WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Wednesday promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort to help the people of Haiti overcome a “cruel and incomprehensible” tragedy, the ruinous earthquake that ravaged the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
The president said the relief effort is gearing up even as the U.S. government is working to account for Americans who were on the island nation when the disaster struck late Tuesday afternoon.
Obama said he named U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Rajiv Shah to coordinate American efforts, and the president called upon all nations to join in helping stricken Haitians.
Obama spoke Wednesday in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room. Later, spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters the president had no plans to go to Haiti.
“We’ve mobilized resources to help rescue efforts. Military overflights have assessed the damage, and by early afternoon our civilian disaster assistance team are beginning to arrive,” the president said. Obama adjusted his Wednesday schedule, canceling a jobs event in Maryland to better monitor the situation in Haiti.
Obama encouraged Americans who want to help to go to http://www.whitehouse.gov to find options for contributing to the aid effort.
The president received updates on the situation in Haiti and the U.S. response Wednesday morning from his national security adviser and the Department of Homeland Security.
It would take some days for the ship, in port in Baltimore, to be serviced, supplied and arrive at Haiti, one official said.
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake caused thousands of buildings to collapse in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, trapping untold numbers

All but one American employed by the embassy have been accounted for, State Department officials said.

Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said there are about a dozen wounded people — embassy staff, American citizens and family members of local embassy personnel — being treated at the embassy or the ambassador’s residence for non life-threatening injuries like broken bones. The first Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) from USAID is expected to arrive in Haiti from San Jose, Costa Rica around 1:30 p.m. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that U.S. military personnel worked throughout the night in response to the disaster in Haiti.

“An awful lot of people are working in that direction right now.”

Former President Bill Clinton, who is U.N. special envoy for Haiti, said in a statement: “My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti.

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WASHINGTON – Top bank executives can expect a grilling when they appear before a congressionally appointed panel investigating the causes of the 2008 financial collapse.
Four of Wall Street’s most powerful leaders — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chairman-CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO James Dimon, Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack and Bank of American Corp. CEO-President Brian Moynihan — were to give sworn testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was holding its first session Wednesday.
The banking executives summoned to testify spent the days leading up to the hearings in meetings with corporate lawyers and government relations specialists.
Mack’s testimony also was to highlight regulatory failures and would include calls to improve regulators’ tools to oversee financial activity, said another person familiar with Mack’s plans.
The hearings come at a sensitive time for the banking industry. Congress is writing a full-scale overhaul of financial regulations, bankers are about to announce huge bonuses for their executives and the Obama administration is considering extracting a fee from banks to cover about $120 billion in taxpayer losses from a government Wall Street bailout fund.
The bankers’ demeanor before the commission, the tone of the commission’s questions and the continuing inquiry could affect public perceptions and influence how lawmakers and the White House deal with the industry.
A coalition of liberal activist groups is urging the commission to work aggressively and look beyond the bankers to the actions of former government regulators. In newspaper ads set to appear in Washington publications Wednesday, the group, Accountable America, singles out former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox for not detecting Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
The commission is chaired by former California Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democrat. In an interview last week, Thomas expressed impatience with bankers who worry that some additional government scrutiny and demands for transparency will hobble the industry.
It was named after Ferdinand Pecora, the committee’s chief lawyer.
Congress instructed the new commission to explore 22 issues, ranging from the effect of monetary policy on terms of credit to bank compensation structures.

___

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission: http://www.fcic.gov

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to announce a new fee Thursday on the country’s biggest financial firms to recover up to $120 billion in taxpayers’ money used to prop up corporations during the economic crisis, a senior administration official said.
In proposing a multiyear levy on big banks, Obama is targeting an industry whose political deafness has vexed his administration. The $120 billion recovery goal is the most that administration officials expect to lose from the government’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program that bailed out banks, automakers and other financial firms.
Congress would have to approve any fee plan.
The proposed levy could put Obama on the popular side of public opinion that is decidedly against Wall Street and angry over shortfalls in a $700 billion bank bailout fund.
Obama’s announcement would come one day after the nation’s top bankers testify before the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The hearings come at an ultra-sensitive time for the banking industry. In addition to Obama’s fee proposal, Congress is writing a full-scale overhaul of financial regulations.
The administration official said Obama’s plan has been in the works since August and would seek modifications to the law that sent billions of dollars in bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to a flailing Wall Street that was approaching collapse.
The 2008 law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program requires the president to seek a way to recoup unrecovered TARP money from financial institutions, but five years after the law was enacted. The administration’s plan raises a series of questions.
Administration officials already have ruled out a fee on financial transactions. An industry official said consideration of a levy now would be premature.
“Current law doesn’t trigger this tax proposal for another four years,” said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group for some of the largest financial firms.

Banks have been repaying their infusions, in part to get out from under compensation limits imposed on the bailout recipients. Banks have also paid dividends from the government help.

With public anger over the bailout still strong, Obama has embraced populist rhetoric in an effort to shame bank executives into paying back the government more quickly and their executives less lavishly.

Funds collected from such a levy would go to pay down the $1.4 trillion deficit amid the Obama-backed stimulus package and aid to Detroit’s automakers.

Washington spent about $245 billion to help banks in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, much less than President George W. Bush’s Treasury Department secured to keep financial firms afloat.

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WASHINGTON – The Obama administration plans to ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, on top of a record request for $708 billion for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned.
The administration’s Quadrennial Defense Review, the main articulation of U.S. military doctrine, is due to Congress on Feb. 1. Top military commanders were briefed on the document at the Pentagon on Monday and Tuesday. The pilotless drones used for surveillance and attack missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a priority, with a goal of speeding up the purchase of new Reaper drones and and expansion of Predator and Reaper drone flights through 2013.
Obama ordered an extra 30,000 troops for that war as part of an overhaul of the war strategy late last year.
U.S. officials outlined the coming requests on condition of anonymity because the budget request will not be sent to Congress until later this month.

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WASHINGTON – Democratic officials tell The Associated Press that Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd won’t seek re-election this fall.
Dodd is facing troubling poll numbers and his popularity has dropped since his 2008 failed run for president.

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