tuesday, february 10, 2009
THE DAILY REVEILLE
PAGE 5
ECONOMY
Obama pitches stimulus plan on prime-time TV By Jennifer Loven The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama pushed for his emergency economic stimulus with an urgent one-two punch Monday, addressing the nation in the first prime-time news conference of his presidency after taking his campaign directly to recession victims in hard-hit Indiana. “Doing nothing is not an option,” Obama warned during a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., where unemployment has passed 15 percent. Speedy passage of legislation to pump federal money into the crippled economy, once seemingly assured with bipartisan support, has become a much heavier lift and a major test of Obama’s young presidency. On the day that an $838 billion version of the legislation cleared a crucial test vote in the Senate, Obama warned darkly of the consequences he contended would result from inaction. By a 61-36 margin, the package was advanced toward a vote on final Senate pas-
SYSTEM, from page 1
sizes could result. System President John Lombardi said he looks forward to continuing work with Jindal, his staff and the Legislature to find solutions for Louisiana’s challenges in higher education and health care — two areas in the state’s budget left most vulnerable to cuts. Lombardi met with Commissioner of Administration Angèle Davis, along with other university system presidents, to present budget reduction exercises Monday. “The budget exercise requested by the Division of Administration has clearly focused all of our attention on the importance of finding solutions that do not require the kind of major reductions outlined in that exercise,” Lombardi said in an e-mail to The Daily Reveille. “Most people we’ve spoken with are very clear about the damage that would be done to the state if its higher education institutions at all levels found it necessary to implement reductions of this magnitude.” System spokesman Charles Zewe said Davis told the presidents
BRICKS, from page 1
go, a mulch ring was placed around the sanctuary’s pathway. “Instead of pulling the bricks up and putting them down again, we decided to put mulch down so we wouldn’t have that extra cost,” said Student Government President Colorado Robertson. All the mulch for the sanctuary will be recycled from the debris collected after Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav, one of the innovations the University has come up with to trim precious funds from the project’s budget. “It is a type of recycling,” Mitchell said. “Instead of buying new sod and mulch, we got to use
sage Tuesday — with all but three Republican senators opposing it. “Our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse,” he said. Officials have frequently suggested the current recession, which has catapulted the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent and erased 3.6 million jobs, is the worst U.S. economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But no one has been suggesting the economic downturn could be permanent. The Midwest community where Obama traveled Monday has been hammered by job losses in its mainstay industry of recreational vehicle makers. The unemployment rate soared to 15.3 percent in one northern Indiana county in December, up 10.6 percentage points from a year earlier. White House planners wanted Obama surrounded by everyday Americans already reeling from the effects of the nation’s economic woes, with the clear implication that many more towns across the nation could end up the same if nothing is done. The president then was capping the day with his first formal,
extended news conference, where he was fielding queries from the White House press corps amid the grandeur of the East Room — less than a mile from the ongoing debate on Capitol Hill. Most important: he was doing so at the prime TV-watching hour, to be piped into millions of living rooms across the country. It’s a time-honored presidential strategy: Sometimes it takes talking directly to voters for lawmakers to really hear. “I’ve got to go back to Washington and convince everybody to get moving on this package,” Obama told his Indiana audience of about 1,700 as he wrapped up his question-and-answer session there. Originally, aides had insisted that Obama’s time would be better spent remaining in Washington to shepherd the stimulus bill and meet with lawmakers, rather than traveling around the country to build grass-roots support that would then build pressure on Capitol Hill. But as difficulties with the legislation grew, aides scheduled the Monday trip, as well as others to
to expect a proposed state budget by mid-March. “It’s still very early in the budget process,” Jindal told The NewsStar. “These numbers are likely to change. There are many more steps in the process.” Jindal reportedly said there will be significant “belt-tightening, but people shouldn’t panic when they see these early plans.” “These are worst-case scenarios,” Jindal said. “Look what happened this year. We did make adjustments, but even after the cuts higher education was funded with more dollars this year than last.” Jindal originally projected a mid-year cut in higher education of about $109 million, but the number was eventually decreased to $55 million. C.B. Forgotston, attorney and political pundit who worked for the Louisiana Legislature for more than 13 years, said the budget cut projections and reductions are a “game.” “[Higher eduction] is unprotected and will remain unprotected,” Forgotston said. Forgotston said Davis acts
as the bad cop who delivers bleak news about worst-case scenario budget cuts, while Gov. Jindal is the good cop, saving the day by lessening the amount of the budget cuts in the end. It’s all for political gain, Forgotston said, but in the name of protecting higher education. Forgotston said this exercise is the equivalent of threatening to shoot somebody but cutting their finger instead. Either way, they get hurt. “If education was number one, we would have long ago changed the constitution to protect health care and education,” Forgotston said. “It’s a matter of priorities.” Chancellor Michael Martin said the pattern of projecting higher budget cuts and actually cutting less is common in the political world. Martin said he has witnessed the same pattern in several states in which he has worked. “We look forward to continuing good news,” Martin said. “I believe the governor and his staff recognize the importance of LSU to this state.” Martin said while he, like Jindal, sees the worst-case scenario
something we already had.” SG is hoping to have 400 of the named bricks sold by Feb. 25 to facilitate the first laying of bricks by April 15. The funds generated from the tax-deductible bricks will be put to use for the class of 2010. “We’ll be doing that and some marketing and promotional materials to senior organizations, as well as the student body as a whole, to get them to want to leave their footprint and adopt a sense of pride in developing this space for future classes of LSU,” Robertson said. Because some of the grass patches are still a dull green-brown, Mitchell said the area needs to be constantly watered over the next
few days. For the next few weeks, the lot will remain fallow while the sod is allowed to dig its root system into the ground. Facility Services is currently finishing up a list of plants to be included in the area and to schedule a day for students who want to participate in the landscaping. “This is a project that’s the first of its kind,” Mitchell said. “You’re starting to see now how it will take shape, but when you see students really start to use it you’ll really start to appreciate it.” Contact Adam Duvernay at aduvernay@lsureveille.com
CHARLES DHARAPAK / The Associated Press
President Barack Obama holds a town hall style meeting Monday about the economic stimulus package at Concord Community High School in Elkhart, Ind.
hard-luck communities. Obama is traveling on Tuesday to Fort Myers, Fla., and on Thursday to Peoria, Ill. The Senate was expected to give its version of the stimulus final approval on Tuesday. It remained to be seen, howev-
er, how much Republican support it would draw, as rare congressional debate over the weekend failed to gather meaningful GOP backing.
cuts as unlikely, it is important to plan. “If I really thought the worstcase scenario was going to happen, I would look worse than I do because I wouldn’t be sleeping,” Martin said. Martin said he worries about the psychological effects on University employees and students who read about worst-case scenario budget cuts, but that it is important
to realize any cuts will certainly have an adverse effect on the University. Martin said his goals during the pending budget cuts are to save jobs while maintaining the University’s academic core and standing.
Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at news@lsureveille.com
Contact Kyle Bove at kbove@lsureveille.com