Obama Freezes Top Salaries
2009年1月24日
President Barack Obama, on a busy first full day in office, announced a wage freeze for top White House staff, waded into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and signaled a sharp break from the government's handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Mr. Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, told lawmakers that the administration was crafting a 'comprehensive plan' to address the financial crisis -- coupled with efforts to address long-term budget problems posed by Social Security and Medicare.
In other moves Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama's choice for secretary of state. Mr. Geithner had a fairly smooth hearing before the Finance Committee and was expected to be confirmed by the panel Thursday. The new president was also in advanced talks to name former U.S. Senator George Mitchell as a special Middle East envoy, and an announcement was expected as soon as Thursday, according to officials familiar with the negotiations.
Later in the day, Mr. Obama met with his top national-security advisers to discuss a timetable for fulfilling one of his principal campaign promises: to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
On Capitol Hill, House Counsel Greg Craig briefed congressional leaders on three executive orders the president is expected to sign on Thursday, a House leadership aide said. Those orders will deal with closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, new rules on torture, and the handling of detainees, said the aide.
Mr. Obama signed two executive orders and three presidential memoranda aimed at making government more transparent and tightening ethics rules. Those steps were designed to make good on some of the key themes of his campaign, and to show a break with a Bush administration that critics said was too secretive.
The new president also ordered that the salaries of senior staff earning more than $100,000 a year be frozen. The move would affect about a third of the 450 White House staff.
'During this period of economic emergency, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington,' he told about 30 members of his senior staff, gathered in the executive office building next door to the White House. 'However long we are keepers of the public trust, we should never forget that we are here as public servants.'
Mr. Obama signed an executive order prohibiting executive-branch employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists and setting new rules on lobbying, both before and after their service in his administration. Under the new policy, no official may work on matters for which they served as lobbyists during the previous two years. And after leaving government, they may not lobby a slew of top officials in the administration -- as long as Mr. Obama is president.
Mr. Obama also ordered that the administration adopt new rules making it easier for the public to obtain information using the Freedom of Information Act. He issued an order making clear that only the president can assert executive privilege in keeping records secret after an administration ends.
On the foreign-relations front, Mr. Obama made good on his campaign pledge to engage on the Arab-Israeli dispute from 'day one,' breaking from his predecessor, who waited until late in his second term before jumping fully into the conflict.
Mr. Obama is sticking to the Bush administration's hard-line of not directly engaging the militant Palestinian group Hamas, raising questions among Arab diplomats about just how significantly U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East is set to shift.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama called the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority to discuss the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip, according to the White House. By including Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, in his opening round, Mr. Obama is signaling a continuation of a Bush administration policy that has sought to strengthen the moderate leader over his rivals in Hamas, according to Mideast analysts.
Mr. Obama also met Wednesday with his national security team, including Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top Iraq commander.
The session marked Mr. Obama's first attempt to find a workable middle ground between his campaign promise to speedily withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq and the military's preference for a slower and smaller drawdown.
Laura Meckler / Jess Bravin / Jay Solomon |
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