So Much for Transparency: Lawmakers Criticize Bailout Chief’s Lack of Clarity

ABCNews' Matthew Jaffe reports:

According to testimony prepared for a hearing Thursday on the financial bailout, the program's Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky is expected to tell Congress that the Treasury Department's “basic attitude towards transparency…remains a significant frustration.”

Once the hearing started, one lawmaker felt that frustration first-hand, denouncing as useless and unclear the testimony from Treasury official Herb Allison, who oversees the $700 billion TARP.

“This hearing has not been very useful. Those have not been very clear responses,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) about 45 minutes into Allison's testimony. “Maybe that's just the way it is, but I look forward to the next panel.”

The panel's chairman, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, then noted sarcastically, “But the questions are valuable.”

-Matthew Jaffe

ABC News’ David Chalian Reports:

A top leader of the nation’s labor movement upped the anti-health insurance company rhetoric coming from much of the left in the current health care reform debate.

“There was a lot of talk about death panels,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer (and the organization’s presumptive incoming president) Richard Trumka told us on ABC News’ “Top Line.” “Well there are death panels out there, they’re called the insurance companies,” he added.

Mr. Trumka has been a leading Democratic voice warning President Obama and his administration not to accept a health care reform bill without a public government-run health insurance option as a part of it.

He didn’t back down from that position today and appeared unimpressed with the idea of a delayed public option that only gets triggered if the private health insurance companies are unable to significantly bring down costs and expand coverage once health care reform legislation becomes law.

“Well, Trigger was a great horse and I’m sure Dale and Roy really liked Trigger,” joked Trumka. He went on to express concern about when such a triggered public option would take effect. “How far down the road? And what do we say to those people?,” he asked. “Is it 10 years down the road? Is it 8 years down the road? What do we say to every American that declares bankruptcy every thirty seconds because of this?,” he added.

The labor leader attempted to alter the terms of the health care debate we’ve seen play out across the country throughout August by keeping the focus on the current practices of health insurance companies in a less regulated marketplace. He cited an average of 32% of denied insurance claims from three of the largest health care providers in California over the last 7 years as an example.

“We need the public option to force them to become more efficient, more innovative and to break that stranglehold that they have on healthcare in this country,” Trumka said of the insurance companies.

Mr. Trumka also weighed in on immigration reform. The labor community has proven reluctant to join many of its Democratic brethren in Congress in support of comprehensive immigration reform legislation that was eventually rejected in 2007.

“We have a panel out, it was headed by a former Secretary of Labor, that I think is a perfect thing. It makes sure that people are treated humanely, that employers can’t exploit people that come into this country and it’ll solve the problem. It takes care of my members but more importantly, it takes care of the problems for the country itself,” said Trumka.

Watch the entire interview with Richard Trumka HERE:

We also chatted with Politico’s Jonathan Martin about what is behind the strategy shift at the White House and who makes up President Obama’s target audience for his big speech next week.

Check out the entire interview with Politico’s Jonathan Martin HERE:

DNC Chief Has Heard No Complaints on Health Care Ads

ABC News? David Chalian Reports: The Democratic National Committee is keeping up the pressure on its own party members to support President Obama?s health care reform efforts.

The ads apparently don?t seem to be upsetting Democratic elected officials enough for them to register a direct complaint with DNC Chairman Tim Kaine.

The DNC is careful not to cite any particular member of Congress in the ad. Instead, the ad simply describes the need for health care reform and urges viewers to call their elected officials in Congress and tell them to support reform legislation making its way through Capitol Hill.

It is still quite extraordinary for a president to apply this kind of paid and targeted political pressure on members of his own party to help pass his agenda. It is also a clear sign that the votes aren't there yet for the president and his team.

?We?ve started to run them and people know how to find me. In fact, I?m very easy to find,? Gov. Kaine told ABC News. ?I have not gotten one call from anybody in leadership or even any elected member saying this is unhelpful. I think, frankly, many of them are looking for their constituents to tell them, ?Go for it, let?s do reform and let?s do it now,?? he added.

After launching television ads in states with key moderate Democrats earlier this week,Organizing for America, President Obama?s campaign organization now housed at the DNC, announced today it is expanding the television buy to 15 additional markets targeting potentially key Democratic members of the House of Representatives. Those new markets include: Savannah, Ga.; Palm Springs,Calif.; Seattle; Nashville, Tenn.; Bloomington, Ind.; Sacramento, Calif.;Salt Lake City, Utah; New Orleans; Pittsburgh, Charlotte, N.C.; Little Rock, Ark.; Columbus, Ohio; Marquette, Mich; Grand Rapids, Mich.and Medford, Ore.

When the first round of ads hit the airwaves last week, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters he thought they were a ?waste of money.?

Sen. Reid?s spokesman later walked back those comments, saying that the senator had no problems with the ads.

?The way we look at it is, we want people to call their senators or representatives of both parties and say, ?We?ll support you if you do this,?” Gov. Kaine said.

?Health reform, it?s a heavy lift because every president has tried it and every Congress has tried it and they haven?t been able to do it,” Kaine added. “But the ads say, and I think what they?re going to generate, is citizens telling their representatives, ?Support this. Do the heavy lift and we?ll support you.? That?s what they?re about.”

House Dem Campaign Chief Sets Expectations for NY-20

ABC News’ David Chalian Reports: One major task for both national parties heading into Tuesday’s special House election in upstate New York has been to set expectations low enough to mitigate any damage from a loss or enhance the breathlessness in the coverage of a victory.

The executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the campaign arm for House Democrats — attempted to set the bar as low as possible on Tuesday. “This is a Republican district to start,” Jon Vogel told us on ABCNEWS.COM’s “Top Line.” “There are 70,000 more Republicans than Democrats so the math clearly favors them to begin with, and when you look at the breakout of this district as well, it’s a very rural exurban district. Fifty-five percent of the district is considered rural, so this is not your typical Northeast suburban district,” he added.

Of course, what was left out of his description were the three DCCC staffers that have been on the ground working feverishly on Democrat Scott Murphy’s campaign for the last couple of months and the more than $2 million Democrats and their allies have helped pump into the district on pro-Murphy television ads, direct-mail pieces, and robocalls.

“At one point it went from a 21-point gap [in favor of the Republican] to a 4-point race [in favor of the Democrat] just the other day, so it’s really a tossed ball right now,” Vogel continued.

Despite Mr. Vogel’s efforts, if the Democrats fail to hold on to a seat already in their column in this first electoral test for the party in the Obama era, it will certainly give the Republicans the rallying cry they so clearly need. It may also cause a lot of vulnerable Democratic members of the House to wonder just how much President Obama can help them or how willing he is to do so as their campaigns approach.

ABC News’ John Berman recently spent some time in the 20th congressional district in New York and joined us on “Top Line” to offer his clever insights and defend his abysmal NCAA bracket.

Polls close at 9:00 pm ET and once the votes are counted, the national parties will move from expectations setting to the spin wars.

Obama Budget Chief: Numbers Looking Worse

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

President Obama’s budget chief said Tuesday that he expects a forthcoming government revenue estimate to reflect a worsening economic picture.

“The numbers will be more negative than anticipated,” said Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, referring to a “re-estimate” that will be released later this week or early next week by the Congressional Budget Office. Orszag expects the CBO numbers to show declining government revenue because the fourth quarter of 2008 came in “much weaker than anticipated” and that information was not factored into CBO’s earlier estimates.

Orszag made his comments during a pen-and-pad lunch with reporters in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. He was asked to explain comments made earlier in the day by President Obama following his meeting with the Democratic chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees.

Without specifically identifying which numbers he was referring to, Obama said, “We’re going to get some numbers with respect to the budget that may make this even tougher in the coming couple of weeks.”

During the hour-long lunch at the St. Regis Hotel, Orszag also touched on health care, cap-and-trade, taxes, and Social Security.

On whether the Obama administration will use the budget reconciliation process to overhaul the nation’s health care system, Orszag left the Obama administration room to maneuver.

“On reconciliation, I’m just going to say again what we’ve already said which is that it is not where we would like to start but it’s premature to be taking it off the table at this point,” said Orszag. “We’d like to avoid it if possible,” he added, “but we’re not taking it off the table.”

He said the Obama administration would like to see if there is some other way to get done important legislation without using the budget reconciliation process which makes it possible to circumvent the usual requirement to get 60 votes in the Senate. In a nod towards those who think Obama should use the budget reconciliation process to ensure that his agenda does not get bottled up in the Senate he said the process is used more often than critics like to acknowledge.

Asked if Obama is committed to finding a different $525 billion revenue enhancer over eight years to pay for his “Making Work Pay” tax credit if the Senate refuses to consider cap-and-trade as part of the budget, Orszag sidestepped the question.

“I think I’m not going to be negotiating with myself and undertaking hypotheticals,” said Orszag. “We’ve put forward a way of financing Making Work Pay and that’s what we favor.”

He also sidestepped a question about whether the Obama administration would funnel money to industries hit hard by cap-and-trade.

On Social Security, he said “changes will be necessary” to the nation’s retirement program. He emphasized, however, that the single most important thing the U.S. could do to put itself on a firm financial footing is to reform health care.

With regards to tax policy, he rejected GOP criticism that Obama is raising taxes in the middle of a recession by saying that the tax hikes don’t come until 2011 when he expects the US to be out of its recession. He also rejected the argument that higher marginal tax rates on the richest two or three percent hurt growth, pointing to former President Clinton’s experience in 1993.

“A lot of the doom and gloom that you’re hearing is exactly the same set of arguments that were made in 1993,” said Orszag.

ABC News’ Ferdous Al-Faruque contributed to this report.

Mom-in-Chief

In Michelle Obama’s first television interview as first lady, she spoke about her support for military and working families to GMA’s Robin Roberts in Fort Bragg, N.C.

“It hurts. It hurts,” said Obama of military on food stamps. “These are people who are willing to send their loved ones off to, perhaps, give their lives — the ultimate sacrifice. But yet, they’re living back at home on food stamps. It’s not right, and it’s not where we should be as a nation.”

How is the first lady growing into her new role and developing her White House agenda?

Tune into Friday’s edition of Politics Live with ABC News’ David Chalian, Rick Klein and Ann Compton.