Transcript

6.23.26 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the reading of the Washington Post for Tuesday,
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June twenty third, twenty twenty five. As a reminder, Radio
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I is a reading service intended for people who are
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blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult to
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read printed material. Your reader for to day is Cindy Fraser.
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To day's front page headlines from the Washington Post are
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British Prime Minister Starmer says he will resign, Labor Party
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seeks reboot amid losses, weak economy, Epstein scandal sewed mutiny. Next,
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Why poor families in Oklahoma lose electricity? Utility companies in
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the state are more likely to shut off power than
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anywhere else in the country. Our next headline, Rubio's golf
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visit comes amid scrutiny on Iran. Next, Alan Greenspan nineteen
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twenty six to twenty twenty six. Banking Titan shaped modern
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US economy. Long time Fed boss led country to prosperity,
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but also made decisions that contributed to the two thousand
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and eight financial crisis. And the final headline from today's
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front page tension rises between Trump justices Ahead of key rulings.
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President has been attacking members of the Supreme Court. In
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addition to those items on the front page also includes
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a photograph which is titled Sawed Times. The caption reads,
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the grass on the south lawn of the White House
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was destroyed during a UFC event held there on June fourteenth.
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A private company run by a supporter of President Donald
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Trump has pledged to restore the turf. Now, let's turn
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to our first item, entitled British Prime Minister Starmer says
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he will resign. Labour Party seeks reboot amid losses, weak economy,
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Epstein scandal sewed mutiny by Greg Miller and Steve Hendrix
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from London. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday that
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he will resign, succumbing to pressure from lawmakers within his
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own Labor Party after crushing losses in nationwide local elections
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last month triggered a mutiny. An emotional Starmer said he
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would leave office after a new Labor leader and therefore
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a new Prime Minister is selected in a leadership election
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that will begin in July. Standing outside ten Downing Street,
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Starmer recounted his government's achievements during its two years in office,
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and then grew tearful after saying that he had informed
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King Charles the Third of his decision Monday morning and
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would soon devote himself to his own family. The question
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my party is asking now is whether I am best
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placed to lead us into the next general election, Starmer said,
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with his staff and some, but notably not all, of
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his cabinet looking on, I have heard the answer of
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my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that
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answer with good grace. Starmer, sixty three, had struggled to
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defy his agenda while contending with economic stagnation, file out
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from the Epstein scandal, and turbulent relations with President Donald Trump.
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The discord with Trump was punctuated by a final job
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on Sunday, when the US President proclaimed that Starmer would resign,
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shoving the British leader to the door before Starmer had
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made any announcement of his own. Starmer's surrender came fast
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on the heels of a special parliamentary election in Makerfield
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on Thursday, in which Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham won
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a decisive victory, returning him to the House of Commons
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and positioning him to mount a Labor Party leadership challenge
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that Starmer seemed all but certain to lose. Burnham's victory
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gave him momentum in a challenge to Starmer that has
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been brewing for months, and his status as a front
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runner neared shoe in levels on Monday when another likely
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candidate for a leadership race, former Health Secretary West Streeting,
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pulled out of contention and through him support to Burnham.
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To become the new Labor leader, any challenger must first
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secure the written backing of at least eighty one of
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Labour's four hundred three elected members of Parliament. Once a
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threshold has crossed, the contest goes to a broader vote
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of party members who rank candidates in order of preference
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until one of them clears fifty percent. Starmer could have
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effectively anointed Burnham as his replacement, avoiding what could be
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a bruising intra party battle for the top job, but
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some have argued that Labor and the country would be
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better served by a leadership contest that demanded candidates defend
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their vision for leadership. Starmer opted for an open contest,
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saying he would instruct Labour's Executive Committee to begin accepting
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nominations on July ninth, with an eye to completing the
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election in time for a new prime Minister to take
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office by the end of Parliament's summer recess in September.
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It was unclear if that schedule would hold given the
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accelerating support for Burnham among lawmakers. He's the next prime minister,
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said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary
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University of London. It's going to be something like a coronation.
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Starmer's resignation extends a remarkable era of political turmoil in
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Britain and will usher in the country's seventh prime minister
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in the past ten years. Starmer spent less than two
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years at Number ten, Downing Street. His departure ends a
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troubled tenure marred by failures to deliver on campaign promises,
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ousters of senior advisers, criticism of his handling of the
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wars in Ukraine and Iran, and recriminations over his appointment
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as US ambassador of former labor power broker Peter Mandelsson,
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whose entanglement with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, is
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now under investigation by the Metropolitan Police. These and other
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missteps contributed to the undoing of a staidic Titian who
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led Labor to a landslide victory in twenty twenty four,
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promising competence and centrist policies that he said would reinvigorate
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the British economy and shield the country from the polarizing
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forces tearing other democracies apart after nearly fifteen years of
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Conservative Party rule. Labour also benefited in that race from
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widespread unhappiness over the economic malaise that followed Brexit, the
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country's Tory led departure from the European Union, and yet
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Starmer soon became caught in the same currents of voter
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discontent that he had exploited. Starmer, a former prosecutor who
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lacked the flare of Britain's most famous prime ministers, faced
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persistently abysmal approval ratings and barely concealed scheming in the
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upper ranks of his party. More broadly, Starmer's resignation underscores
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the extent to which British politics is entering a turbulent
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new period in which insurgent party including Reform UK, whose
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anti immigrant posture echoes the MAGA movement in the United States,
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and the populous Green Party are gaining strength amid eroded
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support for the Conservative and Labor parties that have dominated
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UK politics for generations. The blood bath in local elections
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suffered by Labour on May seventh, a loss of more
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than one thousand, five hundred of the approximately two thousand,
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six hundred seats and held on local councils and other bodies,
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was widely expected, and with national parliamentary elections not due
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until mid twenty twenty nine, Labor retains a strong majority
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in the House of Commons, but rank and file MPs
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quickly called for Starmer's head, fearing a potential wipeout if
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they did not replace him in time for a dramatic turnabout.
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On paper, at least, the looming leadership contests looked to
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be Burnham's to lose even before Streeter pulled out Monday.
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Burnham's decisive when last week in Makerfield, a working class
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constituency Labor strategists feared it might lose Outright to Reform
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UK handed him a fresh mandate as a figure best
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positioned to blunt the new right wing party's advance in
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the post industrial seats Labor needs to hold on to power.
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Burnham's camp has said he has already secured the backing
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of more than two hundred one Labor MPs, half of
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the four hundred two member Parliamentary Party. That tally, if
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it holds, would make him the prevailing favorite from the outset.
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Coming from local politics, he is seen as largely untainted
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by the compromises of Starmer's government. Streeting, forty three, who
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served as Health Secretary under Starmer, resigned his cabinet post
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last month to launch his own leadership bid. His quick
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endorsement suggested that Burnham was building perhaps insurmountable support. Streeting,
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who hails from the more centrist Labor wing identified with
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former Prime Minister to Blair, would have challenged Burnham from
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the right, and had built a profile as a sharp
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elbowed media figure willing to break publicly with Starmer's government.
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That's a contrast to Burnham's more staid, institutional brand of
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working class populism built over three terms as Mayor of
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Greater Manchester and sixteen years before that in the House
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of Commons. Streeting has stressed the need for Labor to
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win back swing voters defecting to reform UK, and had
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pointed to his record of NHS reform as proof of
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a pragmatic governing style. In withdrawing, he acknowledged that a
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divisive leadership contest could prove costly by stressing disagreements rather
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than unity. We could spend the summer exaggerating small differences,
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or we can roll up our sleeves and help him
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deliver the change our party and our country needs, Streating
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said in a statement. Starmer's struggles were compounded by strains
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in the special relationship between and the United States. Starmer's
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early attempts to appease Trump upon his return to the
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White House, including a trip to Washington in which he
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carried an invitation from King Charles the Third for an
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unprecedented second state visit to England, did not shield Britain
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from steep tariffs imposed by Trump or from a steady
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stream of insults. In recent weeks, Trump has lashed out
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at Starmer, saying he is no Winston Churchill for his
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refusal to thrust Britain's military more directly into the US
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Israeli War with Iran, seeking to avoid the fate of Blair,
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whose support for the two thousand and three US invasion
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of Iraq is still seen as a stain on his legacy.
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Starmer initially refused to allow US forces to stage attacks
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on Iran from British basis. He later softened that position
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to allow defensive strikes meant to blunt Iran's ability to
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retaliate on British territories or allies. Starmer's shifting positions added
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to perceptions of him as in decisive Still, it was
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another US crisis, the Epstein scandal, that seemed most damaging.
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Starmer has no known direct ties to Epstein, but was
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pilloried for the ambassadorial appointment of Mandelsson, who maintained ties
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with Epstein long after his two thousand and eight conviction
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on solicitation of prostitution and shared with him sensitive UK
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government documents, according to US Justice Department files. In February,
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police arrested Mandelssohn on suspicion of misconduct and public office,
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raising the pressure on Starmer over his judgment in appointing him.
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Weeks earlier, a government review had found evidence in the
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Epstein files that sensitive information about the two thousand and
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eight financial crash appeared to have been shared with the
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financier by a government official. Mandilsson was a government minister
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at the time. Starmer's resignation is likely to add to
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a general sense that the political fallout related to Epstein
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has been far more severe in Britain and Europe than
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in the United States, where neither Trump nor other American
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politicians revealed to have had close ties with Epstein over
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the years have faced significant consequences. In Britain, Starmer faced
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calls for his resignation, and Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, a brother
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of King Charles, was stripped of his royal titles and
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forced to leave his longtime royal residence following new revelations
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about his own Epstein connection. Starmer weathered those initial calls
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to step down, but ultimately bowed to reality as the
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numbers among Labour's rank and file turned against him. In
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his resignation speech on Monday, he claimed credit for bringing
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Labor back from the dead six years ago. I inherited
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a Labor party that was politically, financially and morally bankrupt,
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Starmer said. I was told time and time again that
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my party was finished, that we were consigned to history,
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that a majority at the general election, let alone a
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landslide majority, was impossible. But we proved those people wrong.
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Leo Sans contributed to this report. This report is accompanied
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by photos. The one on the front page is captioned
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announces his upcoming resignation on
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Monday outside ten Downing Street in London. The photo is
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from a distance and shows mister Starmer standing in front
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of a podium in the street in front of ten
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Downing Street. The next photo is captioned British Prime Minister
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Keir Starmer announces his upcoming resignation outside ten Downing Street
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in London on Monday, kin Chung AP. This is a
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closer up photo that shows mister Starmer standing behind that podium.
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The next photo is captioned Starmer who led labor to
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a landside victory in twenty twenty four, spent less than
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two years and number ten Downing Street Peter mcdamond, Pool
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Times AP. This photo shows mister Starmer's head and shoulders.
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Mister Starmer appears to be scratching his head. The next
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photo is captioned newly elected Makerfield Member of Parliament Andy
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Burnham addresses in Ashton in Makerfield, Britain on Friday Temlade
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at a Laja reuiters. The photo shows mister Burnham in
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a shirt sleeve standing in front of a crowd of people.
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The next photo is captioned Starmer speaks with President Donald
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Trump during the Group of Seventh summit in Eastern France
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on Tuesday Isabelle and Fonte's AFP Getty Images. The next
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item from today's from page is entitled why poor families
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in Oklahoma lose electricity? Utility companies in the state are
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more likely to shut off power than anywhere else in
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the country. By Julie z Will from Tulsa. The lights
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went out when Tammy Dykes was in the shower a sudden,
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her windowless bathroom went black. It was a middle of March,
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and Dyke's bills had been piling up. Now she owed
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the electric company eight hundred eighty four dollars and forty
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eight cents. Having your electricity disconnected is more common in
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Oklahoma than any other state. When new federal data came
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out this year, the first time Congress ever required transparency
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into the once hidden question of how often power companies
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shut off their customers for failure to pay, it revealed
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that the state far outpaces any other in electricity disconnections.
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In twenty twenty four, Oklahoma's electric companies, which have one
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point eight million customers disconnected households five hundred seventy two thousand,
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four hundred eighty times, though some people might be disconnected
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more than once. That's a thirty percent annual disconnections per
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households rate. The next highest rate is twenty three percent
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in Texas. In forty one states, it's lee less than
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ten percent. Next in this article is a graphic entitled
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electricity disconnections by State. This map shows a number of
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shut offfs in each state in twenty twenty four as
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a percentage of total electric customers in the state. Some
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customers were disconnected more than once, so these percentages are
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higher than the actual portion who lost power. They show
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the frequency of shut offs in relation to the state population.
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Source US Energy Information Administration JULIESI. While the Washington Post
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Kentucky's percentage was six point nine two percent, Tennessee seventeen
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point eight one percent, Indiana five point nine five percent,
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and Ohio six point four four percent. West Virginia was
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ten point one four percent, and Virginia twelve point sixty
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six percent. More than two percent of Oklahoma households were
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shut off each month in twenty twenty four, a rate
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that no other state approaches. In fact, only Alabama, Louisiana,
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and Texas had a shut off rate above two percent
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in even one month of the year. In some low
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shut off states, like Iowa and Massachusetts, the monthly rate
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stays below half a percent all year long. Electricity isn't
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particularly expensive in Oklahoma. As of March, the state's average
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residential price per kilowatt hour was the eighth lowest in
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the nation, but residents' incomes are lower than all but
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five states. Christy Woodworth, chief of staff of Oklahoma Gas
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and Electric, one of the two major electric companies in
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the state, said the utility keeps prices lower than most
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in the country in part by shutting off people who
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don't pay. Our goal is not to disconnect anyone. We
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want everyone to be able to use our product, she said.
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If customers are accruing a larger balance and then can pay,
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that that shifts the balance to our other customers. We're
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balancing that empathy and compassion with ensuring that we keep
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fair rates and low rates for all our customers. The
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state lacks some of the consumer protections that make it
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harder for utilities in other states to shut off power,
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while Oklahoma bans new disconnections from starting when the temperature
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is under thirty two or over one oh one. Some
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states ban disconnections entirely from June through mid October, and
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some from November through March. The state's AARP unsuccessfully advocated
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to reduce the temperature threshold from one hundred one degrees
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to ninety five degrees, the legal limit in some neighboring states,
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which would have significantly reduced the number of days allowing disconnections.
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Tulsa only broke one hundred one degrees on nine days
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in the summer of twenty twenty three, the organization said,
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but topped ninety five on thirty two days. There's a
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whole different mentality in those states. The mentality is to
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keep people connected to not have lots of people suffering
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like this, said Mark Wolf, executive director of the National
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Energy Assistance Directors Association. There's a group of states that
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have succeeded in getting the affordability problem for energy under control,
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at least if you think of this outcome of being
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shut off from power. It's also logistically simpler for Oklahoma's
19:23
utilities to turn the power off. Gone are the days
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when a worker would have to come to a house
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to shut off the power. Now, with automatic meters, it
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can be done with a keystroke on a computer. In Oklahoma,
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ninety three percent of homes have automatic meters, while about
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one in five homes have them in Connecticut and New
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Hampshire and only one in one hundred in Rhode Island. Moreover,
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the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy ranks the
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efficiency of Oklahoma's buildings second worse in the nation. How
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to survive in the dark. In Dyke's case, he adapted
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at first. With no power in her home, she sat
20:04
in her truck to charge portable lights and the tablet
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that keeps her nine year old daughter Nicole occupied with
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her favorite Alice in Wonderland clips on YouTube. Every time
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the truck's battery died, she pushed the nineteen ninety five
20:18
Chevy Silverado half way out the garage so that she
20:21
could hook up her jumper cables to a neighbor's car.
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She couldn't ignite her oven without electricity, so she learned
20:28
on tik took to drag cinder blocks into a circle
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in her yard, put the grill from the oven on
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top and light a fire underneath. The cook chicken and
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once a pan of macaroni and cheese. Dikes forty nine,
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says she hasn't worked since Nicholl was born with autism.
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Many days, Nicholl's elementary school calls Dikes to pick her
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up minutes after the girl was dropped off. That means
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the mother and daughter's only steady income is Nicholl's nine
20:56
hundred ninety four dollars in monthly Social Security disability benefits.
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Dikes owed eight hundred eighty four dollars in overdue bills,
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plus a four hundred forty six dollars deposit to restart
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service to Public Service Company of Oklahoma, which lights almost
21:13
all homes in Tulsa. Newly released data by the US
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Energy Information Administration shows that PSO stands out as one
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of the most aggressive electric companies in the country by
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sheer number of disconnections per year. PSO ranks fifth in
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the country, and OG and E, Oklahoma's other major electric company,
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ranks fourteenth, even though they have fewer customers than many
21:38
utilities since Oklahoma is a low population state. The next
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on the list after PSO, Duke Energy Florida has two
21:46
and a half times as many customers PSO stands alone
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and how frequently it cuts off customers. Of the fifteen
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companies with the most disconnections, PSO cut off the highest
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percentage of US users eleven out of twelve months of
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the year in twenty twenty four, often by a significant margin.
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It disconnected more than three point eight percent every month,
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including more than six percent in October. Next in this
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article is a graphic entitled these fifteen electric companies disconnected
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the most customers in twenty twenty four. These companies had
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the most disconnections by sheer numbers, but the percent shut
22:27
off each month ranged from very low to very high.
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The graphics lists the companies and then for each company
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shows with a color code the percentage of disconnections from
22:42
each month of the year. The companies are Encore Electric,
22:45
Delivery in Texas, Florida Power and Light, Center Point Energy, Texas,
22:51
Virginia Electric and Power, Public Surface Company of Oklahoma, Duke Energy, Florida,
22:57
Alabama Power, Pacific Gas Electric, California, DTE Electric, Michigan, Georgia, Power,
23:05
City of Memphis and Tennessee, Ohio Power, Tampa Electric, Florida,
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Oklahoma Gas and Electric and Energy Louisiana Source US Energy
23:17
Information Ministration, Julie C. Wyle and Eric Low, The Washington Post.
23:23
The company said in response to questions from The Washington
23:26
Post that it is committed to working with customers one
23:29
on one to find solutions, including flexible payment arrangements and
23:34
assistance programs. It also said that about seventy percent of
23:38
its disconnections come from its power Pay program, a pay
23:41
as you go option used by two point five percent
23:43
of customers. Power Pay customers pay what they choose toward
23:47
another few days of electricity, rather than a monthly bill.
23:52
Users pay a fee every time they add money. These
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interruptions are typically very short, often lasting only minutes, and
23:59
service is quickly restored once our power Pay customers choose
24:03
to make a payment. The utility set in an email.
24:06
The state's public utility regulatory body declined to make commissioners
24:10
available for an interview. I'm not sure how I can
24:13
help on this. The OCC does not disconnect electricity, the
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communications director wrote in an email. Among low income families
24:22
in Oklahoma, getting the power turned off at some point
24:25
is a common experience. NATEA. Tobias owed thirty six dollars
24:31
last month when she came home from work to find
24:33
her power was off. She paid the bill, but a
24:36
month later found herself staring at another disconnection warning, knowing
24:41
her power would shut off the next day if she
24:44
didn't have the eighty eight dollars for this month's payment.
24:47
It happened to Lexi Gibbons a few years after she
24:50
retired from her twenty eight year career as a flight
24:52
attendant and started living on her Social Security benefits. She
24:56
set her electricity bill rose to two hundred and forty
24:59
dollars one month for her one bedroom apartment, and when
25:02
she couldn't pay, she mistakenly thought she'd get a grace period. Here.
25:07
If you don't pay, it's immediately shut off by five o'clock,
25:10
she said. She went to stay with her cousin for
25:13
four days until she got money from her tribe to
25:15
pay her bill. Johnny Whitfield, vice president of customer Engagement
25:20
for Oklahoma Gas and Electricity, pointed out that most customers
25:24
who are disconnected are also reconnected, sometimes within hours. It's
25:28
not like we have individuals disconnect and no longer connect
25:31
to the grid. Whitfield said, the disconnect and reconnect the
25:35
same day or the next day. That didn't really disrupt
25:38
life that much. It's just the process of how people
25:41
are managing bills desperate summer days. As March turned into
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April and then May, Dikes tried to scrape together money
25:50
to pay her bill. She saw some one giving away
25:53
a busted lawnmower, and she hauled it away and resold
25:56
it for two hundred dollars. She drove truckloads of trash
25:59
from neighbor's home homes for whatever they'd pay her to
26:01
do the work. She went to the assistant's office where
26:04
she gets food stamps and the housing assistants. That brings
26:07
her rent down to eighty seven dollars a month, and
26:10
she applied for the Federal Energy Assistance Program lie HEAP
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l i h e a P to cover most of
26:17
what she owed on her electric bill. By now, it
26:20
was the last week of May. Nicholl's bus dropped her
26:23
off on the last day of school. When the bus
26:26
driver called out, have a great summer, Dike's heart sank.
26:30
The car battery and countless hours at the public library
26:33
had gotten them through the spring, but summer was different.
26:37
Nichole would be home all day. She needs routine to
26:40
avoid meltdown's, Dike said, not unpredictable days with a mother
26:45
trying to figure out how she could make some money
26:47
and plan a lunch that won't spoil without a refrigerator,
26:51
and the heat was coming. The last night of May,
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the temperature spiked as at neared midnight it was still
26:58
over ninety degrees. Dikes and Nicole woke up June first
27:02
and drove to Tulsa's Helping Hand Ministry, which pays utility
27:05
bills for people in need. Dike sat across from Jinny Drummond,
27:09
a volunteer, and told her that she'd just finished paying
27:13
the entirety of her eight hundred eighty four dollar bill,
27:16
but she still needed four hundred forty six dollars the
27:19
deposit required by p s O to restart service. It's
27:23
been since March, she told Drummond, who looked up from
27:27
her paperwork at that, bless your heart since March. Drummond
27:32
asked her more questions, her address, her birthday, birthday, birthday. Nicoll,
27:37
who can't speak in sentences, repeated happily scuffing her two
27:41
small shoes along the floor. Then Drummond called P. S so,
27:45
and told the operator that Helping Hand would pay Dike's
27:47
four hundred forty six dollar deposit. She will automatically be reconnected.
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The woman on the other end of the phone said.
27:55
Dikes took a deep breath. She leaned her head against
27:58
the wall. That's so awesome, she whispered. As she walked out.
28:03
She sighed again, putting her hand on her heart. I
28:06
can breathe now. Another hot night, she pictured getting home
28:11
to immediately start her first load of laundry in her
28:13
own washing machine, not her bathtub instead. Late that afternoon,
28:18
her power was still out and her three dogs were
28:21
panting in one hundred degree heat. She filled a baby
28:24
pool with free eyes from the quick trip station and
28:27
started worrying that the dogs would die that night. The
28:31
next morning, the dogs were alive. A rainstorm cooled the
28:34
temperature down, and Joanne Pearson, the director of the ministry,
28:38
called PISO about Dyke's account. Pearson's organization takes appointments every
28:43
Monday and Tuesday morning to pay Tulsa residence utility bills,
28:47
with few questions asked. Every time. They spend about five
28:51
thousand dollars donated by church members and foundations Eddie Bayov
28:56
walked in while Pearson waited on the phone. Baoth has
28:59
been volunteering at the front desk every Tuesday for five
29:02
years and at a food pantry at his own church
29:05
on Thursdays. Still, he sometimes questions what they do. In
29:10
my opinion, they're playing the game. They may pay their
29:13
electric bill for eleven months or ten months and then
29:16
think I can take my three hundred dollars and go
29:18
to the liquor store because helping hand is going to
29:21
pay it next month, both said. His grandfather, Solomon Both,
29:25
an immigrant from Lebanon, inspired one of Oklahoma's most famous characters,
29:30
the peddler Ali Jachim in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical
29:33
named for the state. Eddy carried on his legacy as
29:37
a traveling salesman himself, spending thirty years on the road
29:40
selling wedding dresses to stores and came away with a
29:44
deep appreciation for hard work. There's another side to the story,
29:48
besides prices are high and utility companies are mean, Bao said,
29:53
pointing out the window at the scratch free Volkswagen Atlas
29:56
that some one had just pulled up in asking for
29:58
help paying a bill. They don't give those things away,
30:02
but it's not ours to judge, Volunteer Keith Modd said,
30:05
and Baoth replied, Oh, yes, it is. Pearson reached some
30:10
one at p s O. Dike's paperwork had been in
30:12
the wrong pile at Helping Hand, not classified as an
30:16
emergency payment this time. Soon after Pearson's call, p s
30:20
O reactivated Dike's account, and then, finally, after more than
30:25
two months in the dark at Dyke's house, the lights
30:28
went on. This item is accompanied by photos. The first
30:32
is captioned Tammy Dyke's uses her truck to charge devices
30:36
when her power is cut off. Nick Oxford for The
30:39
Washington Post. The next photo is captioned power lines run
30:44
through Tammy Dyke's neighborhood in Tulsa. Nick's Oxford for the
30:48
Washington Post. Next photo is captioned charger cables hanging from
30:53
an outlet in Tammy Dyke's truck on Wednesday. Nick Oxford
30:57
for The Washington Post. The next photo is captioned the
31:02
power cut off not as Tammy Dykes received. Nick's Oxford
31:06
for The Washington Post, and the final photo is captioned
31:10
Tammy Dikes and her daughter Nicole in their Tulsa Home
31:13
on Wednesday. Nick Oxford for The Washington Post. The next
31:18
item from today's front page is entitled Rubio's golf visit
31:22
comes amid scrutiny on Iran by Adam Taylor from Abu Dhabi.
31:28
Secretary of State Marker Rubio will head to the Middle
31:30
East this week for meetings with Arab Gulf allies, a
31:34
high stakes diplomatic assignment for a prominent Iran hawk who
31:38
largely kept a low profile as a Trump administration pursued
31:41
its fragile ceasefire deal with Hahran. Rubio will travel to
31:46
the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain from Tuesday to Thursday.
31:51
All three countries faced heavy targeting from Iranian strikes after
31:56
US and Israeli forces began the Iran War in late February,
32:00
and they suffered some of the most acute economic fallout
32:03
from Tehran's move to block traffic through the Strait of Hormuz,
32:07
a vital shipping lane for export dependent countries in the region.
32:11
In addition to his bilateral meetings during the three stops,
32:15
Rubio will meet in Bahrain with a Golf Cooperation Council
32:19
or GCC, A Regional Body for Arab Gulf nations. The
32:24
Secretary's trip follows Vice President J. D. Vance's meeting with
32:27
Iranian officials in Switzerland on Sunday, beginning a sixty day
32:31
effort to build upon the ceasefire announced in a controversial
32:35
memorandum of understanding signed by President Donald Trump last week.
32:40
The meeting was delayed by several days after Israeli attacks
32:43
on Lebanon prompted Iran to say it would reimpose its
32:46
closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The outcome of US
32:50
talks with Iran would have significant impact across the Middle East.
32:55
As part of the Trump administration's proposed compromise with Tehran,
32:59
the Iranian regime would give up its highly enriched uranium,
33:03
which could be used to make a nuclear weapon, in
33:06
exchange for a number of economic benefits, including the lifting
33:09
of sanctions, access to frozen assets, and a three hundred
33:14
billion dollar fund for reconstruction. That Vance and not Rubio,
33:19
has been the face of the deal has been widely
33:21
noted in Washington. I think Marco just sees a bad
33:26
deal when he knows one, said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat
33:29
from Delaware, speaking at a round table with journalists hosted
33:33
by Bloomberg News last week, Coons asserted that Rubio, his
33:37
former colleague on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was not
33:41
discussing the subject publicly to avoid being associated with the
33:45
deal that the Senator called a near total capitulation to Tehran.
33:50
The State Department dismissed the sentiment as ill informed speculation.
33:54
Secretary Rubio and the entire administration is one hundred percent
33:58
in lockstep behind President Trump, said Tommy Piggott, a spokesperson.
34:03
Any public defense of the negotiations with Iran from Rubio
34:07
could carry weight, as he was a fierce critic of
34:10
the twenty fifteen nuclear agreement with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive
34:14
Plan of Action that was secured by the Obama administration.
34:19
In one speech before that agreement was struck, Rubio said
34:22
that a bad deal with Iran almost guarantees war, because
34:26
Israel is not going to abide by any deal that
34:29
they believe puts them and their existence in danger. I
34:34
think many will be waiting with bated breath to see
34:36
how one of the most internationalist and hawkish members of
34:39
the administration will be making sense of this document, said
34:43
Benham Ben Talebleau, an expert at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies,
34:48
a DC think tank that has argued for more aggressive
34:51
action against Tehran. Brett Bruin, who served on the White
34:55
House National Security Council during the Obama administration, said Vance's
34:59
position as the public face of the deal was notable,
35:02
and maybe because the Vice President so badly wanted to
35:06
push peace, having been so ideologically at odds with the war.
35:10
But it's also because Rubio knows a dumb diplomatic deal
35:14
from a distance, and this one with Iran has disastrous
35:18
emblazoned all over. Brune added. Officials close to both Rubio
35:22
and Vance have downplayed the significance of Vance's role as
35:26
the public face of the agreement, arguing that much of
35:29
it was timing. The Vice President, these people noted, had
35:33
a book coming out and was already doing a press tour,
35:36
whereas Rubio was traveling with Trump to the Group of
35:39
Seven meetings in France, where naturally his boss took center stage.
35:44
From what I can tell, he's supportive of the deal,
35:46
said one person familiar with Rubio's thinking, who spoke on
35:50
the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
35:52
speak to the media. This person added that the Secretary,
35:56
who also serves as White House National Security Adviser, was
35:59
also clear eyed about the fact that we are talking
36:02
about the Iranians here. Vance's ownership of the issue has
36:07
political implications, given that he and Rubio are widely expected
36:11
to become political rivals in the race to succeed Trump
36:14
as president. John Hoffmann, a policy analyst at the libertarian
36:19
Cato Institute think tank, said Rubio and fans represented the
36:23
divide between the traditional neo conservative worldview and the growing
36:27
constituency weary of foreign entanglements, particularly in the Middle East.
36:32
All three nations that Rubio is visiting were impacted by
36:36
Iranian military retaliation after it was attacked. Bahrain, the smallest
36:41
country in the region, saw major damage near the U
36:43
S Navy's fifth Fleet based in Manama, while the UAE
36:47
was reported to have seen more attempted strikes than the
36:50
five other Golf Cooperation Council nations combined. Experts said that
36:56
while all three appeared to welcome the ceasefire across Arab
36:59
Gulf nations, there were major concerns about the memorandum of
37:03
understandings lack of provisions addressing non nuclear threats like Iran's
37:07
ballistic missiles and the prospect of large sums of money
37:11
going to Tehran with few strings attached. Rubio will need
37:15
to reassure them that this is not some harbinger of
37:18
a US decision to leave the region or to abandon
37:21
their security, said William V. Roebuck, executive vice president of
37:25
the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and a former
37:28
US Ambassador to Bahrain. In fact, it's an opportunity to
37:32
enhance it. This item is accompanied by a photo captioned
37:37
Secretary of State Markur Rubio at last week's Group of
37:40
Seventh summit in France and a money maker Getty Images.
37:45
The next item from today's front page is entitled Alan
37:48
Greenspan nineteen twenty six through twenty twenty six Banking Titan
37:53
shaped modern US economy. Longtime fed boss led country to prosperity,
37:59
but also made decison that contributed to two thousand and
38:01
eight financial crisis by Neil Irwin Alan greenspand who, as
38:07
the world's most powerful central banker, maneuvered the United States
38:11
through two decades of stunning prosperity, but whose decisions contributed
38:15
to the near collapse of the economy shortly after he
38:18
left office. Died June twenty second, at age one hundred.
38:23
The cause was complications from Parkinson's disease. His wife, Andrew Mitchell,
38:27
said in a statement he was a giant of a
38:30
man who helped shape the U. S economy for decades
38:33
under presidents of both parties, but was always honest in
38:37
acknowledging his mistakes, said Mitchell, chief Washington correspondent and chief
38:41
Foreign Affairs correspondent for NBC News. To me, he was
38:46
my husband who shaped my life from our very first
38:49
date in nineteen eighty four. A dour intellectual with eclectic
38:54
interest who attended the Juilliard Music School, played the clarinet
38:57
in a jazz band, and was an ac light of
39:00
the philosopher Ein Rand as a young man, mister Greenspan
39:03
initially made his name as an economic forecaster and adviser
39:07
to Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
39:12
During a more than eighteen year run as Chair of
39:15
the Federal Reserve beginning in nineteen eighty seven, mister Greenspan
39:19
achieved greater prominence than any central banker before him. He
39:23
attained an almost mythical reputation for his ability to guide
39:27
US economic policy with a whisper in the President's year,
39:30
to steer the multi trillion dollar economy by nudging interest
39:34
rates up or down, and to soothe frazzled global financial
39:37
markets with a few arcane words in his speech. Mister
39:41
Greenspan was a Washington fixture, named of five terms as
39:45
FED chair by four different presidents. He exercised greater power
39:50
and for longer than arguably any public official since FBI
39:54
Director j Edgar Hoover. The Federal Reserved notes with deep
39:58
sadness the passing of Vllan grisen Span, the Central Bank
40:01
said in a statement, Chairman Greenspan's legacy endures at the
40:05
Federal Reserve and those he mentored directly. In the economists
40:09
and public servants he inspired, and in the frameworks and
40:12
practices he helped shape, he was the maestro. As Washington
40:17
Post journalist Bob Woodward titled his best selling book about
40:20
mister Greenspan in two thousand. He was a founding member
40:24
of the Committee to Save the World. As a nineteen
40:26
ninety nine Time magazine cover called the Alliance of mister Greenspan.
40:30
Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Reuben Deputy Lawrence H. Summers.
40:36
Mister Greenspan's nineteen ninety six musing in his speech over
40:39
how hard it is to know when a rational exuberance
40:42
has unduly escalated asset values triggered both a sell off
40:46
on global stock markets and a new term of art
40:49
for financial bubbles. The financial world was so obsessed with
40:54
his every move that the cable network CNBC would tape
40:57
him getting into his car in the morning a FED
41:00
policy meetings, hoping to judge by the thickness of his
41:03
briefcase whether the Central Bank would move interest rates. An
41:07
entire cottage industry existed of analysts who parsed his rare
41:11
and often inscrutable public comments. If I seem unduly clear
41:16
to you, you must have misunderstood what I said. Mister
41:19
Greenspan once said he was a curious mix, a cerebral
41:23
economist in Washington celebrity. He was a man who spent
41:27
his mornings reading economic reports as he soaked in the bathtub,
41:30
his days obsessing over monetary policy transmission mechanisms, and his
41:35
evenings on the Georgetown cocktail circuit, A man once nicknamed
41:40
the Undertaker for his serious manner, married one glamorous newscaster,
41:45
Mitchell of NBC, having earlier dated another, Barbara Walters. Mister
41:50
Greenspan's peculiar brand of celebrity was built on a very
41:54
real achievement. Economists call it the Great Moderation, and had
41:58
coincided almost precisely with mister Greenspan's tenure as a nation's
42:03
economist in chief, a period in which growth was steady,
42:07
inflation low, and recessions rare and mild. The unemployment rate
42:12
averaged five point five percent during his nearly nineteen years
42:15
on the job, compared with six point four percent in
42:18
the preceding two decades. A tarnished legacy, mister Greenspan bent
42:24
the sprawling federal reserve system to his will, using a
42:28
subtle political touch and a vast reserve of knowledge about
42:31
the inner workings of the U S economy acquired while
42:34
an economic consultant to businesses. His primary job was to
42:38
set monetary policy, adjusting interest rate targets to manipulate the
42:43
money supply, aiming for low unemployment and low inflation. Mister
42:48
Greenspan guided the economy through rocky economic shoals, including the
42:53
nineteen eighty seven stock market crash, which occurred when he
42:56
had been in office for two months, the nineteen ninety
42:59
one recession, financial crises in emerging markets in nineteen ninety eight,
43:03
and the dot com bust, and the September eleven, two
43:07
thousand one terrorist attacks. He titled his two thousand seven
43:11
autobiography the Age of Turbulence, though in hindsight it appears
43:16
a period of enviable economic calm. When mister Greenspan left
43:20
government service in early two thousand and six, he was
43:23
widely viewed as one of the greatest economic statesmen of
43:26
all time. But within a few years the Great Moderation
43:30
came to look like a mirage, and the Maestro's legacy
43:34
was severely tarnished. Much of the economic expansion under mister
43:38
Greenspan's watch was built on bubbles, first the nineteen ninety
43:42
stock market boom and then an unprecedented run up in
43:46
house prices in the two thousands, Americans financed their consumption
43:50
with ever rising levels of debt. The ratio of household
43:54
debt to the size of the economy as a whole
43:57
soared to eighty two percent from fifty three percent during
44:01
his tenure. The Greenspan Fed fueled these trends with ultra
44:05
low interest rate policies, particularly from two thousand three to
44:09
two thousand five, and by taking a hands off approach
44:13
to regulating a financial system that grew immeasurably in size
44:16
and complexity during his tenure. The mindset was that there
44:21
should be no regulation. Scott Alvarez, a long time lawyer
44:25
at the FED and mister Greenspan's general counsel starting in
44:28
two thousand four, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission the
44:32
market should take care of policing unless there already is
44:36
an identified problem. We were in the reactive mode because
44:40
that's what the mindset was of the nineties and early
44:43
two thousands. Around two thousand, he specifically rebuffed a request
44:48
by a fellow FED governor, Edward Gramlich, for the FED
44:51
to crack down on lending to people who might have
44:54
little ability to repay their mortgages. Gramlich told The Wall
44:57
Street Journal in two thousand seven those subprime loans would
45:01
serve as the initial trigger to the crisis that enveloped
45:04
the world. In two thousand eight, mister Greenspan repeatedly advised
45:09
Congress against heightening regulation of derivatives, complex financial contracts that
45:15
he argued made the financial system as a whole more
45:18
stable by distributing risk to those who can afford to
45:21
take it on. In fact, the unraveling of those markets
45:25
was a key factor in the two thousand seven through
45:27
two thousand nine financial crisis. And while mister Greenspan was
45:32
renowned for his understanding of the workings of the U
45:34
s economy, and by two thousand five had expressed some
45:38
public worry about home prices having risen too high, he
45:42
did not identify the scale of the housing bubble that
45:44
was a major underlying cause of the crisis, or used
45:48
regulatory tools or his bully pulpit to try to combat it.
45:53
There do appear to be a a minimum signs of
45:56
froth in some local markets, he said in two thousand five,
45:59
near the peak of the biggest national home price bubble
46:02
in US history, fostering complacency. More broadly, mister Greenspan's greatest
46:09
apparent achievement preventing the series of crises and near crises
46:13
in the financial world from damaging the broader US economy,
46:17
may have been a factor in this deep downturn. His
46:20
critics call it the Greenspan put using a financial term
46:24
for an option contract that protects investors against losses. His
46:29
very actions that maintained financial stability, helping prevent extreme losses
46:34
when conditions turned unfavorable, made global investors complaisant about risk
46:40
that helped fuel the bad lending and excessive use of
46:43
borrowed money that caused a massive collapse soon after mister
46:47
Greenspan left office. He was a person who came up
46:51
with the irrational exuberance critique of excessive speculation prior to
46:55
two thousand, but he didn't follow up on it, said
46:58
Robert J. Schiller, a Yell economist who warned of stock
47:02
and housing bubbles during the nineteen nineties and two thousand.
47:06
He has an iron rand pro market philosophy, and so
47:09
it wasn't in his personality to aggressively pursue those ideas
47:13
and to lean against bubbles. The popping of the housing
47:17
and credit bubble in two thousand and seven led to
47:20
a deep global recession and near collapse of the financial
47:23
system in two thousand and eight, and a far worse
47:26
outcome was avoided only by an expensive series of government bailouts.
47:31
I made a mistake in presuming that the self interest
47:34
of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they
47:38
were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their
47:41
equity in the firms. Mister Greenspand told a Congressional committee
47:45
in October two thousand and eight, amid the darkest days
47:48
of the crisis, something which looked to be a very
47:51
solid edifice and indeed a critical pillar to market competition
47:54
and free markets did break down. And I think that,
47:59
as I said, I still do not fully understand why
48:03
it happened. A libertarian's pragmatism, mister Greenspand was a staunched libertarian,
48:10
deeply skeptical of government intervention in the economy. In four
48:14
decades on the national stage, though, he was a pragmatist
48:17
who used the tools of government in ways that sometimes
48:20
were at odds with his philosophy. He served on a
48:24
key commission in the Nixon administration that led to ending
48:27
the military draft, which Greenspand viewed as an affront to
48:30
human freedom, but he also helped Ford bail out a
48:34
nearly bankrupt New York City in the mid nineteen seventies.
48:38
In nineteen eighty three, he chaired a commission on the
48:41
Finances of Social security. The accord raised taxes and raised
48:45
a retirement age over time, and stabilize the finances of
48:49
the program for a generation. As FED chair, he offered
48:53
crucial public support both to Bill Clinton's deficit reduction plan
48:57
in nineteen ninety three and at George W. Bush, which
49:00
proposed tax cuts in two thousand and one. The former
49:04
attracted accusations from Republicans that he was trying to ingratiate
49:08
himself with a new Democratic president who would later reappoint him.
49:12
The latter drew sharp attacks from Democrats, who accused mister
49:15
Greenspan of raw partisanship. One of the biggest political hacks
49:20
we have here in Washington was how Senate Democratic Leader
49:23
Harry M. Reid of Nevada described him in two thousand
49:26
and five. His testimony and Congressional hearings in the latter
49:30
years of his FED chairmanship resembled nothing so much as
49:33
a series of efforts by members of Congress to win
49:36
mister Greenspan's endorsement, viewed as a sene guannon of economic
49:40
seriousness for their preferred policies and pet causes. Mister Greenspan's
49:46
impact on US economic policy, in other words, went far
49:50
beyond that of his official portfolio as a central banker,
49:54
Alan greenspan has probably been a key player in more
49:58
Republican presidential campaigns and Republican party platforms and Republican administrations
50:03
than any other economist in the country. Martin Anderson, a
50:07
senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who recruited mister Green's
50:11
band to work on the nineteen sixty eight Nixon presidential campaign,
50:14
told The Washington Post in two thousand six, he's a
50:18
wonderful politician. The number cruncher. Alan Greenspand was born in
50:23
New York on March sixth, nineteen twenty six, the only
50:27
child of parents who would soon divorce. His father, Herbert,
50:30
was a stockbroker. Raised by his mother, the former Rose Goldsmith,
50:35
in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood, Alan channeled an uncanny way
50:39
with numbers as a child into analyzing baseball statistics with
50:43
an intensity that would be mirrored in his approach to
50:45
economic analysis. Decades later. I developed my own technique of
50:50
keeping box scores, mister Greenspand wrote in the Age of Turbulence.
50:54
I always used green paper and recorded each game pitched
50:58
by pitch using an elaborate code. I made up my mind,
51:02
which had been essentially empty to that point, filled with
51:05
baseball statistics. His other great passion was jazz. He played
51:10
the clarinet and was nearly as obsessed with big band
51:13
leader Glenn Miller as he was with baseball. After high school,
51:17
he studied at the Juilliard School, and when a spot
51:20
on his lung kept him out of the army during
51:22
World War II, he joined a fourteen man jazz band
51:25
that played around the country. During breaks when most of
51:29
the musicians would smoke tobacco or marijuana, mister Green's band
51:33
read about finance and economics. He took to doing his
51:36
bandmate's income taxes. He enrolled at New York University and
51:40
took a part time job at the investment bank Brown
51:43
Brothers Harriman, where he figured out how to take raw
51:46
weekly information on department store sales and adjust the data
51:50
to filter out the normal seasonal fluctuations. That would be
51:53
an easy task for anyone with a modern computer spreadsheet program,
51:57
but at the time it required hours upon hours of
52:01
laborious calculations by hand. As with his baseball statistics, mister
52:07
Green's band had found his great obsession analyzing data to
52:11
discern trends. He graduated summa cum laude in nineteen forty
52:15
eight from n y U, where he also received a
52:18
master's degree in economics in nineteen fifty. While in graduate school,
52:22
he took a job at the Conference Board, which then
52:25
as now did economic research for big companies. I discovered
52:30
that the Conference Board had amassed a treasure trove of
52:32
data on every major industry in America, dating back half
52:36
a century and more. He wrote in two thousand seven,
52:40
it became my passion to master all the knowledge on
52:43
those shelves. I read about robber barons. I spent hours
52:47
over the census of population in eighteen ninety. I studied
52:51
railroad freight car loadings of that era, trends in short
52:54
staple for the decades after the Civil War. Instead of
52:58
reading Gone with the Wind, I was happy to immerse
53:01
myself in copper or deposits in Chile. Mister Greenspan enrolled
53:06
in Columbia University's economics pH d program in nineteen fifty,
53:10
and though he would never finish it, he did cultivate
53:13
a relationship with economist Arthur F. Burns, a mentor who
53:17
would go on to chair the Federal Reserve in the
53:19
nineteen seventies. New York University awarded mister Greenspan a doctorate
53:23
in economics in nineteen seventy seven for previously published research,
53:28
after he had already become one of the country's pre
53:30
eminent business economists and chief economic adviser to Ford. Mister
53:35
Greenspand married art historian Joan Mitchell in nineteen fifty two,
53:39
but the marriage was annulled ten months later. He wrote
53:42
in his memoir, I had no real understanding of the
53:44
commitment required for marriage in Einrand's circle. It was Sir Mitchell, however,
53:51
that mister Greenspand met one of his deepest, most enduring
53:54
intellectual influence. Einrand, the libertarian author of The Fountainhead and
53:59
Atlas Shaw, maintained a cadre of mostly young men who
54:03
came over for evening bull sessions long arguments about philosophy
54:07
at which mister Greenspan was a regular through the nineteen
54:09
fifties and early sixties. When I met Einrand, I was
54:14
a free enterpriser in the Adam Smith sense, Impressed with
54:17
the theoretical structure and efficiency of markets. Mister Greenspan told
54:22
The New York Times in nineteen seventy four, what she did,
54:25
through long discussions and lots of arguments into the night,
54:29
was to make me think why capitalism is not only
54:31
efficient and practical, but also moral. Taxes in her philosophy
54:37
were immoral, theft the social safety net, and affront to
54:40
human liberty. He contributed to The Objectivist, a monthly journal
54:45
published by rand acolytes, and in a nineteen sixty six
54:49
issue wrote that the welfare state was nothing more than
54:52
a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the
54:55
productive members of a society. While mister Greenspan distanced himse
55:00
over the years from many of the extreme implications of
55:03
Rand's views, they remained exceptionally close until her death in
55:06
nineteen eighty two. She appeared at his side when he
55:10
was sworn in as for its economic advisor. While mister
55:13
Greenspan debated with Rand and her other young proteges at night,
55:17
who was building a business consulting firm by day. In
55:21
nineteen fifty three, he partnered with investment adviser William W.
55:25
Townsend to start an economic research firm Townsend Greenspan, in
55:29
which mister Greenspan would use the knowledge of the inner
55:32
workings of the US economy had been accumulating through his
55:35
work at the Conference Board to consult for some of
55:37
the biggest American businesses. When US deal Alcola, Mobile Oil,
55:43
or dozens of other companies wanted to know when the
55:46
economy was poised to speed up or slow down, or
55:49
what the demand for steel or aluminum or anything else
55:52
would trend. Towns On Greenspan did the analysis. The experience
55:57
left mister Greenspan with a sterling rolodex full of contacts
56:01
across corporate America. Mister Greenspan entered politics in nineteen sixty seven,
56:07
recruited to help Nixon's nineteen sixty eight presidential campaign. He
56:11
briefed Nixon regularly on economics during the campaign, but served
56:16
the administration as an outside adviser rather than within the
56:19
White House. By the time he was ready to join
56:22
the Nixon administration, the president had resigned in disgrace, and
56:26
mister Greenspan would serve Ford instead. His adjustment to full
56:31
time government work was uneasy at times. In his memoir,
56:35
he recalled blanching at one of his first major policy meetings.
56:39
Speech writers unveiled a campaign called Whip Inflation Now, aiming
56:43
to use a mere publicity effort to keep prices unchanged
56:47
when powerful economic forces were driving them upward. The speech
56:51
writers had ordered up millions of Whip Inflation Now buttons,
56:55
samples of which they handed out to us in the room.
56:57
Mister Greenspan wrote, I was only economists present, and I
57:01
said to myself, this is unbelievable stupidity. What am I
57:06
doing here? Early Misgivings' side, mister Greenspan proved to be
57:11
an able public servant, winning a lifelong friend in Ford,
57:15
who was House Minority leader before succeeding Nixon, and the
57:19
trust of such Nixon and Ford White House officials as
57:22
Dick Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld. As President, Reagan gave
57:27
mister Greenspand the tax of salvaging the finances of the
57:30
nation's public pension program, which was on the verge of
57:33
running out of money. As Chair of the National Commission
57:37
on Social Security, mister Greenspand guided a desperate fifteen member
57:41
group stocked with desperate figures including f L C I
57:45
O Head Lane Kirkland, Senator Robert J. Dole, Republican from
57:49
Kansas and Senator Daniel Patrick Monaghan, Democrat from New York,
57:53
toward a common understanding of how best to put the
57:56
finances of Social Security on a more sustainable path. Their agreement,
58:01
which Congress enacted in nineteen eighty three, raised taxes on
58:05
some affluent individuals and increased the retirement age gradually over
58:09
the decades to follow, among many other provisions that put
58:12
the finances of the program on a solid footing for
58:15
a generation. While the Greenspand Commission, as it was widely known,
58:21
has been hailed as a triumph of policy making by
58:23
bipartisan commission, the reality may have been somewhat different. Robert M. Ball,
58:29
a Commission member and former Commissioner of Social Security, wrote
58:33
later that the committee was in fact deadlocked. A compromise
58:38
was achieved when James A. Baker, the third Reagan's chief
58:41
of staff, and House Speaker Thomas J. Tipp O'Neill, junior
58:44
Democrat from Massachusetts hammered out an agreement between themselves, which
58:49
the Commission then accepted. Due to the constraints of time,
58:52
we would be unable to complete this item. This concludes
58:55
the reading of the Washington Post for Today Tuesday, June
58:59
twenty third, twenty six. Your reader has been Cindy Fraser.
59:03
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions concerning this program,
59:06
please feel free to call us at eight five nine
59:09
four two two six three nine zero. Thank you for listening,
59:12
and now please stay tuned for continued programming on Radio
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