-like institutions so that “we're not going to find ourselves in these kinds of terrible positions again.”

He called for “a resolution authority that would be similar, not identical but similar, to the powers that the FDIC currently has over banks” for institutions like the insurance giant, which has received more than $140 billion in bailout money from the government.

Mr. Obama also took the blame for the IAG situation, despite the fact that the AIG bonus contracts generating such outrage were drafted before he came into office.

"Ultimately I'm responsible, I'm the president of the United States," he said. "We've got a big mess that we're having to clean up. Nobody here drafted those contracts. Nobody here was responsible for supervising AIG and allowing themselves to put the economy at risk by some of the outrageous behavior that they were engaged in. We are responsible, though. The buck stops with me. And my goal is to make sure that we never put ourselves in this kind of position again."

In addition, the president headed to California for town hall meetings to make the case for his budget initiatives on education, energy and health care – and tapes a Tonight Show segment with Jay Leno.

And finally, the president released his NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket today. His pick? North Carolina.

Check out Chip Reid’s CBS Evening News report on the president’s day below.

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Before departing for California this afternoon, President Obama called for the creation of a “resolution authority” similar to the FDIC that would oversee institutions like AIG and help insure that massive government bailouts of such entities are not needed in the future.

The president said that while the situation with the AIG bonus payouts is troubling, “what I think is also important and just as outrageous is the fact that we find ourselves in a situation where we're having to clean up after AIG's mess.”

He said he had just spoken to Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank about “giving ourselves tools to prevent ourselves from getting in a situation where an AIG can pose such enormous vulnerabilities to the system as a whole.”

“And what we are working on is a resolution authority that would be similar, not identical but similar, to the powers that the FDIC currently has over banks,” said the president. “What they're able to do is to, at the same time protect creditors, depositors, and consumers, while also exercising greater power proactively over institutions like AIG which is not a bank which is an insurance company with a hedge fund on top of it.”

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After meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and members of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, President Obama this afternoon laid out the “core principles” he believes are necessary in reforming financial markets.

"The choice we face is not between some oppressive government-run economy or a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism,” the president said. “Rather, strong financial markets require clear rules of the road, not to hinder financial institutions, but to protect consumers and investors, and ultimately to keep those financial institutions strong.”

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