波斯小昭
2009年2月5日下午。上海。
我出了地铁八号线大世界站，沿金陵东路向东走。心里非常平静，就跟平时朋友约我喝茶没什么两样。所不同的是，朋友约我喝茶，我可以不去，警察要我“喝茶”，我就不能不去了。
自从在《08宪章》上签了名，我就一直等待这一天。许多人都喝过了，没理由我不喝。
警察是上午给我打的电话，当时问我：“你在哪里？”我不希望自己的住处或办公室变成他们的“执法”场所，于是很大度地说：“我去你们办公室吧。”网上看来的故事，许多被喝茶的人似乎很忌讳去公安局。但我不在乎，在哪里喝都一样。
黄浦区公安分局已在眼前。穿皮夹克的警察正站在门卫室旁边等候，看到我，他远远问道：“是不是小唐？”
“是。”我走过去。
小唐，这称呼真亲切。怎么，你们没把我当成“阶级敌人”？当然，我本来就不是敌人。
他把我带到门口左边的房间。里面已经坐了一个人，脸色严肃，面前摊开了几张纸，那是准备作笔录的。
我就客气些，不暴露他们的名字。给我打电话的那个，称为“皮夹克”吧，年约四十（后来他告诉我他69年出生），主要由他询问。另一个要大几岁，主要做记录，就称为“记录者”吧。
房间约二十多平方，一个巨大的警徽挂在墙上。这警徽让我有些伤感。它本该是我的保护神，护卫在我身畔；但如今，它成了对我的威压，从头顶沉沉压下来。
我在记录者对面坐下。皮夹克打横而坐。但皮夹克比较活跃，经常站起来走动几步，不像记录者那么沉静。
他俩面前都有茶杯，却没人给我倒水。我想，“喝茶”怎么没茶呢？不过我来此不是作客的，就低调一点吧。说了几句话之后，我口渴，想到这谈话不是三两句可结束的，于是主动问：“有没有杯子？我想喝水。”记录者这才站起来拿杯子给我倒水，客气地问我要不要茶，我说：“不用，我喝白开水。”
“你不用紧张，我们只是找你谈谈，了解一下情况。”皮夹克说。
上午的电话中我已经主动提到宪章，所以他们没必要绕圈子了。
“我不紧张。”我笑道，“我已经等你们很久了。自从在0 8 宪 章上签了名，我就等着你们来找我，都等了一个半月了。”
皮夹克也笑了。“你的名字在第六批名单上一出现我们就知道了。起初没有来找你，因为你身份证上的地址是在重庆，重庆市××区，对不对？”
哈，他们连我身份证上的地址都清楚。春节之前与朋友吃饭，我还困惑地说：“怎么到现在还没人找我喝茶呀？”朋友说：“可能他们找不到你。好像他们是根据户口来查的，你的户口不在上海，所以找不到。”我不信：“你别天真了！他们要找我，哪有找不到的，我这种人最好找了。肯定不会根据户口来查，而是根据网上的线索来查。”警察神通广大，谁能躲得过去？何况我并没有躲。
他们起初没来找我，我想并非因为我户口在重庆，而是因为我不重要。
如果让我给几千个签名者分类的话，我会分为三类：第一类是“知名群体”，有一定知名度，也就有了影响力，官方会比较紧张；第二类是“被侵权群体”，如拆迁户、下岗工人、失地农民等，合法权益受到直接侵犯，情绪不稳定，容易出事，官方也很紧张；第三类就是我这样的“普通人群体”，既没啥影响力，也没有直接利益被侵害，情绪比较稳定，在官方那里从无“前科”，相对来说最不受重视。如果我无声无息，可能连这喝茶的机会都可免了；但我既然接受了外媒采访，这茶就非喝不可了。
记录者提起笔，铺开笔录纸，先问我姓名，出生年月等。我如实回答。又问：“工作单位？”我说：“我签08跟工作单位没关系，这是我私人的事情。不过反正你们能查到我单位的，我就告诉你们吧。”他们对我的单位不熟悉，还要我写给他们看。
皮夹克听说我在一家公益机构，慢悠悠地说：“做公益挺好的，我就认识过很多做公益的人，他们很热心的……”
分明诱供来了。我咧齿一笑：“你别以为我不知道，有些公益组织也是很‘敏感’的，比如艾滋病、环保什么的。不过我们这个机构一点不敏感。”好歹我也在上海公益圈里混过几年，没吃过猪肉也见过猪跑，我知道有些公益机构的负责人也是经常“被喝茶”的。但我从没参加过任何“敏感”的活动。
“没有没有，我就很支持公益，做慈善嘛，对社会是有益的。上次有个什么什么活动在人民广场举行，他们很热心地发了很多传单……”（我忘了他的原话。）
我瞠目以对。“什么活动？我不知道啊！”
我猜想他提到的公益活动是被官方密切注意的，如果我有参与，我的“敏感度”会被加一颗星。但我实实在在不知道。上海的公益组织多如牛毛，我哪有那么好精力都去关心。
皮夹克继续提起人民广场的公益活动，还说：“后来我跟他们谈了谈，了解了他们要做的事情，我也很支持的。”
我茫然地听着，不再开口。我想这是他设下的一个陷阱，只要我对他说的公益活动有一点点知情，他就可以找到突破口，挖出我更多的“敏感材料”。但我是童叟无欺、如假包换的不知道。
“你们开展公益活动的资金是从哪里来的？要向社会筹款的吧？”
“对呀，公益组织都这样，有私人捐款，也有向企业或者慈善基金会申请项目资助。”
“有些公益组织也接受境外资金的。”他说。
哈，来了来了，你要的不就是这个嘛。我又咧齿一笑：“你以为我不知道啊？接受境外资助也是很‘敏感’的！”
他笑了笑，直接问道：“你们也向境外申请资助吗？”
“我们这个机构没有什么敏感的事情，你们可以去查。市领导都知道我们机构的。”上个月我还跟老板一起到市政府去开会呢。
工作单位的事情总算告一段落。
又问我文化程度，大学名称。“我们学校不出名的，我说了你也不知道。”我把大学名称告诉他们。他们果然没听过，要我写下来。我写了校名，又要我写“从哪一年到哪一年”，我都写了。
“你在哪里上的高中？”我写了。“哪一年到哪一年？”我把初中高中的时间都写了，并解释：“我初中和高中是在同一个学校读的。”
我写下的年份中有一个让他们立刻注目，并念了出来：“19 8 9年？”我满不在乎：“你们别紧张，当年的事情我没有参与过，连见都没见过，我什么都不知道。”
“你怎么可能什么都不知道呢？”皮夹克不相信。
是啊，一个十几岁的中学生，就算没参与，至少也会看看热闹。可我真是连热闹都没看过。为了解释清楚这一点，我总得告诉别人我们中学的地理位置：“我们中学不是在城里的，是在郊区。这里是我们学校，”我用手在空中划了一个圈，“周围都是农村，”我用手在圈子外边比划了一下，“离最近的镇也有几公里，信息很闭塞的。我们读住校，在学校里可以看看报纸，周末回家才能看看电视，报纸和电视上说的都是官方想让我们看的。所以我什么都不知道。直到最近两年才从网上了解了当年发生的事情。”
还好，他没问我“当年发生了什么？”就算他问，我也不回答。这种问题，不应该由我一个被蒙蔽整整十八年的局外人来回答，而应该由当年的亲历者来现身说法。
学校问过了，又问：“你爸爸叫什么名字？工作单位？”
我一听便来火。“这是我自己的事情，跟我家里人没有关系！总不能因为我签了08宪章，你们就要查问我祖宗十八代吧？”
记录者解释：“我们不是要去重庆找你父母，这只是一个程序。每个人都要回答的。”
“那我不回答可以吗？如果你们查到了，那是你们的事情，但是我不愿意回答这个问题！我签名是我自己的事情，跟我家里人没有任何关系，他们根本就不知道！”
我说着，泪水忍不住流下来了。桌子上有一盒面巾纸，赶快扯一张来擦脸。
我相信他们什么都可以查到，但不要指望我告诉你们。我最恨搞株连！这是21世纪，不是封建社会。一人做事一人当，怎能牵涉我的父母家人？我不配合！
见我哭了，记录者赶快说：“好好好，不问不问。”
我一边擦眼泪，一边骂自己。怎么这点小事也要哭？真丢脸。
我喝茶之前唯一的担心是：我会不会哭？当初是“大哭一场，签上我名”；后来接受华盛顿邮报采访时也哭了，所以照片里的我是眼睛肿肿、鼻子红红。我一直担心喝茶时也会哭，那就太破坏形象了，在警察面前，咱得英勇一点不是？可我完全没有把握能够控制住情绪。女儿有泪不轻弹，只是未到伤心处，若到伤心处，我就会忍不住珠泪滚滚。
警察的询问继续进行。后来我也几次落泪。真是一路哭到底，丢脸丢到家。八千多个签名者中，“最爱哭鼻子奖”非我莫属。
个人情况问完了，轮到正题。
“你什么时候在08宪章上签的名？”
“15号。”
“1月15号？”
“哦，不是。是去年12月15号。”
“在哪儿看到08宪章的？是别人发到你邮箱里的吧？”
“不是，是我在网上看到的。”
“华盛顿邮报说你是从邮箱看到的。”
“他们写错了。通过翻译的采访，有时不是那么准确的。”
“那你是在哪个网站上看到的？”
“我不记得。”
“怎么会不记得呢？”
“当然不记得。我在网上看文章，从来不会注意哪个网站的呀。”
“那你是怎么知道08宪章的？”
“也是在网上。先是看到有人说晓波被抓了，后来又有人说晓波被抓是因为08宪章，我就好奇：08宪章是什么东东？就去搜索。那时候很多网页都被删了，但还是有很多漏网之鱼，我一搜就搜到了。”
“那你看到了之后怎么样呢？”
“我看了之后，同意它的主张。但起初并没打算在上面签名，因为……”我有点不满，“因为在我们这个国家里，签这种名是要冒风险的。”
今天我被警察传唤，便是“风险”之一。
“那后来为什么又签了呢？”
“我在博客上转贴了08宪章。过了两天，我转贴的就被删了。我很生气，连转贴一下都不可以！又想到晓波被抓的事情，感到很悲哀。我不幸生在这样的国家，有很多权利我们享受不到，也就罢了，可是，连说都不可以说！我不喜欢这种局面，我希望改变，所以我就签了名。”
“你对08宪章是怎么评价的？”
“ 哈，没什么好说的。它对我而言太简单了，很多东西本来就存在于我的脑子里。它的内容并没有什么新意，都是网上很多人说过的，而且有些内容我们宪法里面本来就有的。总之我觉得，08宪章的内容是陈旧的，都是大家讨论过无数遍的；但它把这些内容集中在一起，作为一个倡导性的文件公开发布，无论是谁，只要你同意它的主张，都可以签名，这种形式是新的。”
“其实，”我补充，“宪章的那些条款，我也并不是每一条都赞成，如果把它们分开来看的话，有一些我可能会有不同意见；但如果把它们作为一个整体来问我，那我就完全同意。”
“哪些是你同意的，哪些是你不同意的呢？”皮夹克问。
“这个，我可说不出来。宪章上面那么多条，我记不住。你们有没有打印稿？要是有的话我可以看着说。”
我相信他们肯定有打印稿，但他们说“没有”。大概是不想让我拿着稿子口若悬河。
在网上看过很多签名者的喝茶故事，有的人抓住机会向警察宣传08宪章，把这作为“战术”之一。我没打算那么做。第一，我不相信警察没看过；第二，宪章内容一看就懂，无需讲解；第三，我没本事说服警察，懒得费口舌。
桌子上有个大信封，旁边散着的七八张打印纸便是警方掌握的我的“材料”。皮夹克一边问，一边不时拿起材料来看看。我很好奇：纸上写着什么内容？当然他们是不肯给我看的。
嗯，从此我也有“黑档案”了。光荣光荣。
想起一个网友的话：“小昭，你blog上写那些东西还是让我有些担心，要是被当局盯上就麻烦了。到时你会背上一辈子都卸不下的烙印，想做任何事情都会受到限制。某校一位老师，当年曾经参加过六四事件，当时如果不是一位老先生力保，就会啷铛入狱，虽然被保了下来，但是此后他的人生发展受到了极大限制，这是一个水平极高的老师，校长助理干了多年，早就该提为副校长的，可是数次都是在政审的关键时刻被拿下，档案上那一笔永远存在，年龄越来越大，估计以后再也没有机会，不郁闷是不可能的，这样的例子也比比皆是。”
网友不知道，我是个彻头彻尾的“体制外”，从小就决定，永远不进入这个体制。我不需要它给我评职称，不需要它给我分房子，不需要它给我升官，不需要它给我发财。我不喜欢它，它也不喜欢我，两相隔绝。所以我对于档案上给我记一笔，才不在乎呢。
你以为“永远”是这种局面、中国人“一辈子”都要生活在恐惧中吗？靠，休想！——我们等候的时间将不会太长了。
我在“08”上签名，在博客上写文章，都是合法合理又合情，没什么好惭愧的；相反，这是我小昭有勇气、有正义感的表现，我该骄傲才是。希望警方把我的“材料 ”好好保存，切勿失落。将来我白发苍苍，坐在葡萄架下对小孙女说：“很久很久以前，我们中国人还处于争取自由的过程中，奶奶克服了恐惧之心，在《08宪章》上签了名……”那时我就可以把这些材料向小孙女展示，免得她以为奶奶吹牛呢。
我正神游物外，皮夹克把我拉了回来：“你是怎么签名的？”
“发邮件去签的。宪章上有签名邮箱的，那两个邮箱都很好记，我看一遍就记住了。”
“你签名之前好好看过宪章吗？”
“看过啊。最初知道宪章的时候就看过一遍，后来决定签名了，又仔细地看了两遍。我在任何文件上签名都会起码先看两遍的。”
“你肯定没有好好看过！”皮夹克一口断定，“如果你看了你就不会签名了。这个宪章是反党反社会主义的，你看出来了吗？”
我摇摇头。“我没看出来。”
“你呢，是个很感性的人，有时候会冲动，也没看清楚宪章是什么，就签名了……”
真要命，只因我爱流泪，总被别人说成感性。“我觉得我是个很理性的人。当然也有感性的一面，但总体说来是很冷静的。签名就是一个理性的选择，在非常平静的状态下作出的决定。”
“你最初决定不签名，这是很理性的，是正确的决定。但后来又签了名，像你说的，因为转贴的文章被删了才签的，这就是冲动，不理智的行为。”
“我签名，首先是因为我赞同它的主张，这是最主要的原因。其次呢，因为转贴宪章被删了，还有晓波被抓的事情，让我产生了逆反心理。我被激怒了，所以签了名。这是一种反弹，对你们打压的强烈反弹。”
常言道“请将不如激将”。如果我没有被激怒，就不会有第六批名单上的唐小昭了。相信还有其他人跟我一样，签名的直接原因是“反弹”。官方对言论的强力打压，固然吓住了一些人，却也激起了另一些人的反弹。
“你这样做是很幼稚的，签个名就能改变什么吗？一点用处都没有，只会给自己带来麻烦！看来你在政治上还不成熟。”皮夹克说。
“政治上不成熟”，这个句子我从小在小说里看惯了，没想过有一天会放到我自己身上。嗯，按照党国的标准，我确实政治上不成熟，而且永远不会成熟。在中国这种环境下，如果谁“政治上成熟”了，基本就意味着他失去了人性，变成了一台冷血机器。
“ 政治，”我说，“中国人把政治看得很肮脏，以为政治就是阴谋诡计，充满了欺骗和权谋，什么事情一和政治联系上就觉得很可怕。其实不是这样的。孙中山说过，‘政’就是众人之事，‘治’就是管理，‘政治’就是管理众人之事。既然是大家的事情，政治就应该是阳光的、透明的，每个人都可以谈论，都可以参与。”
我还没打算“参与”呢，我只是喜欢“谈论”一下，就这也要冒风险。所以我才签名的。
“我希望我能够行使宪法保障的那些权利。你想想，我都××岁了，还没见过选票是什么样子呢！”
“怎么会没见过选票呢？”皮夹克不解，“选票都有的呀！”
“我到哪里去选啊？回重庆去选吗，我又不住在重庆，重庆怎么样跟我没有关系；在上海选吗？我又没有上海的户口。”我撇了撇嘴，“再说，你们那些人大代表，你以为我真的相信他们是人民选出来的，真的代表了人民的利益啊？不都是走过场嘛，做个样子罢了。”
皮夹克笑了笑，没有反驳。
我想起我有个朋友，上海人，已经移民，他说过他从来不投票，“居委会把选票送上门来，我每次都把它撕掉”。他为什么要撕掉选票？因为他不认为手里这张纸片是真正的选票，没有公正的选举程序作保证，就不可能有公正的选举结果，民意既然被强奸，他宁可弃权。最后他的移民，就是更为彻底的弃权。
“我就想要选票，真正的选票。“我接着说，”这个国家是我们全体国民的，我们有权对这个国家的未来展开讨论，提出自己的观点、同意或反驳别人的观点。政府应该是为民众服务的，公权应该来自民授。”
“这些话都没有错，我也赞同民主的呀。但是我们不能急，要一步一步地来。你说的是一种理想的状态，但现在中国的现实不是那样，你既然生活在这个现实中，就要遵守现实的游戏规则，如果你不遵守这个游戏规则，对你没有好处。”
我漠然。“我知道，我是握在你们手掌心里的。”我用手划了一个圈，“中国就是一个大笼子。它囚禁着我们。”
我对你们的“现实”毫无兴趣。我不喜欢这种公权力毫无制约、民众被关在笼子里、公民生活在恐惧中的“现实”，我不为这种“现实”背书。我只为自由背书、为人权背书、为民主背书、为子孙后代拥有“免于恐惧的自由”而背书。
“我没违反你们的游戏规则。我做任何事情都有两大原则，第一不违反国家法律，第二不违反社会公德。我以在08上签名的形式来表达对某种观点的同意，这是我的权利。”
皮夹克耐心劝导：“你是有这个权利。但是08宪章的事情很严重，不是你想像的只是一个观点的问题。政府已经定性了，它是‘反党反社会主义’的严重的政治事件。”
起码一个月前，我就在网上看到了关于“定性”的传言。这“定性”貌似十分严厉，但我看了漠然置之，半点没感到害怕，只感到滑稽。都什么时代了，解决问题还要靠几个人关起门来“定性”？呵，莫非我不是身在2009年，而是公元前221年嬴政那会儿？但，流光如水永向前，时代已经不同了！
这事儿照我看很简单，如果“08”是个法律问题，那就交给法律去审判（当然是公正公开、程序合法的审判，不是杨佳案式的暗箱操作）；如果是个道德问题，那就交给大众舆论去评价。
我没有回答他的话，只心里继续想着：你们“定性”以后，打算怎么办？把这几千人抓起来、关几年？随便吧。人为刀俎、我为鱼肉，可怜这些自封为“公民”、却无法享有公民权利的中国人，既然无力保护自己，也就只好逆来顺受、泰然处之了。
皮夹克继续说：“你知道四项基本原则吧？坚持……”
我漠然点头：“我知道。”这些东东放在宪法里，真是莫名其妙。
“不管怎么样，你还是要承认现实，坚持共产党的领导、坚持社会主义道路，还是我们这个国家的主流观点……”
我纠正他：“是官方观点。”
如果说“主流”的话，须得全国最多人赞同的观点才是主流观点。依我看，民主才是主流。
他继续说：“好吧，是官方主流观点。现在这个08宪章要推翻××党的领导、推翻社×主义制度……”
“我没看出它要推翻谁。”
“你没看出来？”他很惊讶，“08宪章说要实行多党制，这就是要推翻共产党的领导！它要实行三权分立，就是要推翻社会主义制度！”
我叹了一口气。“我对这样‘主义’那样‘主义’的不感兴趣，不想跟你争论。可能是从小被灌输了太多的‘主义’，有了点儿逆反心理，听到‘主义’这个词我就头疼。”
在我看来，当今世界只有两种“主义”的国家：民主和专制。显而易见我喜欢民主。其它的免谈。
由于我经常打断他的话，皮夹克有点不满意：“你听我说完！”
“好，你请说。”
他说了一通属于官方主流观点的话，我一句也没记住。在他停顿的时候，因为无法判断他是讲完了轮到我说了，还是他仅仅要换口气接着说，我还鼓励道：“你继续说，没关系，我听着。”
他讲完了他的道理，见我明显缺乏兴趣，连反驳都懒得开口，他又说：“中国的宪法上规定了四项基本原则，《08宪章》要代替宪法，要推翻党的领导、推翻社会主义制度，这是违宪的！”
“个体的公民不可能违宪，只有国家机关才能违宪。徐友渔写过一篇文章论述这个问题。”（小昭后注：也许我的记忆有误，以前看过一篇关于“违宪主体”的文章，忘记是不是徐友渔写的了。）
“而且，”我补充道，“《08宪章》并不是一个具有法律效力的法律文件，它仅仅是一种倡导，提出一些主张。它不是宪法。宪法的修改是有一定程序的，要经过全国人大超过2/3的代表同意才可以修改的。”
谁要是把《08宪章》当成了宪法，那肯定脑子进水了，我深表同情。
皮夹克问我：“你知道08宪章是谁起草的吗？”
“不知道。你们都不知道，我怎么会知道啊？你们不是把晓波抓起来了吗，你们不是说是他起草的吗？”
“谁说我们不知道？我们早就知道了！就是刘晓波起草的！”
这个就不关我的事啦。反正不是我起草的。
“你知道刘晓波是个什么样的人吗？”
“我不认识他。以前不知道这个人，最近两年在网上看了他很多文章，了解个大概。”
“刘晓波在64的时候……”他对晓波作了一番“官方介绍”，我不记得原话，大意是说晓波当年是幕后主使之一，这些年一直和海外势力有联系，背景很复杂，像你（指我）这种单纯冲动的人根本就不了解他，你是被他们利用了……
我嘟哝了几句：“没有人来利用我。是我自己要在宪章上签名的，又没人逼我。”然后我好奇地问：“我在网上看到有人说，刘晓波是中国第一号敏感人物。是不是啊？”
“像他这样的人肯定是很敏感的嘛，至于是第几号就不一定了。”
嗯，官方不喜欢晓波。但在民间评价系统中，晓波是条好汉！我就欣赏这种有胆有识有担当的男人。
他们接着问：“你接受过媒体的采访吗？”
我心里想，你们都知道了，用得着问嘛。不过还是回答：“接受过。”
“什么媒体？”
“华盛顿邮报。”
“什么时候采访的？”
“1月19号。晚上。”
“你怎么找到他们的？”
“我没找他们。是他们来找我的。”
“那他们是怎么找到你的？”
“我把邮箱放在博客上，他们看到了，就给我发邮件。”
“那就是通过电子邮件约的采访时间？”
“这个倒不是。是通过电话约的。”
“是怎么采访的？电话采访吗？”
“不是。是当面采访。”
“你为什么要接受采访呢？”
“为什么？”我睁大了眼睛，“我有接受采访的权利啊！”
公权是“法无明文规定皆不可为”，私权是“法无明文禁止皆可为”。我可太清楚自己拥有哪些权利了。再说，我从没接受过外媒的采访，人家好奇嘛。
“在哪里采访的？”
“一家饭店里，一边吃饭一边采访。”
“哪个饭店？”
“在黄河路上，具体哪家饭店我就不知道了。黄河路上很多饭店的嘛，一条街都是，我跟着她们进去、跟着她们出来，没注意过饭店的名字。”
“几个人采访你的？”
“两个。”
“男的还是女的？”
“两个都是女的。”
“中国人还是外国人？”
“一个中国人。另一个是美国人，不过是韩国裔的。”
记录者边听边记录，问道：“那就写‘韩裔美人’了？”我觉得“韩裔美人”这个词太滑稽了，两个人讨论了一下记录用词。最后他好像记录为“韩裔美国人”。
“那个中国人是做翻译的吧？”
“对。”
“那个美国人长得跟中国人一样吗？那你怎么知道她是美国人？”
“我本来以为她是中国人，可她一开口说的是英文，我就问她的助理她是哪里人，助理说是美国人，父母都是韩国裔的。”
“是怎么采访的？录音采访吗？”
“就是当面采访呀。”
“她们问了你哪些问题？”
“这个，你们都知道了呀。就是那篇报道上写的呀。”
“你看过她们写的报道吗？”
“看过。”
“你看得懂英语？”
“哈，这还不简单？用google自动翻译系统，就可以勉强看了。”我解释：“主要是看看关于我的部分有没有失实的地方。基本属实吧，有些小小的误解，但不重要，所以我也无所谓了。”
比如报道上说我最初是从信箱里看到《08宪章》的，这就是个误解。
“不过，“我补充，”我不满意她们那个大标题，我觉得这个题目对我来说过于严重了……”
“就是——”皮夹克拿起打印纸念道：“《一个中国草根的反抗》？”
我猜，警察看到的是万维网那个中文版，是以第三者的语气介绍华盛顿邮报这篇报道，主要是关于我的部分。警察不知道我博客上有个全文翻译的中文版。
“对。我觉得我没有那么激烈，这个题目用在我身上有些……有些……严重……”我一时找不到合适的形容词。
还是记录者帮我想到了：“有些‘过激’了？”
“对。”我赶快点头。
华盛顿邮报的原文，大标题为《In China,a Grass-Roots Rebellion》，这Rebellion的意思有“叛乱、暴动、暴乱、变、谋反、意见不合、异议”，无论中文用哪个词，对我都极为不利，所以我当初翻译此文时干脆回避了大标题。但万维网和其它网站转贴时，题目被译为“一个中国草根的反抗”、“在中国，基层反抗”、“中国草根造反”等等，吓出我一身冷汗。
其实，无论人家用什么标题，我都无所谓的。可我是“In China”，这个China对我来说不是温暖如母亲怀抱，而是冷酷无情的铁笼子，随时可以伸出铁爪子来把我抓住撕成碎片。你们要是用太严厉的词语，伟光正先生会把帐算到我的头上，我一条小命儿又要死翘翘。
——所以我拒不认可那个大标题。
“你看，外媒是在利用你！你被人家利用了都不知道！”皮夹克抓住机会教育我。
我没觉得华盛顿邮报是在利用我。再说，他们利用我，我不也利用他们吗？他们利用我来观察中国的普通签名者，我利用他们把我的观点撒向世界。在“08”上，中国媒体全体噤声，战战兢兢；唯一能发出声音的只有外媒。
皮夹克对采访内容特别感兴趣，问了好几次。我都回答：“就是报道上的那些呀。”过了这么久，我哪里记得？我又不是记者，没做笔记的。
“你了解华盛顿邮报吗？”
“不了解。以前从来没看过他们的报道。”
“华盛顿邮报是一家很大的媒体，全世界都非常有名。”皮夹克特别强调这一点，仔细观察我的反应。
我无动于衷。“不知道。我只是听说过这个媒体的名字而已。”心里想，你们修建了柏林墙把我们囚禁，不准我们看外面的世界，我哪晓得那么多啊？
（几天后，有个朋友告诉我，华盛顿邮报是著名的反华媒体，我大吃一惊。怪不得喝茶时警察那么注意看我的反应呢。偏偏我就是被愚民愚成了白痴，压根儿就不知道哪些媒体“反华”哪些媒体“亲华”。不过，就算事先知道，对我也无影响。我不认为美国的媒体敢“反华”，因为这涉嫌种族歧视，而种族歧视在美国绝对是个敏感雷区；“反共”还差不多，这属于政治观点不同，在美国是正常的。基本上，西方国家的主流媒体都不会亲近伟光正的。）
“你为什么要接受他们的采访？”皮夹克又一次问这个问题。
我睁大眼睛：“我不能接受华盛顿邮报的采访吗？”
他只好说：“你有接受华盛顿邮报采访的权利。”
OK，你承认就好。
皮夹克恳切地说：“你以后不要再接受外媒的采访了。”
我说：“我不做任何承诺。”
“什么？你还要接受外媒的采访啊？”皮夹克相当惊讶。
“我没说还要接受外媒的采访。我只是说我不做任何承诺。这个决定应该由我来做。”
本人的逆反心理比较强，最烦人家威胁我，如果威胁，肯定反弹。其实他们根本不用担忧，不会再有多少外媒来采访我了。我啥也没做呀，跟别人一样，就签了个名而已，这点小破事儿，没多大新闻价值，不值得采访。
“其实，我也不希望因为08宪章而出名。”我说。
他赶快赞同：“这个出名对你没有好处的！”
好处与否，见仁见智。我想的不是这个。“我觉得，要出名的话，应该是靠我自己的能力和水平。可是08宪章吧，这个事情也不是我做的，这篇文件也不是我写的，它不是我自身能力的体现，所以我不想因为它而出名。”
警察还要我答应：“以后不要继续参与08宪章了。”
我回答：“谈不上参与不参与了。我所能做的就是签个名，表示我同意它的主张。我的名早就签过了，对我来说这事儿已经结束了。”
喝茶喝了两小时左右，虽谈不上“亲切”，但气氛还算和平友善。
后来他们把谈话笔录给我看，我仔细地看了两遍，改了两个词，最后签字认可。很高兴记录者把我那句“公权应该出自民授”也写上去了。
这个笔录很简单。但我想，等我走了之后，他们还会写一份对我的“鉴定报告”，就跟班主任对学生的期末鉴定一样。他们一直在观察我、忖度我，不知他们最后会怎样给我“定性”。
大家站起身来，准备离开这间屋子。皮夹克告诫我：“今天的事情，你不要说出去，也不要放到你的博客上。”
“我不做任何承诺。”
“什么？你要把今天的事情也放到博客上啊？”皮夹克瞪大了眼睛。
“我没说要放到博客上，我只是说我不做任何承诺。我觉得这是我自己的事情，应该由我自己做决定。我不喜欢被人家强迫着做决定。”
“你要是把今天的事情公开出去，你要负法律责任的！”
我一边往外走，一边转头问他：“请问一下，我需要负什么样的法律责任？”
“当然要负法律责任的喽！”
啐，答非所问。如果要负法律责任，首先得有相应的法律条文拿出来衡量，我是否违了法；其次呢，该负什么样的法律责任？是管制、拘役、有期徒刑、无期徒刑、死刑？我真的不明白，才向你请教的嘛。
我可以肯定的是，今天的喝茶内容不涉及任何国家机密。别给我扣个“泄露国家机密罪”，我不认的。
09年2月21日后记：
为了让关注小昭命运的朋友们放心，也为了践行我的“站在阳光下”原则，我当然会公开我的喝茶经历。这可是“大姑娘上花轿——第一回”呀，如此有趣的经历，岂能不与朋友们分享。
我说过，我不做躲在阴沟里的小老鼠。哪怕死，我也要死在阳光下，死在众目睽睽之中！
亲爱的朋友们，谢谢你们对我的关心。小昭还没死，至少目前一切平安。但未来命运如何，谁也不知道。只要晓波一天没有恢复自由，其他几千个签名者的命运就处于“未卜”N状态。既然不幸生中国，只好以一副肉身坦然去承受。
上帝保佑我们，阿门！
□ 一读者推荐
相关链接：
1. 人权日前夕北京警方拘押异议人士刘晓波和张祖桦
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21338
2. 中国拘捕约谈异议者调查“零八宪章”
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21346
3. 《零八宪章》吁政改轰动海内外
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21358
4. 我们和刘晓波不可分割
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21371
5. 鲍彤：“零八宪章”何罪？——不得不说的话
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21375
6. 读者谈论《零八宪章》
http://my.cnd.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=61048&forum=2
7. 中国公民群体起草，303人签署的《零八宪章》 (全文+签署人名单)
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21400
8. 施化：《零八宪章》有什么用
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21413
9.萧凌：人性与群体素质——两个被《零八宪章》忽略了的前提
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21412
10.专访作家戴晴、《零八宪章》签名者、新书《张东荪和他的时代》作者——零八宪章只是最基本的权利
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21414
11.改革开放三十年·普世价值·零八宪章
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21415
12.余杰：我们唯有勇气与谦卑
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21428
13. 余杰：探望刘晓波妻子刘霞受阻记
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21429
14.哈维尔：中国人权活动家需要支持——08宪章签署者面临国家愤怒（附英文原文）
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21436
15.中国力争在互联网上封杀零八宪章
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21722
16. 美国参议员联署提议案支持中国民主人士提出的“零八宪章”
http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21729
日期 09-02-28 09:34
专题: 华夏快递
文章的URL: http://my.cnd.org/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=21931
2009年2月28日星期六
Large Companies Losing More Jobs Than Small Ones
Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009
Why Are Large Companies Losing More Jobs Than Small Ones?
By Barbara Kiviat
If it feels like big companies are doing more than their fair share of letting employees go these days, that's not just because mass layoffs at blue chip firms are the ones that make headlines. New research suggests that in times of recession, large employers disproportionately lose workers, while small companies, as a group, fare better. "It's definitely the case that large firms are downsizing much faster in recessions," says Giuseppe Moscarini, an economist at Yale University who conducted the research with Fabien Postel-Vinay of the University of Bristol.
The two economists looked at companies with fewer than 50 employees, and those with more than 1,000, going back to the 1970s—a period that spanned four business cycles. They found that the bigger firms, after adjusting for their larger share of the workforce, account for a greater slice of job destruction during and after recessions—whether through layoffs or simply not hiring workers they would have otherwise. Immediately coming out of a recession, smaller companies were an unusually important source of new job growth, but once economic expansion really took hold, large companies resumed the role of job-creator, added proportionately more positions late in the business cycle. (See what businesses are doing well despite the recession.)
Those findings match up with what the Society for Human Resource Management has been observing in its monthly survey of members. In the last three months of 2008, 27% of small firms (fewer than 100 employees) reported decreasing total head count, while 45% of large companies (500 or more workers) did. That trend was due to continue into this year, with 11% of small companies anticipating decreasing staff by the end of March, but 34% of large companies planning such a change.
What might be behind that? Could it be that large companies—more likely publicly traded—are quicker to bow to the pressure of profit-seeking shareholders? Or that big companies are more likely to be in certain industries (such as manufacturing) that get hit harder in recessions.
Moscarini and Postel-Vinay have another theory. After observing the same broad trend within different industries and states, and even overseas in countries like Denmark and Brazil, they postulate that small companies hire disproportionately more early on in an economic recovery because it's easy for these firms to find good workers while unemployment is still high—and easy for workers to come across small companies since there are so many of them. Once the economy is chugging along at full-steam and the labor market is tight, larger companies regain the advantage, since they're likely able to offer more money—and poach from smaller outfits.
But that shift back to large companies as the major force behind jobs generation can take years. The lesson for the short-term seems to be that small companies are a better bet for work. Just be careful of applying the trend to any specific firm. Small companies on average may not be shedding as many jobs as large ones, but smaller companies are by their very nature volatile—looking at aggregate numbers hides all the instances of companies growing insanely quickly or imploding into nothingness. It's still the case that most people work for large companies: 45% at firms with more than 500 workers, compared to 30% at those with fewer than 50. Getting a job at a big company is still, statistically, your best bet. But so is losing it.
Why Are Large Companies Losing More Jobs Than Small Ones?
By Barbara Kiviat
If it feels like big companies are doing more than their fair share of letting employees go these days, that's not just because mass layoffs at blue chip firms are the ones that make headlines. New research suggests that in times of recession, large employers disproportionately lose workers, while small companies, as a group, fare better. "It's definitely the case that large firms are downsizing much faster in recessions," says Giuseppe Moscarini, an economist at Yale University who conducted the research with Fabien Postel-Vinay of the University of Bristol.
The two economists looked at companies with fewer than 50 employees, and those with more than 1,000, going back to the 1970s—a period that spanned four business cycles. They found that the bigger firms, after adjusting for their larger share of the workforce, account for a greater slice of job destruction during and after recessions—whether through layoffs or simply not hiring workers they would have otherwise. Immediately coming out of a recession, smaller companies were an unusually important source of new job growth, but once economic expansion really took hold, large companies resumed the role of job-creator, added proportionately more positions late in the business cycle. (See what businesses are doing well despite the recession.)
Those findings match up with what the Society for Human Resource Management has been observing in its monthly survey of members. In the last three months of 2008, 27% of small firms (fewer than 100 employees) reported decreasing total head count, while 45% of large companies (500 or more workers) did. That trend was due to continue into this year, with 11% of small companies anticipating decreasing staff by the end of March, but 34% of large companies planning such a change.
What might be behind that? Could it be that large companies—more likely publicly traded—are quicker to bow to the pressure of profit-seeking shareholders? Or that big companies are more likely to be in certain industries (such as manufacturing) that get hit harder in recessions.
Moscarini and Postel-Vinay have another theory. After observing the same broad trend within different industries and states, and even overseas in countries like Denmark and Brazil, they postulate that small companies hire disproportionately more early on in an economic recovery because it's easy for these firms to find good workers while unemployment is still high—and easy for workers to come across small companies since there are so many of them. Once the economy is chugging along at full-steam and the labor market is tight, larger companies regain the advantage, since they're likely able to offer more money—and poach from smaller outfits.
But that shift back to large companies as the major force behind jobs generation can take years. The lesson for the short-term seems to be that small companies are a better bet for work. Just be careful of applying the trend to any specific firm. Small companies on average may not be shedding as many jobs as large ones, but smaller companies are by their very nature volatile—looking at aggregate numbers hides all the instances of companies growing insanely quickly or imploding into nothingness. It's still the case that most people work for large companies: 45% at firms with more than 500 workers, compared to 30% at those with fewer than 50. Getting a job at a big company is still, statistically, your best bet. But so is losing it.
2009年2月27日星期五
Consumer Reports' automaker for reliability
By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY
Chrysler and General Motors (GM) took the bottom two spots, respectively, in Consumer Reports magazine's new automaker for reliability, even as the pair seek billions more in federal loans to stay afloat.
The third of Detroit's Big 3 automakers, Ford Motor, fared better at fourth from the bottom, also beating Suzuki.
First place went to Honda (HMC) for the third-consecutive year, followed by Subaru, Toyota (TM) and Mazda. Next came a tie by Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Volkswagen and BMW, among the 15 makers rated. They were followed by Hyundai, Volvo and Mitsubishi.
The rankings are based on a combination of the magazine's cumulative tests on automakers' models and predicted reliability based on readers' responses on their 1.4 million cars. It is a widely watched measure in the auto industry because of the non-profit's reputation for independence.
"Chrysler is a sad story," says David Champion, the magazine's auto testing chief. "The new models have missed the mark in terms of our testing and consumer appeal."
While GM received critical acclaim for its Buick Acadia crossover and Cadillac CTS sedan, only the Chevy Malibu sedan achieved better-than-average reliability in the ratings, Champion said.
While a Honda Accord may lack pizazz, it's so reliable, "It will save you money in the long run," Champion said.
Chrysler issued a statement saying that it has reduced its warranty claims by 30%, so that it expects to see an improvement in the rankings next year.
GM has lots of older models in the lineup that bring down the results, spokeswoman Janine Fruehan says. The magazine recognized improved quality in some of GM's new vehicles, "but we have work to do on the reliability front," Fruehan says.
In December, GM and Chrysler were granted a total of $17.4 billion in federal loans to keep operating through the recession. GM is seeking another $16.6 billion in loans, while Chrysler wants another $5 billion.
Chrysler and General Motors (GM) took the bottom two spots, respectively, in Consumer Reports magazine's new automaker for reliability, even as the pair seek billions more in federal loans to stay afloat.
The third of Detroit's Big 3 automakers, Ford Motor, fared better at fourth from the bottom, also beating Suzuki.
First place went to Honda (HMC) for the third-consecutive year, followed by Subaru, Toyota (TM) and Mazda. Next came a tie by Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Volkswagen and BMW, among the 15 makers rated. They were followed by Hyundai, Volvo and Mitsubishi.
The rankings are based on a combination of the magazine's cumulative tests on automakers' models and predicted reliability based on readers' responses on their 1.4 million cars. It is a widely watched measure in the auto industry because of the non-profit's reputation for independence.
"Chrysler is a sad story," says David Champion, the magazine's auto testing chief. "The new models have missed the mark in terms of our testing and consumer appeal."
While GM received critical acclaim for its Buick Acadia crossover and Cadillac CTS sedan, only the Chevy Malibu sedan achieved better-than-average reliability in the ratings, Champion said.
While a Honda Accord may lack pizazz, it's so reliable, "It will save you money in the long run," Champion said.
Chrysler issued a statement saying that it has reduced its warranty claims by 30%, so that it expects to see an improvement in the rankings next year.
GM has lots of older models in the lineup that bring down the results, spokeswoman Janine Fruehan says. The magazine recognized improved quality in some of GM's new vehicles, "but we have work to do on the reliability front," Fruehan says.
In December, GM and Chrysler were granted a total of $17.4 billion in federal loans to keep operating through the recession. GM is seeking another $16.6 billion in loans, while Chrysler wants another $5 billion.
江泽民八九年出任总书记内幕
·袁 铭·
八九年六四前夕，邓小平、陈云、李先念激烈博弈接班人人选。邓提宋平、李瑞环入常委，接受李先念提江泽民进常委。邓一度要留赵紫阳在政治局；邓接见秘密进京的江泽民时，以“你干也得干，不干也得干”要他接下总书记一职。
（《亚洲周刊》编者按：今年是六四事件二十周年，这篇文章是中南海一位高层官员退休后的回忆，以他个人角度，提供一些前所未知的历史细节。）
一九八九年五月二十日至六月二日，学生困守天安门广场。北京市民像火燎屁股的猴子，一忽儿蹦到这边，一忽儿蹦到那边。军队不断围城。中南海内，三巨头（邓小平、陈云、李先念）正紧张地商量新领导班子的人选。他们研究人事，通常不像人们想象的那样坐在一起开会，而是各自提出想法，由秘书们进行协调。秘书们总是忠实地转达着首长的意见，连每一句话都不能漏掉或有误。
邓小平首先提出：“宋平进常委。”陈云、李先念大吃一惊。宋平搞了一辈子党务和组织，是陈云的门生，邓小平一直对他深有戒心，为什么这回竟头一个点他的将？但马上陈云、李先念就明白过来：邓小平这是在报恩哩。紧要关头，陈、李站在了邓小平一边，现在邓小平是把宋平当作一件礼物送给陈、李呢。
邓小平在提出宋平进常委后，忽然又说了一句听上去与此毫不相关的话：“两年不争论。”陈云、李先念又费踌躇。这是何意？很快又醒悟：邓小平这是在向他俩摇橄榄枝：宋平是你的人，我不是不知道，可我偏要用，也敢用；我把思想分歧暂时扔进垃圾堆。陈云不是也说过“过去的帐一笔勾销”么？我用此话与你相得益彰。唯一区别在于，你也许要勾销一辈子，我只有两年。邓小平这句名言，“六四”后渐渐被陈云遗忘了，也被李先念遗忘了，别人也忘了，唯有邓小平还记得。一九九二年他发表南巡讲话，算算时间，正好两年。
李先念提出：江泽民进常委，并担任总书记。我们在中央工作的这些人都看不出来李先念与江泽民有什么特殊关系。李先念倒是每年冬天都去上海，江泽民当然好招待。但邓小平、陈云亦每年都去，江泽民也会招待好。想来想去，恐怕还是思想体系相通。李先念这回提名，也省略了大段的赞美，只说：“江泽民这个人不错，连名字都起得好。过去我们在毛泽东同志率领下打倒国民党，革命成功了。“泽东”有拯救东方之意，“泽民”意思也不错，利国利民嘛！”陈云自然与李先念站在一起。李先念的意见反馈到邓小平那里，邓小平没反对，还说了一句挺有意思的话：“凡事总要有个比较。比过来比过去，该轮到他了。”
邓小平又提出：万里进常委。陈云、李先念一致反对。杨尚昆也跑去找陈云，说：“小平同志让万里进常委，这怎么能服全党？先念同志提议让我进常委，也不合适吧。”这是个谜。李先念断不会提议杨尚昆进常委，杨尚昆也未必会撒谎。幕后究竟演出了什么，天晓得。倒是陈云反应相当敏捷，说：“你这么老的资格了，不进常委也照样发挥作用。”给杨尚昆一个不软不硬的钉子。邓小平接着提出：李瑞环进常委。陈云坚决反对，说：“如果让李瑞环进常委，就把唐山大地震带到北京来了。”邓小平听了这句话，发了脾气，把姚依林和李鹏召到米粮库，说：“这次进常委班子的人，一定要全貌全新的和改革形象好的。你们俩都不能代表改革派。陈云和李先念也不能代表改革派。”姚依林、李鹏沉静地听着。邓小平说：“李瑞环怎么样？”李鹏说：“我不了解他。”姚依林说：“我在天津工作过，大家对他有些看法，主要是个人独断专行，顺我者昌，逆我者亡。”邓的怒气一下子窜出来，说：“我怎么不知道？”后来他在与江泽民谈话时，仍余怒未消，说：“他俩竟敢顶撞我！”姚依林事后说：“还有句重话我没说呢。李瑞环有两件法宝：好马快刀。马是什么马？溜须拍马。刀是什么刀？两面三刀。要说出这话，还不把老爷子气背过去？”
李先念虽说对李瑞环没什么好感，却也不像陈云那样铁板一块。邓小平请他去做陈云的工作。邓小平说：“你对陈云说，陈云同志什么都好，就是在人事问题上太固执！”李先念转达此话后，陈云说：“我是固执到死了！”仍不同意李瑞环进。李先念小心翼翼地说：“那就改让王任重进吧？” 陈云说：“绝不可以！”李先念悻悻地离开。在回家路上，李先念嗔道：“老顽固，五八年的仇一直记到今天！他是三十年一贯制！就是认为我好欺负。”后来，我专门向李锐等人了解五八年在陈云和王任重之间究竟发生了什么，但没人能说清楚。
邓小平知道了陈云与李先念的谈话结果后，显得很平静，说：“那好，赵紫阳留在政治局。”这一炮轰过去，陈云和李先念都懵了。这些日子，他们心血呕尽，为邓小平之船护航，为的就是封杀紫阳。紫阳若留，前功付水流。李先念说：“赵紫阳才七十岁！”听到这里，我不禁悲哀。七十岁了，行将就木，却用一个“才”字，显得十万惶惶。李先念们的心理包含着多深的敌意啊。李先念还说：“现在这些常委中，没有一个人比赵紫阳会耍手腕！”这话不假。赵紫阳，失掉了胜利，却抓住了历史。没有“四五”天安门事件，邓小平走不进历史；没有粉碎“四人帮”之举，华国锋也走不进历史。没有“六四”，赵紫阳也就是匆匆过客。“六四”非为他而起，却因他激烈，或因他流血，他也走进历史。陈云、李先念惧怕赵，邓却不怕。唯一能制住邓小平的是毛泽东；唯一能制住赵紫阳的就是邓小平。邓小平之后就难说了。
邓小平让姚依林去做陈云工作。姚依林不敢去，说：“还是请先念同志去吧。”李先念二进宫。未出发，陈云已知道他来意，说：“不要他来！我知道他要干什么。我在考虑！”李先念还是去了。他在陈云处逗留了半小时。刚回到家，邓办主任王瑞林问：“怎么样？”李先念秘书徐桂宝高兴地答：“通了。”
八九年五月二十九日，一架空军专机袅袅飘落在北京西郊机场。机场无任何等级警卫。飞机停稳时，天已擦黑。一个帽子压得很低、戴着口罩的人匆匆走下舷梯。汽车停在机翼下。他钻进汽车，绝尘而去。空军三十四师保卫科科长李保国踱过去，问机组人员：“接的什么人？”机组人员说：“听说是一个医生。”
这个神秘客就是江泽民。
江泽民抵达北京的当天就受到了邓小平的接见。邓小平把中央内定江泽民当总书记的消息通报江。江泽民坚辞不受。他说：“如果让我当总书记，就只能算个小学生水平。”邓小平劝说，江泽民再三推辞。我想他是认真的，而且态度是坚定的，否则不会最后惹得小平发怒。邓小平说：“你干也得干，不干也得干！”江泽民这才缄口。
这一阶段江泽民的思想动态有迹可循。他对接任总书记之职一无准备，二不愿干。他儿子那时在美国学习，听到外电报道父亲上马的消息，立即打电话给爸爸，要求回国。总参三部监听到江泽民与其子的通话。江泽民很严厉地说：“要冷静，不要在这个时候回上海！”儿子不放心，还是回来了。后来他向朋友讲述了初次与换了头衔的爸爸见面的情景。在回国的飞机上，他听到一则笑话：邓小平、李鹏、胡耀邦同乘一车，被一头毛驴挡住，无论怎么按喇叭，毛驴都不动。李下车：“再不让开，我戒严了！”驴不动。邓下车：“再不让开，我开枪了！”驴仍不动。胡耀邦下车，悄悄对驴耳语几句，驴大惊，撒蹄狂奔。邓、李不解：“你对它耳边说了些什么？”胡耀邦答：“你再不走，我让你当总书记了。”儿子一到家就对江泽民喊：“爸爸，不要干这个总书记！”江泽民无语。儿子又说：“你要看看胡耀邦和赵紫阳的下场。”江泽民仰脸朝天，说：“难道你以为胡耀邦、赵紫阳接职之前没有料到有如此下场吗？”儿子后来说：“当时，爸爸脸上现出一种悲壮的表情。”
邓小平召集部分领导人和老同志开了一个小范围的会，宣布了对江的任命。邓小平说：“从今天之后，你们有什么事不要再找我。政治上我就交班了。我什么都不管。功也是你们的，过也是你们的。”江泽民发言时强调提出：“邓小平同志虽然现在不在一线，但他有丰富的经验。如果出现问题，我们仍要向小平同志请教，他决不会拒绝我们。”半个月前，赵紫阳对戈尔巴乔夫说过与此意思完全相同的话。
中央机关对江的任命普遍感到震惊。议论蜂起。议论最多的是：为什么邓小平会同意李先念的建议，启用江泽民。钱一俭说：“中国历史有惊人的相似：毛打倒了他长期考察、了解并信赖的两个人：刘少奇和林彪，用了一个他不怎么了解并谈不上信任的人：华国锋。邓也打倒了他长期信任并使用的两个人：胡耀邦和赵紫阳，而用了他不大了解并从未考察过的人：江泽民。人们不希望历史重复，可历史总在更高水平和层次上重复。”
前商务部副部长安民说：“华国锋之后是出了一个强人邓小平。邓小平之后？会不会出现强人？会是谁？”
□ 《亚洲周刊》二○○九年第九期
八九年六四前夕，邓小平、陈云、李先念激烈博弈接班人人选。邓提宋平、李瑞环入常委，接受李先念提江泽民进常委。邓一度要留赵紫阳在政治局；邓接见秘密进京的江泽民时，以“你干也得干，不干也得干”要他接下总书记一职。
（《亚洲周刊》编者按：今年是六四事件二十周年，这篇文章是中南海一位高层官员退休后的回忆，以他个人角度，提供一些前所未知的历史细节。）
一九八九年五月二十日至六月二日，学生困守天安门广场。北京市民像火燎屁股的猴子，一忽儿蹦到这边，一忽儿蹦到那边。军队不断围城。中南海内，三巨头（邓小平、陈云、李先念）正紧张地商量新领导班子的人选。他们研究人事，通常不像人们想象的那样坐在一起开会，而是各自提出想法，由秘书们进行协调。秘书们总是忠实地转达着首长的意见，连每一句话都不能漏掉或有误。
邓小平首先提出：“宋平进常委。”陈云、李先念大吃一惊。宋平搞了一辈子党务和组织，是陈云的门生，邓小平一直对他深有戒心，为什么这回竟头一个点他的将？但马上陈云、李先念就明白过来：邓小平这是在报恩哩。紧要关头，陈、李站在了邓小平一边，现在邓小平是把宋平当作一件礼物送给陈、李呢。
邓小平在提出宋平进常委后，忽然又说了一句听上去与此毫不相关的话：“两年不争论。”陈云、李先念又费踌躇。这是何意？很快又醒悟：邓小平这是在向他俩摇橄榄枝：宋平是你的人，我不是不知道，可我偏要用，也敢用；我把思想分歧暂时扔进垃圾堆。陈云不是也说过“过去的帐一笔勾销”么？我用此话与你相得益彰。唯一区别在于，你也许要勾销一辈子，我只有两年。邓小平这句名言，“六四”后渐渐被陈云遗忘了，也被李先念遗忘了，别人也忘了，唯有邓小平还记得。一九九二年他发表南巡讲话，算算时间，正好两年。
李先念提出：江泽民进常委，并担任总书记。我们在中央工作的这些人都看不出来李先念与江泽民有什么特殊关系。李先念倒是每年冬天都去上海，江泽民当然好招待。但邓小平、陈云亦每年都去，江泽民也会招待好。想来想去，恐怕还是思想体系相通。李先念这回提名，也省略了大段的赞美，只说：“江泽民这个人不错，连名字都起得好。过去我们在毛泽东同志率领下打倒国民党，革命成功了。“泽东”有拯救东方之意，“泽民”意思也不错，利国利民嘛！”陈云自然与李先念站在一起。李先念的意见反馈到邓小平那里，邓小平没反对，还说了一句挺有意思的话：“凡事总要有个比较。比过来比过去，该轮到他了。”
邓小平又提出：万里进常委。陈云、李先念一致反对。杨尚昆也跑去找陈云，说：“小平同志让万里进常委，这怎么能服全党？先念同志提议让我进常委，也不合适吧。”这是个谜。李先念断不会提议杨尚昆进常委，杨尚昆也未必会撒谎。幕后究竟演出了什么，天晓得。倒是陈云反应相当敏捷，说：“你这么老的资格了，不进常委也照样发挥作用。”给杨尚昆一个不软不硬的钉子。邓小平接着提出：李瑞环进常委。陈云坚决反对，说：“如果让李瑞环进常委，就把唐山大地震带到北京来了。”邓小平听了这句话，发了脾气，把姚依林和李鹏召到米粮库，说：“这次进常委班子的人，一定要全貌全新的和改革形象好的。你们俩都不能代表改革派。陈云和李先念也不能代表改革派。”姚依林、李鹏沉静地听着。邓小平说：“李瑞环怎么样？”李鹏说：“我不了解他。”姚依林说：“我在天津工作过，大家对他有些看法，主要是个人独断专行，顺我者昌，逆我者亡。”邓的怒气一下子窜出来，说：“我怎么不知道？”后来他在与江泽民谈话时，仍余怒未消，说：“他俩竟敢顶撞我！”姚依林事后说：“还有句重话我没说呢。李瑞环有两件法宝：好马快刀。马是什么马？溜须拍马。刀是什么刀？两面三刀。要说出这话，还不把老爷子气背过去？”
李先念虽说对李瑞环没什么好感，却也不像陈云那样铁板一块。邓小平请他去做陈云的工作。邓小平说：“你对陈云说，陈云同志什么都好，就是在人事问题上太固执！”李先念转达此话后，陈云说：“我是固执到死了！”仍不同意李瑞环进。李先念小心翼翼地说：“那就改让王任重进吧？” 陈云说：“绝不可以！”李先念悻悻地离开。在回家路上，李先念嗔道：“老顽固，五八年的仇一直记到今天！他是三十年一贯制！就是认为我好欺负。”后来，我专门向李锐等人了解五八年在陈云和王任重之间究竟发生了什么，但没人能说清楚。
邓小平知道了陈云与李先念的谈话结果后，显得很平静，说：“那好，赵紫阳留在政治局。”这一炮轰过去，陈云和李先念都懵了。这些日子，他们心血呕尽，为邓小平之船护航，为的就是封杀紫阳。紫阳若留，前功付水流。李先念说：“赵紫阳才七十岁！”听到这里，我不禁悲哀。七十岁了，行将就木，却用一个“才”字，显得十万惶惶。李先念们的心理包含着多深的敌意啊。李先念还说：“现在这些常委中，没有一个人比赵紫阳会耍手腕！”这话不假。赵紫阳，失掉了胜利，却抓住了历史。没有“四五”天安门事件，邓小平走不进历史；没有粉碎“四人帮”之举，华国锋也走不进历史。没有“六四”，赵紫阳也就是匆匆过客。“六四”非为他而起，却因他激烈，或因他流血，他也走进历史。陈云、李先念惧怕赵，邓却不怕。唯一能制住邓小平的是毛泽东；唯一能制住赵紫阳的就是邓小平。邓小平之后就难说了。
邓小平让姚依林去做陈云工作。姚依林不敢去，说：“还是请先念同志去吧。”李先念二进宫。未出发，陈云已知道他来意，说：“不要他来！我知道他要干什么。我在考虑！”李先念还是去了。他在陈云处逗留了半小时。刚回到家，邓办主任王瑞林问：“怎么样？”李先念秘书徐桂宝高兴地答：“通了。”
八九年五月二十九日，一架空军专机袅袅飘落在北京西郊机场。机场无任何等级警卫。飞机停稳时，天已擦黑。一个帽子压得很低、戴着口罩的人匆匆走下舷梯。汽车停在机翼下。他钻进汽车，绝尘而去。空军三十四师保卫科科长李保国踱过去，问机组人员：“接的什么人？”机组人员说：“听说是一个医生。”
这个神秘客就是江泽民。
江泽民抵达北京的当天就受到了邓小平的接见。邓小平把中央内定江泽民当总书记的消息通报江。江泽民坚辞不受。他说：“如果让我当总书记，就只能算个小学生水平。”邓小平劝说，江泽民再三推辞。我想他是认真的，而且态度是坚定的，否则不会最后惹得小平发怒。邓小平说：“你干也得干，不干也得干！”江泽民这才缄口。
这一阶段江泽民的思想动态有迹可循。他对接任总书记之职一无准备，二不愿干。他儿子那时在美国学习，听到外电报道父亲上马的消息，立即打电话给爸爸，要求回国。总参三部监听到江泽民与其子的通话。江泽民很严厉地说：“要冷静，不要在这个时候回上海！”儿子不放心，还是回来了。后来他向朋友讲述了初次与换了头衔的爸爸见面的情景。在回国的飞机上，他听到一则笑话：邓小平、李鹏、胡耀邦同乘一车，被一头毛驴挡住，无论怎么按喇叭，毛驴都不动。李下车：“再不让开，我戒严了！”驴不动。邓下车：“再不让开，我开枪了！”驴仍不动。胡耀邦下车，悄悄对驴耳语几句，驴大惊，撒蹄狂奔。邓、李不解：“你对它耳边说了些什么？”胡耀邦答：“你再不走，我让你当总书记了。”儿子一到家就对江泽民喊：“爸爸，不要干这个总书记！”江泽民无语。儿子又说：“你要看看胡耀邦和赵紫阳的下场。”江泽民仰脸朝天，说：“难道你以为胡耀邦、赵紫阳接职之前没有料到有如此下场吗？”儿子后来说：“当时，爸爸脸上现出一种悲壮的表情。”
邓小平召集部分领导人和老同志开了一个小范围的会，宣布了对江的任命。邓小平说：“从今天之后，你们有什么事不要再找我。政治上我就交班了。我什么都不管。功也是你们的，过也是你们的。”江泽民发言时强调提出：“邓小平同志虽然现在不在一线，但他有丰富的经验。如果出现问题，我们仍要向小平同志请教，他决不会拒绝我们。”半个月前，赵紫阳对戈尔巴乔夫说过与此意思完全相同的话。
中央机关对江的任命普遍感到震惊。议论蜂起。议论最多的是：为什么邓小平会同意李先念的建议，启用江泽民。钱一俭说：“中国历史有惊人的相似：毛打倒了他长期考察、了解并信赖的两个人：刘少奇和林彪，用了一个他不怎么了解并谈不上信任的人：华国锋。邓也打倒了他长期信任并使用的两个人：胡耀邦和赵紫阳，而用了他不大了解并从未考察过的人：江泽民。人们不希望历史重复，可历史总在更高水平和层次上重复。”
前商务部副部长安民说：“华国锋之后是出了一个强人邓小平。邓小平之后？会不会出现强人？会是谁？”
□ 《亚洲周刊》二○○九年第九期
2009年2月26日星期四
China crafting auto consortium plan
Thursday, February 26, 2009
'Big 10' carmakers would be led by GM partner Shanghai Automotive Industrial.
Associated Press
SHANGHAI -- China plans to build up a "Big 10" group of globally competitive automakers, led by General Motors Corp. partner Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp., an industry association said Wednesday.
The plan, part of a wider stimulus package for the auto industry, is also aimed at boosting sales and production this year to 10 million units and keeping growth at about 10 percent in the next few years, according to a report posted on the Web site of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
An association spokesman referred questions to the report, originally by the Shanghai Securities News, but said he could not provide any further details.
The plan outlined in the report dovetails with the country's long-term strategy of consolidating numerous small regional manufacturers into bigger national auto groups, while at the same time encouraging use of more fuel-efficient, lower-polluting vehicles.
Foreign-brand cars still dominate the Chinese market thanks to a government policy of inviting foreign automakers to partner, as minority stakeholders, with local companies, such as Shanghai Automotive, also known as SAIC.
Foreign automakers including Volkswagen AG, Hyundai Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. have invested billions of dollars in Chinese joint ventures, sharing technology and know-how in exchange for access to the country's potentially huge market.
But the final goal has always been for the country to develop its own brand vehicles.
One aim of the plan is to boost the share of domestic brand auto manufacturers to at least 40 percent from the current 34 percent, the report on the CAAM Web site said.
China's automakers are suffering a slowdown, but not the plunging sales seen in other major markets.
Chinese monthly auto sales surpassed those in the U.S. for the first time in January -- largely because of the sharp drop in American sales.
Total Chinese auto sales last year rose 6.7 percent to 9.38 million units, the first time annual growth had fallen below 10 percent since 1999.
The government's plan calls for nurturing several automakers capable of making more than 2 million cars a year.
Those would include state-run SAIC, which produced about 1.8 million vehicles last year, FAW Group, Dongfeng Automobile Co. and Changan Automotive Co.
The second tier of smaller automakers, with production capacity of 1 million cars or more, may include Beijing Automotive Industry Group, Guangzhou Auto and Chery Automobile Co., among others, according to the report.
'Big 10' carmakers would be led by GM partner Shanghai Automotive Industrial.
Associated Press
SHANGHAI -- China plans to build up a "Big 10" group of globally competitive automakers, led by General Motors Corp. partner Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp., an industry association said Wednesday.
The plan, part of a wider stimulus package for the auto industry, is also aimed at boosting sales and production this year to 10 million units and keeping growth at about 10 percent in the next few years, according to a report posted on the Web site of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
An association spokesman referred questions to the report, originally by the Shanghai Securities News, but said he could not provide any further details.
The plan outlined in the report dovetails with the country's long-term strategy of consolidating numerous small regional manufacturers into bigger national auto groups, while at the same time encouraging use of more fuel-efficient, lower-polluting vehicles.
Foreign-brand cars still dominate the Chinese market thanks to a government policy of inviting foreign automakers to partner, as minority stakeholders, with local companies, such as Shanghai Automotive, also known as SAIC.
Foreign automakers including Volkswagen AG, Hyundai Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. have invested billions of dollars in Chinese joint ventures, sharing technology and know-how in exchange for access to the country's potentially huge market.
But the final goal has always been for the country to develop its own brand vehicles.
One aim of the plan is to boost the share of domestic brand auto manufacturers to at least 40 percent from the current 34 percent, the report on the CAAM Web site said.
China's automakers are suffering a slowdown, but not the plunging sales seen in other major markets.
Chinese monthly auto sales surpassed those in the U.S. for the first time in January -- largely because of the sharp drop in American sales.
Total Chinese auto sales last year rose 6.7 percent to 9.38 million units, the first time annual growth had fallen below 10 percent since 1999.
The government's plan calls for nurturing several automakers capable of making more than 2 million cars a year.
Those would include state-run SAIC, which produced about 1.8 million vehicles last year, FAW Group, Dongfeng Automobile Co. and Changan Automotive Co.
The second tier of smaller automakers, with production capacity of 1 million cars or more, may include Beijing Automotive Industry Group, Guangzhou Auto and Chery Automobile Co., among others, according to the report.
2009年2月25日星期三
Can't let Big 3 fail
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Obama says U.S. can't let Big 3 fail
In first speech to Congress, he also tells nation 'we will recover.'
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama scolded the domestic carmakers Tuesday night for "years of bad decision making," but said "the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
In a speech to a joint session of Congress, the new president offered no details as to how he would help the industry restructure, and no promise to grant the billions of dollars in new aid that General Motors and Chrysler seek.
But it was his strongest commitment yet to preserving the companies that have defined Michigan's economy and identity for a century.
"We are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win," he said. "Millions of jobs depend on it."
Though Michigan was largely focused on Obama's brief comments on autos, the roughly hour-long address ranged widely, touching on everything from the just-passed stimulus plan to rescuing struggling homeowners to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But at its heart was a message about the economy both sobering and optimistic. Obama told the nation bluntly that it's in trouble, but said he was offering solutions that could rebuild the economy and the nation's confidence.
His administration will likely determine the futures of GM and Chrysler, which already have received more than $17 billion in federal loans -- money desperately needed to stave off collapse amid falling market share and massive losses.
Last week, the companies submitted restructuring plans that include requests for up to $21 billion in additional aid. A White House task force, led by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, is to meet with company executives this week, and must decide by March 31 whether to continue aid. If dissatisfied with the plans, the administration could call in its loans and force the companies into bankruptcy.
"The auto industry is worried and they all should be," said Bob Kolt, a Lansing-based political consultant.
"The president was supportive but clearly whacked Detroit. And I'm sure most people think he's right to rock the industry a little. You get a bailout, expect to get public whipping."
Michigan Democrats acknowledged that Obama had tough words for the industry, but praised his commitment to saving it.
"The key word I heard is 'committed,' " said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit. "He's talking about winning. He's not talking about letting this industry go."
"He said we have to do better and we must do better," said the senator's brother, Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak.
"I am very hopeful," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, "that these words of support will be backed up by necessary action."
But Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, saw a threat ahead for the industry in Obama's call for a "cap and trade" system to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "His reference to cap and trade would devastate manufacturing and the auto industry," said Camp, who also criticized Obama's vow to lift the Bush-era tax cuts on those making more than $250,000 a year.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which would help shape a cap and trade system, said legislation can protect the climate and protect manufacturing. "We're working to craft a bill that would meet the necessary requirements to tackle global warming but to do it in a way that produces the most jobs," she said.
Obama spoke of "the stark reality of what we've inherited -- a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession."
"Though we are living through difficult and uncertain times," he said, "tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
Bill Rustem of Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based good government group, said Obama's speech was "not just for the Congress, but for the people of the country. His call for people to not quit on themselves because they are also quitting on their country was clearly an appeal for a resurgence of personal responsibility."
"After only 35 days in office," Rustem said, "the president did a masterful job of setting the tone for his administration."
Victor Junior, 45, of Ferndale, said Obama's plan for tax breaks, jobless benefits and fixing the credit crisis are all on point.
"The Democrats and Republicans may not both agree on the plan, but something has to be done," he said.
GOP leader weighs in
The Republican response to his address came from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, among the GOP's most prominent young leaders, who criticized Obama for being unduly pessimistic about the nation's challenges.
And Jindal went directly after Obama and Democrats in Congress for the just-passed stimulus package: "Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did."
But in describing the stimulus and the 2010 budget he will outline on Thursday, Obama defended an expansive federal role. "I reject the view ...that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity," he said.
His speech -- a State of the Union address in everything but name -- offered a relatively short list of new initiatives. But Obama said he would follow through on a campaign pledge to reform the nation's health care system, beginning with his coming budget proposal.
And he touched on an issue of deep concern in Detroit: high school dropouts. Just 75 percent of students statewide, and 58 percent in Detroit, graduate.
"Dropping out of high school is no longer an option," the president said. "It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country -- and this country needs and values the talents of every American."
Staff writers Oralandar Brand-Williams, Christine Ferretti and Steve Pardo contributed.
Obama says U.S. can't let Big 3 fail
In first speech to Congress, he also tells nation 'we will recover.'
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama scolded the domestic carmakers Tuesday night for "years of bad decision making," but said "the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
In a speech to a joint session of Congress, the new president offered no details as to how he would help the industry restructure, and no promise to grant the billions of dollars in new aid that General Motors and Chrysler seek.
But it was his strongest commitment yet to preserving the companies that have defined Michigan's economy and identity for a century.
"We are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win," he said. "Millions of jobs depend on it."
Though Michigan was largely focused on Obama's brief comments on autos, the roughly hour-long address ranged widely, touching on everything from the just-passed stimulus plan to rescuing struggling homeowners to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But at its heart was a message about the economy both sobering and optimistic. Obama told the nation bluntly that it's in trouble, but said he was offering solutions that could rebuild the economy and the nation's confidence.
His administration will likely determine the futures of GM and Chrysler, which already have received more than $17 billion in federal loans -- money desperately needed to stave off collapse amid falling market share and massive losses.
Last week, the companies submitted restructuring plans that include requests for up to $21 billion in additional aid. A White House task force, led by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, is to meet with company executives this week, and must decide by March 31 whether to continue aid. If dissatisfied with the plans, the administration could call in its loans and force the companies into bankruptcy.
"The auto industry is worried and they all should be," said Bob Kolt, a Lansing-based political consultant.
"The president was supportive but clearly whacked Detroit. And I'm sure most people think he's right to rock the industry a little. You get a bailout, expect to get public whipping."
Michigan Democrats acknowledged that Obama had tough words for the industry, but praised his commitment to saving it.
"The key word I heard is 'committed,' " said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit. "He's talking about winning. He's not talking about letting this industry go."
"He said we have to do better and we must do better," said the senator's brother, Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak.
"I am very hopeful," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, "that these words of support will be backed up by necessary action."
But Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, saw a threat ahead for the industry in Obama's call for a "cap and trade" system to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "His reference to cap and trade would devastate manufacturing and the auto industry," said Camp, who also criticized Obama's vow to lift the Bush-era tax cuts on those making more than $250,000 a year.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which would help shape a cap and trade system, said legislation can protect the climate and protect manufacturing. "We're working to craft a bill that would meet the necessary requirements to tackle global warming but to do it in a way that produces the most jobs," she said.
Obama spoke of "the stark reality of what we've inherited -- a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession."
"Though we are living through difficult and uncertain times," he said, "tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
Bill Rustem of Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based good government group, said Obama's speech was "not just for the Congress, but for the people of the country. His call for people to not quit on themselves because they are also quitting on their country was clearly an appeal for a resurgence of personal responsibility."
"After only 35 days in office," Rustem said, "the president did a masterful job of setting the tone for his administration."
Victor Junior, 45, of Ferndale, said Obama's plan for tax breaks, jobless benefits and fixing the credit crisis are all on point.
"The Democrats and Republicans may not both agree on the plan, but something has to be done," he said.
GOP leader weighs in
The Republican response to his address came from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, among the GOP's most prominent young leaders, who criticized Obama for being unduly pessimistic about the nation's challenges.
And Jindal went directly after Obama and Democrats in Congress for the just-passed stimulus package: "Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did."
But in describing the stimulus and the 2010 budget he will outline on Thursday, Obama defended an expansive federal role. "I reject the view ...that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity," he said.
His speech -- a State of the Union address in everything but name -- offered a relatively short list of new initiatives. But Obama said he would follow through on a campaign pledge to reform the nation's health care system, beginning with his coming budget proposal.
And he touched on an issue of deep concern in Detroit: high school dropouts. Just 75 percent of students statewide, and 58 percent in Detroit, graduate.
"Dropping out of high school is no longer an option," the president said. "It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country -- and this country needs and values the talents of every American."
Staff writers Oralandar Brand-Williams, Christine Ferretti and Steve Pardo contributed.
"We'll Rebuild, we'll recovery"
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Here is a transcript of the speech:
President Obama: Thank you very much.
Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, and the first lady of the United States, who's around here somewhere.
I have come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here.
I know that for many Americans watching right now, the state of our economy is a concern that rises above all others, and rightly so. If you haven't been personally affected by this recession, you probably know someone who has: a friend, a neighbor, a member of your family.
You don't need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It's the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It's the job you thought you'd retire from but now have lost, the business you built your dreams upon that's now hanging by a thread, the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope.
The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere.
But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.
The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.
Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.
Now, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that for too long we have not always met these responsibilities, as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or to look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.
The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank.
We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy, yet we import more oil today than ever before.
The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform.
Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for.
And though all of these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
In other words, we have lived through an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election.
A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations...
Regulations -- regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well, that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Now is the time to act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.
Now is the time to jump-start job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I'd like to talk to you about tonight.
It's an agenda that begins with jobs. As soon...
As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by Presidents Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets, not because I believe in bigger government -- I don't -- not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited -- I am.
I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years. And that's why I pushed for quick action.
And tonight I am grateful that this Congress delivered and pleased to say that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now law.
Over -- over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector, jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit.
Because of this plan, there are teachers who can now keep their jobs and educate our kids. Health care professionals can continue caring for our sick. There are 57 police officers who are still on the streets of Minneapolis, [Minnesota] tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make.
Because of this plan, 95 percent of working households in America will receive a tax cut, a tax cut that you will see in your paychecks beginning on April 1.
Because of this plan, families who are struggling to pay tuition costs will receive a $2,500 tax credit for all four years of college.
And Americans -- and Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage to help them weather this storm. Now I know there are some in this chamber and watching at home who are skeptical of whether this plan will work, and I understand that skepticism.
Here in Washington, we've all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.
And that's why I've asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort, because nobody messes with Joe.
I have told each of my Cabinet, as well as mayors and governors across the country, that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend.
I've appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud.
And we have created a new Web site called recovery.gov so that every American can find out how and where their money is being spent.
So, the recovery plan we passed is the first step in getting our economy back on track, but it is just the first step, because even if we manage this plan flawlessly, there will be no real recovery unless we clean up the credit crisis that has severely weakened our financial system.
I want to speak plainly and candidly about this issue tonight, because every American should know that it directly affects you and your family's well-being. You should also know that the money you've deposited in banks across the country is safe, your insurance is secure. You can rely on the continued operation of our financial system; that's not the source of concern.
The concern is that, if we do not re-start lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins. You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education, how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.
But credit has stopped flowing the way it should. Too many bad loans from the housing crisis have made their way onto the books of too many banks. And with so much debt and so little confidence, these banks are now fearful of lending out any more money to households, to businesses, or even to each other.
When there's no lending, families can't afford to buy homes or cars, so businesses are forced to make layoffs. Our economy suffers even more, and credit dries up even further.
That is why this administration is moving swiftly and aggressively to break this destructive cycle, to restore confidence, and restart lending.
And we will do so in several ways. First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small-business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running.
Second -- second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages.
It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values, Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped to bring about. In fact, the average family who refinances today can save nearly $2,000 per year on their mortgage.
Third, we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy.
Now, I understand that, on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives bank bailouts with no strings attached and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decisions, but such an approach won't solve the problem.
And our goal is to quicken the day when we restart lending to the American people and American business and end this crisis once and for all. And I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer.
This time -- this time, CEOs won't be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks, or buy fancy drapes, or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.
Still, this plan will require significant resources from the federal government and, yes, probably more than we've already set aside. But while the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade.
That would be worse for our deficit, worse for business, worse for you, and worse for the next generation. And I refuse to let that happen.
Now, I understand that when the last administration asked this Congress to provide assistance for struggling banks, Democrats and Republicans alike were infuriated by the mismanagement and the results that followed. So were the American taxpayers; so was I.
So I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you: I get it.
But I also know that, in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger or yield to the politics of the moment.
My job -- our job -- is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility.
I will not send -- I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can't pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can't get a mortgage.
That's what this is about. It's not about helping banks; it's about helping people.
It's not about helping banks; it's about helping people. Because when credit is available again, that young family can finally buy a new home. And then some company will hire workers to build it. And then those workers will have money to spend. And if they can get a loan, too, maybe they'll finally buy that car or open their own business.
Investors will return to the market, and American families will see their retirement secured once more. Slowly, but surely, confidence will return, and our economy will recover.
So -- so I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary, because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession. And to ensure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again, I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system.
It is time. It is time.
It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation and punishes shortcuts and abuse.
The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we're taking to revive our economy in the short term, but the only way to fully restore America's economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world.
The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility.
In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we've come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or a laundry list of programs.
I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America, as a blueprint for our future.
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we've inherited: a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
Given these realities, everyone in this chamber -- Democrats and Republicans -- will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars, and that includes me.
But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges.
I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves, that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity, for history tells a different story.
History reminds us that, at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas.
In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry.
From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age.
In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle-class in history.
And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world.
In each case, government didn't supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive.
We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again.
That is why, even as it cuts back on programs we don't need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education.
It begins with energy.
We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.
Well, I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders, and I know you don't, either. It is time for America to lead again.
Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years. We've also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history, an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, in science and technology.
We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills.
But to truly transform our economy, to protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.
So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. That's what we need.
And to support -- to support that innovation, we will invest $15 billion a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power, advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more efficient cars and trucks built right here in America.
Speaking of our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global recession have pushed our automakers to the brink. We should not and will not protect them from their own bad practices.
But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it; scores of communities depend on it; and I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.
Now, none of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is America. We don't do what's easy. We do what's necessary to move this country forward.
And for that same reason, we must also address the crushing cost of health care.
This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, 1 million more Americans have lost their health insurance.
It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it is one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget.
Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold. We can't afford to do it.
It's time.
Already, we've done more to advance the cause of health care reform in the last 30 days than we've done in the last decade. When it was days old, this Congress passed a law to provide and protect health insurance for 11 million American children whose parents work full-time.
Our recovery plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives.
It will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American, including me, by seeking a cure for cancer in our time.
And -- and it makes the largest investment ever in preventive care, because that's one of the best ways to keep our people healthy and our costs under control.
This budget builds on these reforms. It includes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform, a down payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It's a commitment
It's a commitment that's paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue, and it's a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come.
Now, there will be many different opinions and ideas about how to achieve reform. That's why I'm bringing together businesses and workers, doctors and health care providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin work on this issue next week.
I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. Once again, it will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and our conscience long enough.
So let there be no doubt: Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.
The third challenge we must address is the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America.
In a global economy, where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity. It is a prerequisite.
Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma, and yet just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation, and half of the students who begin college never finish.
This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education, from the day they are born to the day they begin a career. That is a promise we have to make to the children of America.
Already, we've made a historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We've dramatically expanded early childhood education and will continue to improve its quality, because we know that the most formative learning comes in those first years of life.
We've made college affordable for nearly 7 million more students, 7 million. And we have provided the resources necessary to prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children's progress.
But we know that our schools don't just need more resources; they need more reform. And that is why...
That is why this budget creates new teachers -- new incentives for teacher performance, pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We'll invest -- we'll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools.
It is...It is our responsibility as lawmakers and as educators to make this system work, but it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it.
So tonight I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be a community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.
And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself; it's quitting on your country. And this country needs and values the talents of every American.
That's why -- that's why we will support -- we will provide the support necessary for all young Americans to complete college and meet a new goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. That is a goal we can meet.
That's a goal we can meet.
Now -- now, I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why, if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education.
And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Sen. Orrin Hatch, as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country, Sen. Edward Kennedy.
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children, but it is up to us to ensure they walk through them.
In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a parent, for a mother or father who will attend those parent-teacher conferences, or help with homework, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, read to their child.
I speak to you not just as a president, but as a father, when I say that responsibility for our children's education must begin at home. That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. That's an American issue.
And there is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children, and that's the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. That is critical.
I agree, absolutely.
See, I know we can get some consensus in here.
With the deficit we inherited, the cost of the crisis we face, and the long-term challenges we must meet, it has never been more important to ensure that, as our economy recovers, we do what it takes to bring this deficit down. That is critical.
Now, I'm proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities.
And yesterday, I -- I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs.
As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time, but we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.
In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them.
We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq and -- and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use.
We will root out -- we will root out the waste and fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier. We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
Now, let me be clear. Let me be absolutely clear, because I know you'll end up hearing some of the same claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people. If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, a quarter-million dollars a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.
In fact -- not a dime.
In fact -- in fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut -- that's right, a tax cut -- for 95 percent of working families. And, by the way, these checks are on the way.
Now, to preserve our long-term fiscal health, we must also address the growing cost in Medicare and Social Security. Comprehensive health care reform is the best way to strengthen Medicare for years to come, and we must also begin a conversation on how to do the same for Social Security, while creating tax-free universal savings accounts for all Americans.
Finally, because we're also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead 10 years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules and, for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For seven years, we've been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
Along with our outstanding national security team, I am now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war.
And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism, because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world. We will not allow it.
As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy. To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: We honor your service; we are inspired by your sacrifice; and you have our unyielding support.
To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned.
To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend, because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. And that is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists, because living our values doesn't make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger.
And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture. We can make that commitment here tonight.
In words and deeds, we are showing the world that a new era of engagement has begun, for we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America.
We cannot shun the negotiating table nor ignore the foes or forces that could do us harm. We are instead called to move forward with the sense of confidence and candor that serious times demand.
To seek progress towards a secure and lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors, we have appointed an envoy to sustain our effort. To meet the challenges of the 21st century -- from terrorism to nuclear proliferation, from pandemic disease to cyber threats to crushing poverty -- we will strengthen old alliances, forge new ones, and use all elements of our national power.
And to respond to an economic crisis that is global in scope, we are working with the nations of the G-20 to restore confidence in our financial system, avoid the possibility of escalating protectionism, and spur demand for American goods in markets across the globe, for the world depends on us having a strong economy, just as our economy depends on the strength of the world's.
As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us, watching to see what we do with this moment, waiting for us to lead.
Those of us gathered here tonight have been called to govern in extraordinary times. It is a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege, one that has been entrusted to few generations of Americans, for in our hands lies the ability to shape our world, for good or for ill.
I know that it's easy to lose sight of this truth, to become cynical and doubtful, consumed with the petty and the trivial.
But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places, that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Americans who are anything but ordinary.
I think of Leonard Abess, a bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn't tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, "I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself."
I think about -- I think about Greensburg -- Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community, how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay.
"The tragedy was terrible," said one of the men who helped them rebuild. "But the folks here know that it also provided an incredible opportunity."
I think about Ty'Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from that school I visited in Dillon, South Carolina, a place where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom.
She had been told that her school is hopeless. But the other day after class, she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this chamber. She even asked her principal for the money to buy a stamp.
The letter asks us for help and says, "We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself, and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina, but also the world. We are not quitters."
That's what she said: "We are not quitters."
These words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that, even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres, a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.
Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us.
I know that we haven't agreed on every issue thus far.
There are surely times in the future where we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed.
I know that.
That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.
And if we do, if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis, if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity, if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then some day, years from now, our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, "something worthy to be remembered."
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
President Obama: Thank you very much.
Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, and the first lady of the United States, who's around here somewhere.
I have come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here.
I know that for many Americans watching right now, the state of our economy is a concern that rises above all others, and rightly so. If you haven't been personally affected by this recession, you probably know someone who has: a friend, a neighbor, a member of your family.
You don't need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It's the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It's the job you thought you'd retire from but now have lost, the business you built your dreams upon that's now hanging by a thread, the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope.
The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere.
But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.
The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.
Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.
Now, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that for too long we have not always met these responsibilities, as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or to look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.
The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank.
We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy, yet we import more oil today than ever before.
The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform.
Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for.
And though all of these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
In other words, we have lived through an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election.
A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations...
Regulations -- regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well, that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Now is the time to act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.
Now is the time to jump-start job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I'd like to talk to you about tonight.
It's an agenda that begins with jobs. As soon...
As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by Presidents Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets, not because I believe in bigger government -- I don't -- not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited -- I am.
I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years. And that's why I pushed for quick action.
And tonight I am grateful that this Congress delivered and pleased to say that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now law.
Over -- over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector, jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit.
Because of this plan, there are teachers who can now keep their jobs and educate our kids. Health care professionals can continue caring for our sick. There are 57 police officers who are still on the streets of Minneapolis, [Minnesota] tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make.
Because of this plan, 95 percent of working households in America will receive a tax cut, a tax cut that you will see in your paychecks beginning on April 1.
Because of this plan, families who are struggling to pay tuition costs will receive a $2,500 tax credit for all four years of college.
And Americans -- and Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage to help them weather this storm. Now I know there are some in this chamber and watching at home who are skeptical of whether this plan will work, and I understand that skepticism.
Here in Washington, we've all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.
And that's why I've asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort, because nobody messes with Joe.
I have told each of my Cabinet, as well as mayors and governors across the country, that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend.
I've appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud.
And we have created a new Web site called recovery.gov so that every American can find out how and where their money is being spent.
So, the recovery plan we passed is the first step in getting our economy back on track, but it is just the first step, because even if we manage this plan flawlessly, there will be no real recovery unless we clean up the credit crisis that has severely weakened our financial system.
I want to speak plainly and candidly about this issue tonight, because every American should know that it directly affects you and your family's well-being. You should also know that the money you've deposited in banks across the country is safe, your insurance is secure. You can rely on the continued operation of our financial system; that's not the source of concern.
The concern is that, if we do not re-start lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins. You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education, how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.
But credit has stopped flowing the way it should. Too many bad loans from the housing crisis have made their way onto the books of too many banks. And with so much debt and so little confidence, these banks are now fearful of lending out any more money to households, to businesses, or even to each other.
When there's no lending, families can't afford to buy homes or cars, so businesses are forced to make layoffs. Our economy suffers even more, and credit dries up even further.
That is why this administration is moving swiftly and aggressively to break this destructive cycle, to restore confidence, and restart lending.
And we will do so in several ways. First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small-business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running.
Second -- second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages.
It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values, Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped to bring about. In fact, the average family who refinances today can save nearly $2,000 per year on their mortgage.
Third, we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy.
Now, I understand that, on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives bank bailouts with no strings attached and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decisions, but such an approach won't solve the problem.
And our goal is to quicken the day when we restart lending to the American people and American business and end this crisis once and for all. And I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer.
This time -- this time, CEOs won't be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks, or buy fancy drapes, or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.
Still, this plan will require significant resources from the federal government and, yes, probably more than we've already set aside. But while the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade.
That would be worse for our deficit, worse for business, worse for you, and worse for the next generation. And I refuse to let that happen.
Now, I understand that when the last administration asked this Congress to provide assistance for struggling banks, Democrats and Republicans alike were infuriated by the mismanagement and the results that followed. So were the American taxpayers; so was I.
So I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you: I get it.
But I also know that, in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger or yield to the politics of the moment.
My job -- our job -- is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility.
I will not send -- I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can't pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can't get a mortgage.
That's what this is about. It's not about helping banks; it's about helping people.
It's not about helping banks; it's about helping people. Because when credit is available again, that young family can finally buy a new home. And then some company will hire workers to build it. And then those workers will have money to spend. And if they can get a loan, too, maybe they'll finally buy that car or open their own business.
Investors will return to the market, and American families will see their retirement secured once more. Slowly, but surely, confidence will return, and our economy will recover.
So -- so I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary, because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession. And to ensure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again, I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system.
It is time. It is time.
It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation and punishes shortcuts and abuse.
The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we're taking to revive our economy in the short term, but the only way to fully restore America's economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world.
The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility.
In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we've come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or a laundry list of programs.
I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America, as a blueprint for our future.
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we've inherited: a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
Given these realities, everyone in this chamber -- Democrats and Republicans -- will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars, and that includes me.
But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges.
I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves, that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity, for history tells a different story.
History reminds us that, at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas.
In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry.
From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age.
In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle-class in history.
And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world.
In each case, government didn't supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive.
We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again.
That is why, even as it cuts back on programs we don't need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education.
It begins with energy.
We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.
Well, I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders, and I know you don't, either. It is time for America to lead again.
Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years. We've also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history, an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, in science and technology.
We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills.
But to truly transform our economy, to protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.
So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. That's what we need.
And to support -- to support that innovation, we will invest $15 billion a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power, advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more efficient cars and trucks built right here in America.
Speaking of our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global recession have pushed our automakers to the brink. We should not and will not protect them from their own bad practices.
But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it; scores of communities depend on it; and I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.
Now, none of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is America. We don't do what's easy. We do what's necessary to move this country forward.
And for that same reason, we must also address the crushing cost of health care.
This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, 1 million more Americans have lost their health insurance.
It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it is one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget.
Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold. We can't afford to do it.
It's time.
Already, we've done more to advance the cause of health care reform in the last 30 days than we've done in the last decade. When it was days old, this Congress passed a law to provide and protect health insurance for 11 million American children whose parents work full-time.
Our recovery plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives.
It will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American, including me, by seeking a cure for cancer in our time.
And -- and it makes the largest investment ever in preventive care, because that's one of the best ways to keep our people healthy and our costs under control.
This budget builds on these reforms. It includes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform, a down payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It's a commitment
It's a commitment that's paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue, and it's a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come.
Now, there will be many different opinions and ideas about how to achieve reform. That's why I'm bringing together businesses and workers, doctors and health care providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin work on this issue next week.
I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. Once again, it will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and our conscience long enough.
So let there be no doubt: Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.
The third challenge we must address is the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America.
In a global economy, where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity. It is a prerequisite.
Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma, and yet just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation, and half of the students who begin college never finish.
This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education, from the day they are born to the day they begin a career. That is a promise we have to make to the children of America.
Already, we've made a historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We've dramatically expanded early childhood education and will continue to improve its quality, because we know that the most formative learning comes in those first years of life.
We've made college affordable for nearly 7 million more students, 7 million. And we have provided the resources necessary to prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children's progress.
But we know that our schools don't just need more resources; they need more reform. And that is why...
That is why this budget creates new teachers -- new incentives for teacher performance, pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We'll invest -- we'll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools.
It is...It is our responsibility as lawmakers and as educators to make this system work, but it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it.
So tonight I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be a community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.
And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself; it's quitting on your country. And this country needs and values the talents of every American.
That's why -- that's why we will support -- we will provide the support necessary for all young Americans to complete college and meet a new goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. That is a goal we can meet.
That's a goal we can meet.
Now -- now, I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why, if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education.
And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Sen. Orrin Hatch, as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country, Sen. Edward Kennedy.
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children, but it is up to us to ensure they walk through them.
In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a parent, for a mother or father who will attend those parent-teacher conferences, or help with homework, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, read to their child.
I speak to you not just as a president, but as a father, when I say that responsibility for our children's education must begin at home. That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. That's an American issue.
And there is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children, and that's the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. That is critical.
I agree, absolutely.
See, I know we can get some consensus in here.
With the deficit we inherited, the cost of the crisis we face, and the long-term challenges we must meet, it has never been more important to ensure that, as our economy recovers, we do what it takes to bring this deficit down. That is critical.
Now, I'm proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities.
And yesterday, I -- I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs.
As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time, but we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.
In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them.
We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq and -- and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use.
We will root out -- we will root out the waste and fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier. We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
Now, let me be clear. Let me be absolutely clear, because I know you'll end up hearing some of the same claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people. If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, a quarter-million dollars a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.
In fact -- not a dime.
In fact -- in fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut -- that's right, a tax cut -- for 95 percent of working families. And, by the way, these checks are on the way.
Now, to preserve our long-term fiscal health, we must also address the growing cost in Medicare and Social Security. Comprehensive health care reform is the best way to strengthen Medicare for years to come, and we must also begin a conversation on how to do the same for Social Security, while creating tax-free universal savings accounts for all Americans.
Finally, because we're also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead 10 years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules and, for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For seven years, we've been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
Along with our outstanding national security team, I am now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war.
And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism, because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world. We will not allow it.
As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy. To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: We honor your service; we are inspired by your sacrifice; and you have our unyielding support.
To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned.
To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend, because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. And that is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists, because living our values doesn't make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger.
And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture. We can make that commitment here tonight.
In words and deeds, we are showing the world that a new era of engagement has begun, for we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America.
We cannot shun the negotiating table nor ignore the foes or forces that could do us harm. We are instead called to move forward with the sense of confidence and candor that serious times demand.
To seek progress towards a secure and lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors, we have appointed an envoy to sustain our effort. To meet the challenges of the 21st century -- from terrorism to nuclear proliferation, from pandemic disease to cyber threats to crushing poverty -- we will strengthen old alliances, forge new ones, and use all elements of our national power.
And to respond to an economic crisis that is global in scope, we are working with the nations of the G-20 to restore confidence in our financial system, avoid the possibility of escalating protectionism, and spur demand for American goods in markets across the globe, for the world depends on us having a strong economy, just as our economy depends on the strength of the world's.
As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us, watching to see what we do with this moment, waiting for us to lead.
Those of us gathered here tonight have been called to govern in extraordinary times. It is a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege, one that has been entrusted to few generations of Americans, for in our hands lies the ability to shape our world, for good or for ill.
I know that it's easy to lose sight of this truth, to become cynical and doubtful, consumed with the petty and the trivial.
But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places, that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Americans who are anything but ordinary.
I think of Leonard Abess, a bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn't tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, "I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself."
I think about -- I think about Greensburg -- Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community, how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay.
"The tragedy was terrible," said one of the men who helped them rebuild. "But the folks here know that it also provided an incredible opportunity."
I think about Ty'Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from that school I visited in Dillon, South Carolina, a place where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom.
She had been told that her school is hopeless. But the other day after class, she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this chamber. She even asked her principal for the money to buy a stamp.
The letter asks us for help and says, "We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself, and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina, but also the world. We are not quitters."
That's what she said: "We are not quitters."
These words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that, even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres, a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.
Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us.
I know that we haven't agreed on every issue thus far.
There are surely times in the future where we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed.
I know that.
That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.
And if we do, if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis, if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity, if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then some day, years from now, our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, "something worthy to be remembered."
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
2009年2月23日星期一
Turbulence on Japan-bound NWA flight injures 50
By Shino Yuasa, Associated Press Writer
TOKYO — Severe turbulence jolted a Tokyo-bound Northwest Airlines flight from the Philippines on Friday, injuring 50 passengers and crewmembers, a company spokesman said.
Four passengers were hospitalized, including one person with a serious neck injury, said Masashi Takahashi, spokesman for Northwest Airlines in Tokyo.
The 46 others, including seven crewmembers, received light injuries, he said.
Turbulence hit the plane while it was circling off the coast of Chiba, east of Tokyo, about 30 minutes before landing at Tokyo's Narita airport, he said. The plane suddenly descended, sending passengers without their seatbelts fastened lurching from their seats, he said.
The Boeing 747-400 plane was carrying 408 passengers and 14 crewmembers.
Japanese TV networks showed passengers holding their heads and necks as they left the plane.
"I was so scared, I thought I would die," a passenger who was not named told the TBS television network. "My whole body was lifted into the air."
Fire trucks and ambulances were on the tarmac when the plane landed. One of the passengers was taken away in a wheelchair and another on a stretcher. Some were later wheeled into hospitals on gurneys.
Most of the passengers were believed to have been hurt by hitting their heads or twisting their necks.
A low pressure system off eastern Japan on Friday morning created strong winds and large thunderclouds that can cause air turbulence.
TOKYO — Severe turbulence jolted a Tokyo-bound Northwest Airlines flight from the Philippines on Friday, injuring 50 passengers and crewmembers, a company spokesman said.
Four passengers were hospitalized, including one person with a serious neck injury, said Masashi Takahashi, spokesman for Northwest Airlines in Tokyo.
The 46 others, including seven crewmembers, received light injuries, he said.
Turbulence hit the plane while it was circling off the coast of Chiba, east of Tokyo, about 30 minutes before landing at Tokyo's Narita airport, he said. The plane suddenly descended, sending passengers without their seatbelts fastened lurching from their seats, he said.
The Boeing 747-400 plane was carrying 408 passengers and 14 crewmembers.
Japanese TV networks showed passengers holding their heads and necks as they left the plane.
"I was so scared, I thought I would die," a passenger who was not named told the TBS television network. "My whole body was lifted into the air."
Fire trucks and ambulances were on the tarmac when the plane landed. One of the passengers was taken away in a wheelchair and another on a stretcher. Some were later wheeled into hospitals on gurneys.
Most of the passengers were believed to have been hurt by hitting their heads or twisting their necks.
A low pressure system off eastern Japan on Friday morning created strong winds and large thunderclouds that can cause air turbulence.
Hit 'send,' then hit the door
COLUMN ONE
Farewell e-mails become an art form in this age of pink slips. Some are funny, some are sad -- and some are just plain furious.
By Robin Abcarian
February 23, 2009
It was not the most eloquent subject line for a farewell e-mail to 5,000 co-workers: "So long, suckers! I'm out!"
But Jason Shugars worked at Google, whose off-center corporate culture is more forgiving than that of your average buttoned-down investment bank. In the rest of his goodbye, Shugars, a senior sales compliance specialist, reminisced about workplace moments that included putting cake down his pants at a sales conference, stealing a boss' $8,000 leather couch and singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in a miniskirt and braids.
"It took me a long time to write it," said Shugars, 34, who left Google to become director of ad operations for the music streaming website Imeem. "I didn't want to send out a stale 'good working with you, please reach me here' e-mail. Who wants that?"
That's a good question these days, now that thousands of people are finding themselves with pink slips and the need to let colleagues and contacts know they are moving on and -- perhaps more important for job seekers -- how they can be reached.
The farewell e-mail has suddenly become commonplace, a new art form in the electronic age. Yet like so many aspects of the Internet era -- how to unfriend on Facebook, how much to reveal on a personal blog -- the technology has gotten ahead of the etiquette. There are, quite simply, no rules.
Some farewell e-mails, like Shugars', strike a lighthearted, even funny tone. Some are workmanlike and short. Others are poetic or poignant, expressing surprise or regret at the turn of events. A very few -- and these are the ones that get most of the attention -- use the electronic goodbye to blast the boss.
In May, lawyer Shinyung Oh was let go from the San Francisco branch of the Paul Hastings law firm six days after losing a baby. The seven-year associate, who said she was told her previous, glowing evaluations may have been "overinflated," composed a blistering e-mail to the partners and fired it off to about 1,000 colleagues around the world.
She accused the firm's partners of "heartlessness" and of blaming her for failing to generate business "that should have been brought in by each of you."
"If this response seems particularly emotional," she wrote to the partners, "perhaps an associate's emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off. It shows startlingly poor judgment and management skills -- and cowardice -- on your parts."
Within an hour, Oh said, her e-mail was posted on a widely read legal affairs blog, then made its way into the mainstream media.
Oh has no regrets. She is also changing professions.
"I am glad I spoke out," said Oh, 38, who has launched a blog, is taking writing classes and is pregnant again. "It's been really good for me on a personal level. It made me reassess my life, and that's a good thing."
Will Schwalbe, coauthor of "Send: Why People E-mail So Badly and How to Do it Better," said the farewell e-mail was a reflection of two intersecting trends: the universality of e-mail and the confessional spirit of the times, which have resulted, as he put it, in "the democratization of the process."
In the pre-computer world, Schwalbe said, "Personnel wrote something -- a memo, Xeroxed -- generally, you didn't get to do it. They did it. But what had been an HR function is now a personal function." That, he said, leads to a different sort of message.
When Pasadena-based Wescom Credit Union, a firm with about 1,000 employees, had layoffs recently, there were no mass e-mail farewells because workers don't have access to all-encompassing e-mail lists.
"We have very strict standards, safeguards that IT has put in place don't allow that to happen," said Diane Norton Smith, Wescom's vice president for human resources. "I have seen situations where somebody said goodbye and you get the reply all, reply all, reply all, 'We're gonna miss you,' and that clogs up the whole system."
That occasionally happened last summer and fall when the farewells of laid-off Los Angeles Times staffers hit inboxes in successive waves.
Some of the goodbyes were bittersweet, some philosophical. Many were entertaining.
Jaime Cardenas, a young sports reporter, spliced his note with stanzas from Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" ("I used to rule the world . . . Now in the morning I . . . Sweep the streets I used to own."). Perry Crowe, an editor for the Guide, compared losing his job to a scene from a movie: "It's sort of like in Superman II when Non rips the light off the top of a police car and hurls it at a boy in the distance and it explodes like a motherlovin' mortar round and a woman cries out, 'He was just a boy!' "
Outplacement professionals, naturally, are against the parting shot because they fear for a person's ability to land a new job.
"It's so easy to e-mail, and that's the risk, isn't it?" said John Challenger of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. "Once you've put it out there, you can't get it back."
Vent to your mom or boyfriend, said Alison Doyle, a job search expert on About.com. "You can have all these feelings but you shouldn't necessarily share them. And don't go on about how terrible this is, and 'I don't know how I am gonna buy the groceries.' Err on the side of too little information rather than too much."
Sometimes, though, an angry goodbye e-mail can alter the terms of a layoff in a good way.
For 20 years, Steve Bass wrote for PC World, a magazine with a circulation of 600,000. He had a popular monthly column, a blog and an electronic newsletter called Tips & Tweaks.
In August, in a cost-cutting measure, the magazine said it would pay only for the blog, which could then be "repurposed" for the column.
"At the time, I was devastated," said Bass, 61, who lives in the Pasadena area and has launched a free e-mail newsletter called TechBite. He e-mailed his readers a farewell, revealing his dismay at what he felt had been poor treatment by the magazine. "I lost a hefty chunk of change," Bass wrote. "It's still a stunner. . . . It gets worse. . . . Unfortunately, the guy I had to deal with didn't know how to negotiate. His tactic was to just say no to everything."
Steve Fox, who became PC World's new editorial director shortly after Bass was sacked, said he received about 100 angry e-mails.
"I have to say I was initially perturbed by it," Fox said. "But ultimately it's about business, and having been a freelance writer myself, I understood why he was upset. He is a talented guy. He did not burn a bridge with me, but I would imagine there were other people here who were ticked at what he had done."
Bass was invited to stay on the masthead as a contributing editor and write occasional features.
Richard Bravo, a 34-year-old New Yorker, did not take the blaze-of-glory approach. He was managing editor of DNR (Daily News Record). In November, the 116-year-old menswear trade publication, the oldest title in the Conde Nast stable, was combined with its sister publication, Women's Wear Daily.
He had reason to be miffed. He was three days short of his third anniversary, so his severance credited him for only two years.
Bravo sent his goodbye to people from both spheres of his life -- "pretty much everyone I knew on a personal level or a work level who I thought might have some sort of need to get in touch with me."
He was straightforward and brief: "I apologize for the mass e-mail, but today's issue of DNR will be the last. . . . We folded last week and are now on 'forced vacation' to put it nicely. . . . If you need to get in touch with me please use this info."
"I think my biggest concern was not to make it sound melodramatic," Bravo said. "There is nothing worse than those e-mails, nothing worse than mass e-mails, period. So you can never make a mass e-mail classy, but I wanted to make it as close to being classy as one could."
His e-mail lead to a number of freelance assignments, Bravo said, "so it definitely succeeded on that front."
Last year, when Yahoo executive Stewart Butterfield composed an absurdist, mock-epic goodbye to the struggling Internet giant, he seemed to be dinging a corporate culture gone complacent.
"As you know, tin is in my blood," wrote Butterfield, 35, whose photo-sharing website Flickr was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. "When I joined Yahoo! back in '21, it was a sheet-tin concern of great momentum, growth and innovation. I knew it was the place for me."
But, Butterfield continued, "my ability to contribute has dwindled to near-nothing and not entirely because of my advancing age. . . . I will be spending more time with my family, tending to my small but growing alpaca herd and, of course, getting back to working with tin, my first love."
A few years before Butterfield bent the genre, an aspiring comedy writer named Chris Kula penned a long mock farewell e-mail on his blog. At the time, Kula was a receptionist at a New York engineering firm, honing his craft on the side.
"For nearly as long as I've worked here," he wrote, "I've hoped that I might one day leave this company. And now that this dream has become a reality, please know that I could not have reached this goal without your unending lack of support."
The missive was linked on blogs around the English-speaking world and was even plagiarized by an Irish employee of the accounting firm Ernst & Young, who was forced to apologize (not to Kula, but to his former bosses) when he disseminated the letter as his own, complete with a reference to a co-worker's flatulence.
For Kula, however, the fake farewell, which he penned after deciding to leave the engineering firm, was a career boon.
"I used it as a sample piece," said Kula, 29, who was hired by a website that specialized in office-based humor, which led to a gig with an improv troupe, which led to an agent and his current job, writing for "MADtv."
"I always wondered if the guys at the engineering firm saw it," Kula said. "I would love to know if they still talk about it."
Farewell e-mails become an art form in this age of pink slips. Some are funny, some are sad -- and some are just plain furious.
By Robin Abcarian
February 23, 2009
It was not the most eloquent subject line for a farewell e-mail to 5,000 co-workers: "So long, suckers! I'm out!"
But Jason Shugars worked at Google, whose off-center corporate culture is more forgiving than that of your average buttoned-down investment bank. In the rest of his goodbye, Shugars, a senior sales compliance specialist, reminisced about workplace moments that included putting cake down his pants at a sales conference, stealing a boss' $8,000 leather couch and singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in a miniskirt and braids.
"It took me a long time to write it," said Shugars, 34, who left Google to become director of ad operations for the music streaming website Imeem. "I didn't want to send out a stale 'good working with you, please reach me here' e-mail. Who wants that?"
That's a good question these days, now that thousands of people are finding themselves with pink slips and the need to let colleagues and contacts know they are moving on and -- perhaps more important for job seekers -- how they can be reached.
The farewell e-mail has suddenly become commonplace, a new art form in the electronic age. Yet like so many aspects of the Internet era -- how to unfriend on Facebook, how much to reveal on a personal blog -- the technology has gotten ahead of the etiquette. There are, quite simply, no rules.
Some farewell e-mails, like Shugars', strike a lighthearted, even funny tone. Some are workmanlike and short. Others are poetic or poignant, expressing surprise or regret at the turn of events. A very few -- and these are the ones that get most of the attention -- use the electronic goodbye to blast the boss.
In May, lawyer Shinyung Oh was let go from the San Francisco branch of the Paul Hastings law firm six days after losing a baby. The seven-year associate, who said she was told her previous, glowing evaluations may have been "overinflated," composed a blistering e-mail to the partners and fired it off to about 1,000 colleagues around the world.
She accused the firm's partners of "heartlessness" and of blaming her for failing to generate business "that should have been brought in by each of you."
"If this response seems particularly emotional," she wrote to the partners, "perhaps an associate's emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off. It shows startlingly poor judgment and management skills -- and cowardice -- on your parts."
Within an hour, Oh said, her e-mail was posted on a widely read legal affairs blog, then made its way into the mainstream media.
Oh has no regrets. She is also changing professions.
"I am glad I spoke out," said Oh, 38, who has launched a blog, is taking writing classes and is pregnant again. "It's been really good for me on a personal level. It made me reassess my life, and that's a good thing."
Will Schwalbe, coauthor of "Send: Why People E-mail So Badly and How to Do it Better," said the farewell e-mail was a reflection of two intersecting trends: the universality of e-mail and the confessional spirit of the times, which have resulted, as he put it, in "the democratization of the process."
In the pre-computer world, Schwalbe said, "Personnel wrote something -- a memo, Xeroxed -- generally, you didn't get to do it. They did it. But what had been an HR function is now a personal function." That, he said, leads to a different sort of message.
When Pasadena-based Wescom Credit Union, a firm with about 1,000 employees, had layoffs recently, there were no mass e-mail farewells because workers don't have access to all-encompassing e-mail lists.
"We have very strict standards, safeguards that IT has put in place don't allow that to happen," said Diane Norton Smith, Wescom's vice president for human resources. "I have seen situations where somebody said goodbye and you get the reply all, reply all, reply all, 'We're gonna miss you,' and that clogs up the whole system."
That occasionally happened last summer and fall when the farewells of laid-off Los Angeles Times staffers hit inboxes in successive waves.
Some of the goodbyes were bittersweet, some philosophical. Many were entertaining.
Jaime Cardenas, a young sports reporter, spliced his note with stanzas from Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" ("I used to rule the world . . . Now in the morning I . . . Sweep the streets I used to own."). Perry Crowe, an editor for the Guide, compared losing his job to a scene from a movie: "It's sort of like in Superman II when Non rips the light off the top of a police car and hurls it at a boy in the distance and it explodes like a motherlovin' mortar round and a woman cries out, 'He was just a boy!' "
Outplacement professionals, naturally, are against the parting shot because they fear for a person's ability to land a new job.
"It's so easy to e-mail, and that's the risk, isn't it?" said John Challenger of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. "Once you've put it out there, you can't get it back."
Vent to your mom or boyfriend, said Alison Doyle, a job search expert on About.com. "You can have all these feelings but you shouldn't necessarily share them. And don't go on about how terrible this is, and 'I don't know how I am gonna buy the groceries.' Err on the side of too little information rather than too much."
Sometimes, though, an angry goodbye e-mail can alter the terms of a layoff in a good way.
For 20 years, Steve Bass wrote for PC World, a magazine with a circulation of 600,000. He had a popular monthly column, a blog and an electronic newsletter called Tips & Tweaks.
In August, in a cost-cutting measure, the magazine said it would pay only for the blog, which could then be "repurposed" for the column.
"At the time, I was devastated," said Bass, 61, who lives in the Pasadena area and has launched a free e-mail newsletter called TechBite. He e-mailed his readers a farewell, revealing his dismay at what he felt had been poor treatment by the magazine. "I lost a hefty chunk of change," Bass wrote. "It's still a stunner. . . . It gets worse. . . . Unfortunately, the guy I had to deal with didn't know how to negotiate. His tactic was to just say no to everything."
Steve Fox, who became PC World's new editorial director shortly after Bass was sacked, said he received about 100 angry e-mails.
"I have to say I was initially perturbed by it," Fox said. "But ultimately it's about business, and having been a freelance writer myself, I understood why he was upset. He is a talented guy. He did not burn a bridge with me, but I would imagine there were other people here who were ticked at what he had done."
Bass was invited to stay on the masthead as a contributing editor and write occasional features.
Richard Bravo, a 34-year-old New Yorker, did not take the blaze-of-glory approach. He was managing editor of DNR (Daily News Record). In November, the 116-year-old menswear trade publication, the oldest title in the Conde Nast stable, was combined with its sister publication, Women's Wear Daily.
He had reason to be miffed. He was three days short of his third anniversary, so his severance credited him for only two years.
Bravo sent his goodbye to people from both spheres of his life -- "pretty much everyone I knew on a personal level or a work level who I thought might have some sort of need to get in touch with me."
He was straightforward and brief: "I apologize for the mass e-mail, but today's issue of DNR will be the last. . . . We folded last week and are now on 'forced vacation' to put it nicely. . . . If you need to get in touch with me please use this info."
"I think my biggest concern was not to make it sound melodramatic," Bravo said. "There is nothing worse than those e-mails, nothing worse than mass e-mails, period. So you can never make a mass e-mail classy, but I wanted to make it as close to being classy as one could."
His e-mail lead to a number of freelance assignments, Bravo said, "so it definitely succeeded on that front."
Last year, when Yahoo executive Stewart Butterfield composed an absurdist, mock-epic goodbye to the struggling Internet giant, he seemed to be dinging a corporate culture gone complacent.
"As you know, tin is in my blood," wrote Butterfield, 35, whose photo-sharing website Flickr was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. "When I joined Yahoo! back in '21, it was a sheet-tin concern of great momentum, growth and innovation. I knew it was the place for me."
But, Butterfield continued, "my ability to contribute has dwindled to near-nothing and not entirely because of my advancing age. . . . I will be spending more time with my family, tending to my small but growing alpaca herd and, of course, getting back to working with tin, my first love."
A few years before Butterfield bent the genre, an aspiring comedy writer named Chris Kula penned a long mock farewell e-mail on his blog. At the time, Kula was a receptionist at a New York engineering firm, honing his craft on the side.
"For nearly as long as I've worked here," he wrote, "I've hoped that I might one day leave this company. And now that this dream has become a reality, please know that I could not have reached this goal without your unending lack of support."
The missive was linked on blogs around the English-speaking world and was even plagiarized by an Irish employee of the accounting firm Ernst & Young, who was forced to apologize (not to Kula, but to his former bosses) when he disseminated the letter as his own, complete with a reference to a co-worker's flatulence.
For Kula, however, the fake farewell, which he penned after deciding to leave the engineering firm, was a career boon.
"I used it as a sample piece," said Kula, 29, who was hired by a website that specialized in office-based humor, which led to a gig with an improv troupe, which led to an agent and his current job, writing for "MADtv."
"I always wondered if the guys at the engineering firm saw it," Kula said. "I would love to know if they still talk about it."
2009年2月19日星期四
In China, A Different Brand of Buddhism
Ethnic Han Turning To Tibetan Doctrine For Guidance
By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 19, 2009; A10
HUANGSONGYU RESERVOIR, China -- The Buddhists came by the busload to this partially frozen reservoir about 55 miles north of Beijing. In the morning, they released 53,000 fish into holes cut in the ice. In the afternoon, they walked clockwise around a bonfire in the courtyard of a windswept rural hotel, chanting incantations against evil as volunteers threw cooking oil, beans, fruit and cigarettes onto the flames.
The participants were 200 Han Chinese, the ethnic designation of most people on the mainland, but their teachers, or "masters," were Tibetan monks, including Yixi, a lama, or senior monk, from Shigatse, Tibet, who presided over the unusual and unofficial ceremony last week from between two enormous vases of tulips.
"The lama who hosted this has great achievements in Buddhism, so the power and merit of releasing fish with him is much greater than if ordinary people release fish," said Zheng Jinbao, a 36-year-old vegetable dealer who, like the others, had heard about the out-of-the-way animal-rescue ceremony by word of mouth. "Several years ago, only 10 people at a time attended fish releases, but now, more than 100 people come each time."
While statistics are hard to come by, monks, followers and experts say that growing numbers of middle-class Chinese are turning to Tibetan Buddhism, driven by the perception of a spiritual vacuum in society and aided by the voluminous information available on the Internet. Communist Party officials and celebrities alike have embraced Tibetan Buddhism, despite having to worship at home, meet their lamas at night and run the risk of attending officially unauthorized events, such as the fish release and "fire sacrifice" at Huangsongyu Reservoir.
China's Communist Party tightly regulates religious activity, especially the banned Falun Gong sect, but allows wide latitude for many law-abiding Catholics and Protestants who meet in unofficial house churches. Tibetan Buddhists however, are in a different category.
Their spiritual leader is the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing blames for stoking the deadly riots in Lhasa last March. Although he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the Dalai Lama is routinely described in official state media reports as a wolf in monk's clothing, an evil and dangerous separatist. In December, China stunned European leaders by canceling a summit on the economic crisis because the E.U. president had planned to meet the Dalai Lama the same week.
For now, most Chinese who practice Tibetan Buddhism are able to worship under the radar because their numbers remain comparatively small and their movement is not organized. Followers meet in private homes to recite sutras and compare knowledge or gather in apartments where wealthy benefactors have set up elaborate shrines. Many appear to be unaware of regulations intended to restrict their worship.
But lamas who travel to more prosperous eastern cities to teach and raise funds for monasteries back home sometimes find themselves trailed by security officials or turned away from hotels. Followers who have tried to organize fish releases are sometimes stopped by police. Others have been fined nearly $1,500 for holding illegal ceremonies in their homes. And some monks say they have to meet some of their students at night because they are Communist Party officials.
"Out of protection for my followers, I said they were only some new friends," recalled Dorje, a lama from Sichuan province who said he was chatting with followers in a hotel room in Wuxi, in coastal Jiangsu province, last year when officials from the local religious affairs bureau barged in and announced that it was not permitted to promote Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese. "I knew this was ridiculous, so I asked which central government regulation said so," Dorje said. "They could not answer, and they eventually left."
On a visit to some of his 600 followers in Shanghai last month, Dorje, who asked that his monastery's name and his Chinese name not be published, said he was turned away from four hotels until he finally changed out of his monk's robes. He has 10,000 followers in various cities, 6,000 of whom are women, he said. Most are concentrated in Beijing, Wuxi and Shandong province and have helped him raise $88,000 in the past three years toward the cost of a new sutra hall, he said.
While there are close ties historically between Tibetan Buddhism and different types of Chinese Buddhism, they are practiced differently. Tibetan Buddhism encourages lamas to counsel students individually, while the teaching in Chinese monasteries is usually reserved for monks, studying in groups.
Like other religions, Buddhism suffered during the persecution of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. When it limped back, it took a simpler form that had been influenced by China's gradual opening to the West. Meanwhile, a purer and more complex form of Buddhism continued to be practiced in the isolated region of Tibet, which the Chinese army had invaded in 1950 and annexed in 1951. The Communists allowed a degree of autonomy until a Tibetan uprising in 1959. After the Dalai Lama fled to India that year, China formed the Tibet Autonomous Region, which it has governed since. Some Chinese Buddhist temples now invite senior Tibetan monks to visit in a bid to attract more followers.
"It's definitely on the increase," said Kalden Lodoe, a broadcaster with Radio Free Asia in Washington, an expert on Tibetan Buddhism and a former monk in India for more than 10 years.
Geng Xiaozhen, 29, a Beijing resident who recently quit her job as an editor for a government-controlled Web site specializing in news from Tibet, said she learned about Tibetan Buddhism through her job, then found a senior monk from Qinghai province to teach her until he died last October. Since then, she has studied Tibetan Buddhism on the Internet.
"A friend of a friend went to India twice and met the Dalai Lama," she said. "Then the police called him. So, before attending anything, I always ask if it's safe or not. But we have the right to our religious beliefs, and I'm not doing anything illegal."
In Shanghai, one of Dorje's followers is a retired president of a construction company who has turned an upright piano next to her kitchen into a Tibetan Buddhist shrine.
"Are there regulations preventing people from gathering to pray and preach at home? I've never heard of that," said Chen Yan, who studied Chinese Buddhism for years without much satisfaction before meeting another Tibetan lama she believes helped cure her of brain cancer. "I'm just reciting sutras at home. What's wrong with that?"
Chen's brother, a Communist Party member and retired official with a state-owned company, kept an eye on Dorje after his sister introduced them and found him trustworthy.
"He never uses the funds for his own purposes," Chen Xianyao said. "All he cares about is the construction of his sutra hall. He treats his followers equally no matter how much they contribute. Therefore, we support him."
In fact, his sister owns a small portrait of the Dalai Lama, Chen said, although he has warned her not to carry it. Asked how that squares with the party line on the Dalai Lama, Chen said: "That's a propaganda campaign launched by the central government in the political arena. Why should ordinary Chinese be bothered with this propaganda?"
In interviews, followers and lamas, including the Chens and Dorje, denied that they discuss politics.
But the Dalai Lama, who said last year that his faith in the Chinese government is "thinning," has called on Tibetans to make "concerted efforts" to reach out to the Chinese, seeing it as a way to address problems in Tibet and help preserve its rich cultural heritage. There are indications that such efforts may be having an effect among Han Chinese.
"Many followers ask themselves how a person who studies and promotes Buddhism can instigate a riot," said Geng, the former Web site editor, referring to the protests last March. "I believe he is erudite and wise, and I will be lucky if I can see him in my lifetime. I don't believe he would ever drum up violence. He can't control people's minds."
Lu Xin, 67, a retired Chinese teacher who began to study Tibetan Buddhism in 1999, said she had recently visited monks in Aba prefecture, in Sichuan province, for a week. "Unlike people in Han Chinese areas, people there are very pure, kind and plain. As soon as I arrived, I felt I was in another world," Lu said. "Tibet is the only pure land left in the world, and I worry about its culture. For example, if we over-develop Qinghai Lake tourism, will the garbage and plastic pollute the environment? Will plain people be seduced by money? If I didn't study Tibetan Buddhism, I would know little about Tibet."
Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.
By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 19, 2009; A10
HUANGSONGYU RESERVOIR, China -- The Buddhists came by the busload to this partially frozen reservoir about 55 miles north of Beijing. In the morning, they released 53,000 fish into holes cut in the ice. In the afternoon, they walked clockwise around a bonfire in the courtyard of a windswept rural hotel, chanting incantations against evil as volunteers threw cooking oil, beans, fruit and cigarettes onto the flames.
The participants were 200 Han Chinese, the ethnic designation of most people on the mainland, but their teachers, or "masters," were Tibetan monks, including Yixi, a lama, or senior monk, from Shigatse, Tibet, who presided over the unusual and unofficial ceremony last week from between two enormous vases of tulips.
"The lama who hosted this has great achievements in Buddhism, so the power and merit of releasing fish with him is much greater than if ordinary people release fish," said Zheng Jinbao, a 36-year-old vegetable dealer who, like the others, had heard about the out-of-the-way animal-rescue ceremony by word of mouth. "Several years ago, only 10 people at a time attended fish releases, but now, more than 100 people come each time."
While statistics are hard to come by, monks, followers and experts say that growing numbers of middle-class Chinese are turning to Tibetan Buddhism, driven by the perception of a spiritual vacuum in society and aided by the voluminous information available on the Internet. Communist Party officials and celebrities alike have embraced Tibetan Buddhism, despite having to worship at home, meet their lamas at night and run the risk of attending officially unauthorized events, such as the fish release and "fire sacrifice" at Huangsongyu Reservoir.
China's Communist Party tightly regulates religious activity, especially the banned Falun Gong sect, but allows wide latitude for many law-abiding Catholics and Protestants who meet in unofficial house churches. Tibetan Buddhists however, are in a different category.
Their spiritual leader is the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing blames for stoking the deadly riots in Lhasa last March. Although he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the Dalai Lama is routinely described in official state media reports as a wolf in monk's clothing, an evil and dangerous separatist. In December, China stunned European leaders by canceling a summit on the economic crisis because the E.U. president had planned to meet the Dalai Lama the same week.
For now, most Chinese who practice Tibetan Buddhism are able to worship under the radar because their numbers remain comparatively small and their movement is not organized. Followers meet in private homes to recite sutras and compare knowledge or gather in apartments where wealthy benefactors have set up elaborate shrines. Many appear to be unaware of regulations intended to restrict their worship.
But lamas who travel to more prosperous eastern cities to teach and raise funds for monasteries back home sometimes find themselves trailed by security officials or turned away from hotels. Followers who have tried to organize fish releases are sometimes stopped by police. Others have been fined nearly $1,500 for holding illegal ceremonies in their homes. And some monks say they have to meet some of their students at night because they are Communist Party officials.
"Out of protection for my followers, I said they were only some new friends," recalled Dorje, a lama from Sichuan province who said he was chatting with followers in a hotel room in Wuxi, in coastal Jiangsu province, last year when officials from the local religious affairs bureau barged in and announced that it was not permitted to promote Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese. "I knew this was ridiculous, so I asked which central government regulation said so," Dorje said. "They could not answer, and they eventually left."
On a visit to some of his 600 followers in Shanghai last month, Dorje, who asked that his monastery's name and his Chinese name not be published, said he was turned away from four hotels until he finally changed out of his monk's robes. He has 10,000 followers in various cities, 6,000 of whom are women, he said. Most are concentrated in Beijing, Wuxi and Shandong province and have helped him raise $88,000 in the past three years toward the cost of a new sutra hall, he said.
While there are close ties historically between Tibetan Buddhism and different types of Chinese Buddhism, they are practiced differently. Tibetan Buddhism encourages lamas to counsel students individually, while the teaching in Chinese monasteries is usually reserved for monks, studying in groups.
Like other religions, Buddhism suffered during the persecution of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. When it limped back, it took a simpler form that had been influenced by China's gradual opening to the West. Meanwhile, a purer and more complex form of Buddhism continued to be practiced in the isolated region of Tibet, which the Chinese army had invaded in 1950 and annexed in 1951. The Communists allowed a degree of autonomy until a Tibetan uprising in 1959. After the Dalai Lama fled to India that year, China formed the Tibet Autonomous Region, which it has governed since. Some Chinese Buddhist temples now invite senior Tibetan monks to visit in a bid to attract more followers.
"It's definitely on the increase," said Kalden Lodoe, a broadcaster with Radio Free Asia in Washington, an expert on Tibetan Buddhism and a former monk in India for more than 10 years.
Geng Xiaozhen, 29, a Beijing resident who recently quit her job as an editor for a government-controlled Web site specializing in news from Tibet, said she learned about Tibetan Buddhism through her job, then found a senior monk from Qinghai province to teach her until he died last October. Since then, she has studied Tibetan Buddhism on the Internet.
"A friend of a friend went to India twice and met the Dalai Lama," she said. "Then the police called him. So, before attending anything, I always ask if it's safe or not. But we have the right to our religious beliefs, and I'm not doing anything illegal."
In Shanghai, one of Dorje's followers is a retired president of a construction company who has turned an upright piano next to her kitchen into a Tibetan Buddhist shrine.
"Are there regulations preventing people from gathering to pray and preach at home? I've never heard of that," said Chen Yan, who studied Chinese Buddhism for years without much satisfaction before meeting another Tibetan lama she believes helped cure her of brain cancer. "I'm just reciting sutras at home. What's wrong with that?"
Chen's brother, a Communist Party member and retired official with a state-owned company, kept an eye on Dorje after his sister introduced them and found him trustworthy.
"He never uses the funds for his own purposes," Chen Xianyao said. "All he cares about is the construction of his sutra hall. He treats his followers equally no matter how much they contribute. Therefore, we support him."
In fact, his sister owns a small portrait of the Dalai Lama, Chen said, although he has warned her not to carry it. Asked how that squares with the party line on the Dalai Lama, Chen said: "That's a propaganda campaign launched by the central government in the political arena. Why should ordinary Chinese be bothered with this propaganda?"
In interviews, followers and lamas, including the Chens and Dorje, denied that they discuss politics.
But the Dalai Lama, who said last year that his faith in the Chinese government is "thinning," has called on Tibetans to make "concerted efforts" to reach out to the Chinese, seeing it as a way to address problems in Tibet and help preserve its rich cultural heritage. There are indications that such efforts may be having an effect among Han Chinese.
"Many followers ask themselves how a person who studies and promotes Buddhism can instigate a riot," said Geng, the former Web site editor, referring to the protests last March. "I believe he is erudite and wise, and I will be lucky if I can see him in my lifetime. I don't believe he would ever drum up violence. He can't control people's minds."
Lu Xin, 67, a retired Chinese teacher who began to study Tibetan Buddhism in 1999, said she had recently visited monks in Aba prefecture, in Sichuan province, for a week. "Unlike people in Han Chinese areas, people there are very pure, kind and plain. As soon as I arrived, I felt I was in another world," Lu said. "Tibet is the only pure land left in the world, and I worry about its culture. For example, if we over-develop Qinghai Lake tourism, will the garbage and plastic pollute the environment? Will plain people be seduced by money? If I didn't study Tibetan Buddhism, I would know little about Tibet."
Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.
2009年2月16日星期一
IBM to laid-off staff: Go to India
6 Feb, 2009, Indiatimes Infotech:
NEW DELHI: Armonk-based IBM which recently gave pinkslips to above 2000 employees in the US and Canada has an `innovative’ offer for them: Re-lo
cate to cheaper destinations.
In a move to support the pinkslipped employees, the world’s largest technology employer has asked its laid-off employees in US and Canada to join its projects in cheaper-wage destinations like India, China, Brazil and Eastern Europe.
In the last week of January, IBM had announced atleast 2,800 jobs cuts to trim costs as customer spending squeezes. The firings took place in the sales and distribution unit and software division.
The company has asked the laid-off staff to join IBM's new Project Match programme, which would help ex-employees to relocate in IBM's low-cost operation countries. Under the programme, the company will also be offering financial assistance with moving costs and immigration help with visa issues.
According to the company's internal notice, "The potential for developing career and new business skills by living and working abroad has been communicated to employees. Project Match will help employees locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where their skills are in demand."
The memo said former workers will be put in contact with hiring managers at IBM in countries including Slovenia, Romania, Brazil, Nigeria, the Czech Republic, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
The company specified that only "satisfactory performers" who are "willing to work on local terms and conditions" should pursue the jobs. The wages paid to those moving would be as per the local standards. The company expects many may get lured by the offer as employees seek for "life experiences".
However, the move has not gone well with the IBM staff union. Slamming the offer, a union spokesperson said that not only were jobs being shipped overseas, but Big Blue was trying to export the people for peanuts too. He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States.
NEW DELHI: Armonk-based IBM which recently gave pinkslips to above 2000 employees in the US and Canada has an `innovative’ offer for them: Re-lo
cate to cheaper destinations.
In a move to support the pinkslipped employees, the world’s largest technology employer has asked its laid-off employees in US and Canada to join its projects in cheaper-wage destinations like India, China, Brazil and Eastern Europe.
In the last week of January, IBM had announced atleast 2,800 jobs cuts to trim costs as customer spending squeezes. The firings took place in the sales and distribution unit and software division.
The company has asked the laid-off staff to join IBM's new Project Match programme, which would help ex-employees to relocate in IBM's low-cost operation countries. Under the programme, the company will also be offering financial assistance with moving costs and immigration help with visa issues.
According to the company's internal notice, "The potential for developing career and new business skills by living and working abroad has been communicated to employees. Project Match will help employees locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where their skills are in demand."
The memo said former workers will be put in contact with hiring managers at IBM in countries including Slovenia, Romania, Brazil, Nigeria, the Czech Republic, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
The company specified that only "satisfactory performers" who are "willing to work on local terms and conditions" should pursue the jobs. The wages paid to those moving would be as per the local standards. The company expects many may get lured by the offer as employees seek for "life experiences".
However, the move has not gone well with the IBM staff union. Slamming the offer, a union spokesperson said that not only were jobs being shipped overseas, but Big Blue was trying to export the people for peanuts too. He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States.
2009年2月13日星期五
Stimulus package affect you?
By Sue Kirchhoff, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The $789 billion stimulus bill moving toward final passage by Congress will not quickly solve the historic problems besetting the economy, but it could reduce the damage, while providing relief for the unemployed and the uninsured.
Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, predicts the biggest effects will occur in 2010 from the bill's spending for aid to state and local governments and on infrastructure such as roads, bridges, transit and other areas.
Moody's Economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi says the bill could help end the economic slide. He warns, however, that the stimulus spending will likely be too small, given the size of the economic decline, and suggests Congress may have to revisit the issue.
PLAN BREAKDOWN: What those billions would be spent on
OTHER COUNTRIES: Few are trying to stimulate their economies
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the bill could increase employment in a range of 800,000 to 2.3 million jobs by the fourth quarter of 2009 and 1.2 million to 3.6 million by the fourth quarter of 2010.
HOUSING/CARS: Buyers could get a modest break
If you're in the market for a new car or your first house, the compromise stimulus bill offers modest tax breaks for both kinds of purchases.
First-time home buyers would receive an $8,000 tax credit, and they wouldn't have to repay the government later as is required for the current $7,500 credit. An earlier Senate proposal would have provided all home buyers with a $15,000 credit.
"The home buyer tax credit is a plus for the housing market, but only a small plus," says Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. "The credit … covers only a part of the down payment needed to make a purchase. The housing market will take any help it can get, but it needs more."
Other economists point out that the tax credit will still provide a mild jolt to the market by encouraging home purchases, which in turn should help curb the rapid rate of home price declines.
"While scaled back somewhat, it is still a good idea," says Brian Bethune at IHS Global Insight. "It should induce more home sales in 2009, and this will be an important support for the housing market and the housing industry. It should also buffer the rate of decline of home prices."
The bill also would allow new car buyers to deduct the purchase's sales tax from taxable income.
"We're happy to see the sales tax help, but credit is really the big issue," Chrysler President Jim Press said Thursday in Chicago.
"Ever-increasing credit score requirements by lenders," and slipping consumer credit ratings take many potential buyers out of the pool, Press said.
"A positive development, but we don't think it would have an immediate impact on the market," said Chris Hosford, vice president at Hyundai's U.S. operations.
The average new car purchase price the first 11 months of last year was $28,280, and the average used car trade-in value was $15,203, according to data from the National Automobile Dealers Association. Paul Taylor, NADA chief economist, says states typically tax the difference — $13,077 in this case.
A 5% rate, as in Massachusetts, would be $654, Taylor says, meaning the deduction would reduce taxable income that much.
By Stephanie Armour, Sharon Silke Carty and Chris Woodyard
TAXES: A $400 to $800 credit for many taxpayers
A key element of the stimulus bill would provide most Americans with a tax credit of $400, or $800 for married couples. The tax credit would phase out for single taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $75,000 to $90,000 and married couples with AGI of $150,000 to $190,000.
The tax credit would increase the average taxpayer's paycheck by about $8 a week, prompting some to question whether it will do much to stimulate consumer spending. But for a single worker, the credit is the equivalent of a $500 salary increase, after taxes, says Clint Stretch, managing principal for tax policy at Deloitte Tax. "In this economy, if you walked into your boss' office and demanded a $500 raise, you'd probably get laughed at," he says.
Retirees who receive Social Security benefits and individuals on disability would receive a $250 tax credit, says Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Because these individuals typically don't have withholding, they'll likely receive a check, he says.
Other tax provisions in the stimulus package:
•An expanded earned income tax credit and child tax credit for low-income families.
•A higher education tax credit. Parents of college students would be eligible to claim a tax credit of up to $2,500. The credit is more generous than the existing Hope Scholarship Tax Credit, which maxes out at $1,800 and is available only for the first two years of college, says Amy McAnarney, executive director of H&R Block's Tax Institute. The tax credit, which would be available in 2009 and 2010, phases out for single taxpayers with AGI of $80,000 to $90,000 and married taxpayers with AGI of $160,000 to $180,000.
•A stopgap measure designed to prevent the alternative minimum tax from hitting more than 24 million households in 2009. The AMT was designed to prevent extremely wealthy taxpayers from using loopholes and deductions to avoid taxes. But because it was never indexed to inflation, it has expanded to encompass more upper-middle and some middle-class taxpayers. About 4 million owed the AMT last year.
By Sandra Block
ENERGY: Weatherizing homes will save money
The agreed-upon stimulus plan provides about $50 billion aimed at ushering in a clean-energy future and includes money or tax credits for Americans to weatherize their homes and buy hybrid cars.
It also commits dollars to upgrading the electricity grid and underwriting renewable energy projects.
"This is going to be an extraordinary boost to our challenge of preparing for global warming legislation and re-energizing the American economy," says Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office.
While many analysts cheered provisions to weatherize homes as both an instant way to create jobs and put money in consumers' pockets, some say other initiatives are insufficient and won't deliver a quick economic boost.
The bill sets aside $5 billion to weatherize more than 1 million modest-income homes, saving families an average $350 a year. It devotes $6.3 billion to improve federally backed and public housing projects with new insulation, windows and furnaces. Higher-income households can make similar improvements and get expanded tax credits.
For every dollar spent, such programs produce about $3 in electricity savings, Smith says.
Spending $11 billion to upgrade the nationwide transmission grid to get renewable energy from rural areas to cities and digitize the electric grid to prevent outages is more controversial.
"It's just too little," says Joel Kurtzman, senior fellow at the Milken Institute, an economic think tank. He says it will cost about $100 billion.
Kenneth Medlock, energy fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, says grid improvements will take years and won't spawn jobs immediately.
Providing a tax credit of up to $7,500 for families that buy plug-in hybrids to spur a new generation of cars "will help the environment and help Detroit," Kurtzman says.
But automakers won't have plug-in hybrids and battery-power electrics in showrooms until next year at the earliest.
"To roll that into a stimulus is almost misleading," Medlock says.
By Paul Davidson
THE SAFETY NET: Jobless get a little extra help
Many of those who are unemployed will get a boost from the stimulus bill, including a $25 increase in weekly benefit checks through 2009 that should help not only those who are out of work but the broad economy as that money gets spent.
Currently, the nationwide average weekly check to those receiving unemployment benefits is $295.05, ranging from $179.08 in Mississippi to $408.28 in Hawaii, according to the National Employment Law Project.
Increasing payments is a good way to stimulate the economy, because, "You can get money into the hands of people right away," says Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. And people who are unemployed are likely to spend it.
More than 4.8 million people were collecting unemployment benefits at the end of January, up 78% from a year earlier and the highest since records began in 1967, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The bill includes other measures to help those who have lost their jobs. They:
•Lengthen the period in which people can be eligible for extended unemployment benefits. The program, which provides up to 33 weeks of extra jobless benefits after workers exhaust the regular 26 weeks received in most states, was passed last year and was set to expire at the end of March. Under the stimulus bill, the extended benefits would be available through the end of 2009. The NELP estimates this will help about 3 million people.
•Provide money to states that agree to make benefits available to more workers. That would help at least 500,000 people, including some low-wage and part-time workers, who wouldn't otherwise receive unemployment benefits, the NELP says.
•Suspend the taxation of unemployment benefits up to $2,400.
The measure also helps the unemployed and others by increasing the maximum monthly food-stamp benefit by 13%, which lawmakers estimate will help 31 million Americans, half of them children. And the bill provides a subsidy to cover 65% of a worker's COBRA health insurance premiums for up to nine months. COBRA lets workers continue their former employer's coverage for at least 18 months.
By Barbara Hagenbaugh
BROADBAND: Help for rural areas
The stimulus bill includes $7 billion for broadband deployment in rural markets across the USA.
That high-speed Internet access is counted as "infrastructure" is illuminating in itself, says Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union.
Under the Bush administration, broadband service was treated as a luxury, he says. The Obama-backed stimulus package, in contrast, "treats Internet communications as an essential service, just like our highways," Kimmelman says.
With that baseline established, Kimmelman says, he expects major public policy shifts to follow, with the goal of making broadband available and affordable to all Americans. Though final language is still being worked out, the $7 billion plan offers "grants," or funding, to companies willing to deploy broadband — wireless or wired — in "underserved" or "unserved" markets.
But there are regulatory strings attached, notes Paul Glenchur of Stanford Group in Washington, D.C.
Companies must offer broadband services in a "non-discriminatory" fashion. That's code for "open access," a politically charged notion that says carriers must treat all Internet services the same.
Likewise, trying to define "underserved" or "unserved" markets could prove challenging, he says.
Why: Satellite-based Internet services already are available in most rural markets. Phone and cable TV companies have also spent billions deploying broadband in hundreds of markets, including rural areas.
The government's plan to essentially subsidize competition in these areas through a grant program "raises a basic question of fairness," Glenchur says.
Kimmelman disagrees. Satellite-based broadband costs around $90 a month, he says, putting it out of reach of many consumers.
By Leslie Cauley
WASHINGTON — The $789 billion stimulus bill moving toward final passage by Congress will not quickly solve the historic problems besetting the economy, but it could reduce the damage, while providing relief for the unemployed and the uninsured.
Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, predicts the biggest effects will occur in 2010 from the bill's spending for aid to state and local governments and on infrastructure such as roads, bridges, transit and other areas.
Moody's Economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi says the bill could help end the economic slide. He warns, however, that the stimulus spending will likely be too small, given the size of the economic decline, and suggests Congress may have to revisit the issue.
PLAN BREAKDOWN: What those billions would be spent on
OTHER COUNTRIES: Few are trying to stimulate their economies
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the bill could increase employment in a range of 800,000 to 2.3 million jobs by the fourth quarter of 2009 and 1.2 million to 3.6 million by the fourth quarter of 2010.
HOUSING/CARS: Buyers could get a modest break
If you're in the market for a new car or your first house, the compromise stimulus bill offers modest tax breaks for both kinds of purchases.
First-time home buyers would receive an $8,000 tax credit, and they wouldn't have to repay the government later as is required for the current $7,500 credit. An earlier Senate proposal would have provided all home buyers with a $15,000 credit.
"The home buyer tax credit is a plus for the housing market, but only a small plus," says Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. "The credit … covers only a part of the down payment needed to make a purchase. The housing market will take any help it can get, but it needs more."
Other economists point out that the tax credit will still provide a mild jolt to the market by encouraging home purchases, which in turn should help curb the rapid rate of home price declines.
"While scaled back somewhat, it is still a good idea," says Brian Bethune at IHS Global Insight. "It should induce more home sales in 2009, and this will be an important support for the housing market and the housing industry. It should also buffer the rate of decline of home prices."
The bill also would allow new car buyers to deduct the purchase's sales tax from taxable income.
"We're happy to see the sales tax help, but credit is really the big issue," Chrysler President Jim Press said Thursday in Chicago.
"Ever-increasing credit score requirements by lenders," and slipping consumer credit ratings take many potential buyers out of the pool, Press said.
"A positive development, but we don't think it would have an immediate impact on the market," said Chris Hosford, vice president at Hyundai's U.S. operations.
The average new car purchase price the first 11 months of last year was $28,280, and the average used car trade-in value was $15,203, according to data from the National Automobile Dealers Association. Paul Taylor, NADA chief economist, says states typically tax the difference — $13,077 in this case.
A 5% rate, as in Massachusetts, would be $654, Taylor says, meaning the deduction would reduce taxable income that much.
By Stephanie Armour, Sharon Silke Carty and Chris Woodyard
TAXES: A $400 to $800 credit for many taxpayers
A key element of the stimulus bill would provide most Americans with a tax credit of $400, or $800 for married couples. The tax credit would phase out for single taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $75,000 to $90,000 and married couples with AGI of $150,000 to $190,000.
The tax credit would increase the average taxpayer's paycheck by about $8 a week, prompting some to question whether it will do much to stimulate consumer spending. But for a single worker, the credit is the equivalent of a $500 salary increase, after taxes, says Clint Stretch, managing principal for tax policy at Deloitte Tax. "In this economy, if you walked into your boss' office and demanded a $500 raise, you'd probably get laughed at," he says.
Retirees who receive Social Security benefits and individuals on disability would receive a $250 tax credit, says Tom Ochsenschlager, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Because these individuals typically don't have withholding, they'll likely receive a check, he says.
Other tax provisions in the stimulus package:
•An expanded earned income tax credit and child tax credit for low-income families.
•A higher education tax credit. Parents of college students would be eligible to claim a tax credit of up to $2,500. The credit is more generous than the existing Hope Scholarship Tax Credit, which maxes out at $1,800 and is available only for the first two years of college, says Amy McAnarney, executive director of H&R Block's Tax Institute. The tax credit, which would be available in 2009 and 2010, phases out for single taxpayers with AGI of $80,000 to $90,000 and married taxpayers with AGI of $160,000 to $180,000.
•A stopgap measure designed to prevent the alternative minimum tax from hitting more than 24 million households in 2009. The AMT was designed to prevent extremely wealthy taxpayers from using loopholes and deductions to avoid taxes. But because it was never indexed to inflation, it has expanded to encompass more upper-middle and some middle-class taxpayers. About 4 million owed the AMT last year.
By Sandra Block
ENERGY: Weatherizing homes will save money
The agreed-upon stimulus plan provides about $50 billion aimed at ushering in a clean-energy future and includes money or tax credits for Americans to weatherize their homes and buy hybrid cars.
It also commits dollars to upgrading the electricity grid and underwriting renewable energy projects.
"This is going to be an extraordinary boost to our challenge of preparing for global warming legislation and re-energizing the American economy," says Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office.
While many analysts cheered provisions to weatherize homes as both an instant way to create jobs and put money in consumers' pockets, some say other initiatives are insufficient and won't deliver a quick economic boost.
The bill sets aside $5 billion to weatherize more than 1 million modest-income homes, saving families an average $350 a year. It devotes $6.3 billion to improve federally backed and public housing projects with new insulation, windows and furnaces. Higher-income households can make similar improvements and get expanded tax credits.
For every dollar spent, such programs produce about $3 in electricity savings, Smith says.
Spending $11 billion to upgrade the nationwide transmission grid to get renewable energy from rural areas to cities and digitize the electric grid to prevent outages is more controversial.
"It's just too little," says Joel Kurtzman, senior fellow at the Milken Institute, an economic think tank. He says it will cost about $100 billion.
Kenneth Medlock, energy fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, says grid improvements will take years and won't spawn jobs immediately.
Providing a tax credit of up to $7,500 for families that buy plug-in hybrids to spur a new generation of cars "will help the environment and help Detroit," Kurtzman says.
But automakers won't have plug-in hybrids and battery-power electrics in showrooms until next year at the earliest.
"To roll that into a stimulus is almost misleading," Medlock says.
By Paul Davidson
THE SAFETY NET: Jobless get a little extra help
Many of those who are unemployed will get a boost from the stimulus bill, including a $25 increase in weekly benefit checks through 2009 that should help not only those who are out of work but the broad economy as that money gets spent.
Currently, the nationwide average weekly check to those receiving unemployment benefits is $295.05, ranging from $179.08 in Mississippi to $408.28 in Hawaii, according to the National Employment Law Project.
Increasing payments is a good way to stimulate the economy, because, "You can get money into the hands of people right away," says Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. And people who are unemployed are likely to spend it.
More than 4.8 million people were collecting unemployment benefits at the end of January, up 78% from a year earlier and the highest since records began in 1967, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The bill includes other measures to help those who have lost their jobs. They:
•Lengthen the period in which people can be eligible for extended unemployment benefits. The program, which provides up to 33 weeks of extra jobless benefits after workers exhaust the regular 26 weeks received in most states, was passed last year and was set to expire at the end of March. Under the stimulus bill, the extended benefits would be available through the end of 2009. The NELP estimates this will help about 3 million people.
•Provide money to states that agree to make benefits available to more workers. That would help at least 500,000 people, including some low-wage and part-time workers, who wouldn't otherwise receive unemployment benefits, the NELP says.
•Suspend the taxation of unemployment benefits up to $2,400.
The measure also helps the unemployed and others by increasing the maximum monthly food-stamp benefit by 13%, which lawmakers estimate will help 31 million Americans, half of them children. And the bill provides a subsidy to cover 65% of a worker's COBRA health insurance premiums for up to nine months. COBRA lets workers continue their former employer's coverage for at least 18 months.
By Barbara Hagenbaugh
BROADBAND: Help for rural areas
The stimulus bill includes $7 billion for broadband deployment in rural markets across the USA.
That high-speed Internet access is counted as "infrastructure" is illuminating in itself, says Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union.
Under the Bush administration, broadband service was treated as a luxury, he says. The Obama-backed stimulus package, in contrast, "treats Internet communications as an essential service, just like our highways," Kimmelman says.
With that baseline established, Kimmelman says, he expects major public policy shifts to follow, with the goal of making broadband available and affordable to all Americans. Though final language is still being worked out, the $7 billion plan offers "grants," or funding, to companies willing to deploy broadband — wireless or wired — in "underserved" or "unserved" markets.
But there are regulatory strings attached, notes Paul Glenchur of Stanford Group in Washington, D.C.
Companies must offer broadband services in a "non-discriminatory" fashion. That's code for "open access," a politically charged notion that says carriers must treat all Internet services the same.
Likewise, trying to define "underserved" or "unserved" markets could prove challenging, he says.
Why: Satellite-based Internet services already are available in most rural markets. Phone and cable TV companies have also spent billions deploying broadband in hundreds of markets, including rural areas.
The government's plan to essentially subsidize competition in these areas through a grant program "raises a basic question of fairness," Glenchur says.
Kimmelman disagrees. Satellite-based broadband costs around $90 a month, he says, putting it out of reach of many consumers.
By Leslie Cauley
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