Feb 2, 2015 6 min read

Wake Up To Politics - February 2, 2014

To read today's edition of Wake Up To Politics in a PDF format, click here. Continue reading to find the text of the Wake Up in the body of the email!

Monday, February 2, 2015
645 Days Until Election Day 2016It's Monday, February 2, 2015, I'm Gabe Fleisher for Wake Up To Politics, and reporting from WUTP world HQ in my bedroom - Good morning: THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL!!!
To send me questions, comments, tips, new subscribers, and more: email me at wakeuptopolitics@gmail.com. To learn more about WUTP or subscribe, visit the site: wakeuptopolitics.com, or read my tweets and follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Wakeup2Politics or read stories on Wake Up To Politics by clicking the media logos at the bottom.
Election Central

Iowa Poll: Walker, Clinton Leading One year before Iowans go to the polls in the first caucuses of 2016, the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics released a poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers Saturday.
On the Republican side, the poll showed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the lead, with 15% listing him as their first choice for president in 2016. Walker was followed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (14%), former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (10%), neurologist Ben Carson (9%), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (8%), and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (5%). New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum both received 4%, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry both received the support of 3%. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and businessman Donald Trump were all the first choice of just 1% or 2%.
Huckabee, the winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, has the highest favorable rating among likely caucusgoers of the potential 2016 candidates polled, at 66% favorability. He is followed closely by Paul and Perry (64%) and Walker (60%). Walker has the highest “very favorable” rating, while Christie and Trump are the only two potential candidates rated by more as unfavorable than favorable. Three potential candidates received a rating of “not sure” from a majority of those asked: Pence, Kasich, and Fiorina, all of whom have received very little press coverage.
The poll also asked if each potential candidate was “too conservative,” “too moderate,” or “just right”. The Goldilocks candidate is Rick Perry, judged by 62% of likely GOP caucusgoers as “just right”.
Meanwhile, the Democratic side is not nearly as close. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the first choice of 56% for president in 2016, miles ahead of any of her other potential competitors. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren received the next-most support (16%), followed by Vice President Joe Biden (9%). Other potential candidates barely register; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders received 5%, and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb received 3% - a low number, but surprisingly more than former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s 1%. Despite the fact that Webb has already set up a presidential exploratory committee, O’Malley has received much more coverage than Webb.
The poll also asked about Clinton’s negatives: the #1 “deal-killer” for a Clinton candidacy was her ties to Wall Street, followed by the Benghazi attacks.
Among likely Democratic caucusgoers, Clinton enjoys a near-unanimous favorability rating – 84%. Biden trails with78%, and then Warren at 58%. Interestingly, Democrats list Christie as the potential candidate they think would be the “best leader” if Republicans were to win the White House in 2016.White House Watch
The President’s Schedule: Budget Day At 12:45 PM, President Obama will have lunch with Vice President Joe Biden.
At 2:10 PM, the President will honor two sports teams from LA, one a hockey team and the other a soccer team for their Championship titles, and their work “giving back to their communities”: Los Angeles Kings, the 2014 NHL Champion, and LA Galaxy, the 2014 MLS Cup Champion.
But, the biggest news today is the President’s release of his FY 2016 budget proposal, which he will speak about during 11:55 AM remarks at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.
In his $4 trillion budget request, President Obama will focus on the “middle-class economics” message of his State of the Union – raising taxes on the very rich to pay for spending and tax credits to go to the middle class.
Tax proposals in the 2016 Obama budget will include increased tax rates for American corporate profits kept and brought from overseas, which will go towards funding infrastructure projects, like roads, bridges, and airports.
$105 million will be set aside for “aid to workers dislocated by free trade deals,” according to the New York Times, and $41 million for the President’s plan to make community college free for two years (although this is just in FY 2016, beginning in October; in FY 2018, the cost will grow to $2.4 billion).
A 1.3% pay raise will be requested for federal employees and uniformed troops.
In his budget request, President Obama will stabilize the deficit (it will increase, but remain stable when compared to the nation’s economic output), while also increasing spending: he will buck sequestration caps, spending $74 billion more than the sequestration limits set in 2011.
Obama knows, however, that to American families, their personal debt is much more important than the federal deficit – which is why he if focusing on helping the middle class with college costs and child care, issues closer to home for most Americans.
By law, the President must submit his budget request by the first Monday in February, but this will be the first time Obama complies with the deadline. In each year of his administration, President Obama has submitted his budget late; the FY 2014 request was not sent to Congress until April 10, more than two months after the deadline.
No matter when the President’s budget proposal is submitted – the fact remains that the idealistic proposals making up the thousands of pages are likely dead-on-arrival in Congress.

Capitol Hill News

Senate: Status Update At 5:30 PM, the Senate will vote on passage of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act.
The bill, which “improve[s] the Department of Veterans Affairs…mental health support services and reduce the tragic number of veteran suicides,” according to The Hill, honors Clay Hunt, a Texan who served in the Iraq War and later committed suicide. The House has already passed the bill 403-0, so if the Senate passes it today, the legislation heads to the President’s desk. It will be the second piece of legislation passed by both the House and the Senate in the one-month-old 114^th Congress.

Question of the Day

Today’s Question Since yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday…a football question: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is the son of a former U.S. Senator from which state?
Friday’s Answer On Friday, in honor of Franklin Roosevelt’s birthday, the question was: what was the first National Historic Site, designated by FDR in 1935?
The answer…the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, best known as the Gateway Arch, in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. According to the National Park Service, “On December 21, 1935, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7253 permitting the secretary of the interior to acquire and develop the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. This became the country’s first national historic site designated under the Historic Sites Act.”
GREAT JOB…Jakob Gibson, Marilyn Schapiro, and Rick Isserman who all got the right answer!
HONORABLE MENTION to…Joe Bookman, who answered Salem Maritime National Historic Site, which was the first to carry the title “National Historic Site”. However, it is not the first site designated under the Historic Sites Act. JNEM does not carry the “Historic Site” name, because it is technically not a single site. Although best known for the Arch, JNEM also includes St. Louis’ Old Courthouse (where the Dred Scott case was first heard), in addition to the museum underneath the Arch commemorating the Louisiana Purchase and the Louis & Clark expedition.
Because FDR’s JNEM executive order states, it is for the “allocation of funds to the Secretary of the Interior for the acquisition and development of a historic site to be known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial,” and because I am biased towards St. Louis…I must rule in favor of the Arch.