CAF In The News

latimes.com — Under the banner of consensus and cooperation, President Obama on Thursday brought industry leaders, lawmakers, doctors and consumer groups to the White House for a healthcare forum to build momentum for his effort to reduce costs and expand insurance coverage.

cq.com — (subscription required) - After President Obama emerged victorious from last month’s battle with congressional Republicans over an $800 billion economic stimulus package, what he did next seemed designed to bring fiscal policy players of all stripes back together. He announced his commitment to federal budget discipline and planned a fiscal responsibility summit at the White House, at which prominent members of both parties would focus on that goal.

pww.org — Fiscal responsibility, the code word for balancing the budget, is on everyone's lips in Washington these days. With a federal budget deficit close to $2 trillion inherited from the Bush administration, the Obama White House is eager to build a consensus in Congress for reducing the deficit, shifting budget priorities and reforming the process of federal government appropriations.

marketplace.publicradio.org — npr.org - President Obama is holding a meeting today to discuss ways to pay down the federal budget deficit, which tops nearly a trillion and a half dollars and is still growing. Ronni Radbill reports.

investors.com — Holding signs reading "Stimulate Business, Not Government," "Families Against Porkulus" and "Say No To Generational Theft," protesters opposed to the $787 billion stimulus package have been mobilizing across the country.

npr.org — President Obama is holding a fiscal responsibility summit next week at the White House to talk about how to shrink the whopping budget deficit. That might seem like an unusual conversation to have right now — especially when the new administration has been busy expanding the deficit.

thehill.com — Liberal groups are worried that the White House bipartisan fiscal responsibility summit on Monday will set the stage for President Obama to compromise with deficit hawks.

At the summit, the president, lawmakers and representatives of advocacy groups will talk about the long-term fiscal challenges brought by the national debt and the growing cost of entitlement programs.

prospect.org — Until now, the Left has largely used the public plan as a way to sell the Obama/Clinton/Edwards health care plans to itself. In this telling, the public plan is a Trojan horse for single-payer health care. When socialism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the rhetoric of competition. That may prove to be true and it may not. But it's not going to fly in the Senate. Blue dogs don't vote for socialism (except, as we saw in the case of TARP, when they do).

washingtonpost.com — As President Obama prepares to sign a $787 billion economic stimulus package today amid gales of Republican criticism of its cost, he is also facing quieter misgivings from liberal Democrats who say the bill does not go far enough -- and who are already looking ahead to future legislation that they hope will do more.

blogs.abcnews.com — President Barack Obama's economic recovery package is still making its way through Congress. But a group of progressive activists and liberal academics are already worried that it won't go far enough.