THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
NEWS 5A
GERMANY
Merkel faces opponent in debate
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel faced her challenger in a subdued TV debate two weeks before German elections, arguing Sunday that the country needs a new center-right government to boost Europe's biggest economy as it emerges from recession.
Center-left challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is opposing Merkel in the Sept. 27 vote and trailing badly in polls, portrayed himself as a champion of "social balance" and said a shift to the right would mean a growing gap between rich and poor.
Polls by two television channels found neither candidate scoring a decisive victory in a debate that, like much of the campaign, was short on passion and personal attacks.
RTL put Merkel ahead by a 37-35 percent margin; ARD gave Steinmeier a narrow 43-42 percent win.
Merkel, a conservative, was
looking to strengthen her chances of ending an awkward "grand coalition" with Steinmeier's Social Democrats. In a second term, she aims to form a new center-right government with a pro-business opposition party, the Free Democrats.
"This 'grand coalition' has worked well under my leadership," Merkel said, pointing to a decline in unemployment since she took office in 2005.
"But I think that we pursue this course with more determination ... and so I am campaigning for a new government," she said. "The 'grand coalition' did great work and now — in the most serious crisis since the '30s — we really need a determined policy for more work."
Steinmeier, Merkel's foreign minister and vice chancellor, also praised the coalition's work, but insisted it "fell short of its possibilities" because Merkel's Christian Democratic Union failed to support center-left proposals such as
the introduction of a minimum wage.
He pushed that call, arguing that a "downward wage spiral" in Germany must be stopped. Merkel said a one-size-fits-all minimum wage would mean jobs lost, and argued for each industry to set its own minimum.
Merkel is pledging tax relief, though no date has been set. She argued that would motivate people and stimulate growth to pull Germany out of its worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
The key question is "how do we get out of this valley as fast as possible?" Merkel said. "For me, a three-word sentence is the credo: growth creates jobs."
Steinmeier was quick to counter, however, that with the government racking up big debts to deal with the crisis, "that isn't possible."
A center-right government "will mean that those who helped cause the crisis are not made responsible for its costs; (it) will mean that the
gap between poor and rich grows;
(it) will mean that there is a return to nuclear power," he said.
Both candidates defended the decision to offer billions in credit to help a Canadian-Russian consortium buy a majority in automaker Opel from General Motors Co.
"A company that builds great cars has been given a chance," said Merkel. Steinmeier defended the move as saving jobs.
One issue where they sparred was Germany's plan to shut down all 17 nuclear plants by 2021. Steinmeier is defending that plan, worked out by his party's previous government with the Greens. The "grand coalition" has stuck with it, but Merkel wants to extend the life of some reactors until more sources of renewable energy can be developed.
"The nuclear exit must stay," Steinmeier said. But Merkel said nuclear power should still be used as a "bridging technology" until Germany can shift to renewables.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, arrives for a live television debate against challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin on Sunday. The candidates discussed issues such as tax relief and the creation of a minimum wage.
White House shifts focus in debate on health care
HEALTH CARE
Emphasis goes from public plan to regulation
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal."
With that statement, Obama began the difficult task of trying to lubricate negotiations on Capitol Hill, to push opposing lawmakers away from positions
— both left and right — that were threatening stalemate. That's what happened when Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, tried to push through an overhaul in the
1990s.
WASHINGTON — The White House and members of Congress on Sunday played down an immediate role for a government health insurance option and turned attention to regulating insurers, with the goal of lowering costs and ensuring coverage regardless of medical condition.
Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, drove home that point again on Sunday, focusing on the public option idea to help provide
coverage to the estimated 45 million uninsured Americans.
Gibbs
The president 'prefers the public option. However, he said what's most important is choice and competition," said Gibbs, adding that "it is not all of health care."
Sen. Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican who could be her party's only senator who votes with the Democrats on health care, thinks choice and competition can be ensured without a government plan.
"It's not on the table. And it won't be," she said. Snowe said it is "universally opposed" by all GOP senators and "therefore, there's no way to pass a plan that includes the public option. So I think he's recognizing that."
Snowe said a better bet for now "as the means for injecting competition" are nonprofit insurance cooperatives, designed to compete with private industry and give
consumers more choices.
Such co-ops are in place in parts of the country, but their success has been spotty. And Obama will have to be convinced that such a plan can succeed.
"I have no interest in having a bill get passed that fails," Obama told CBS"60 Minutes." He said he intends to be president "for a while and once this bill passes, I own it."
After a summer taking heat on health care, President Barack Obama has gone back on offense on his top domestic issue, most notably with a prime-time speech to Congress last week. He told the nation that the "time for bickering is over" and a plan for the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry was "only a means to that end and we should remain open to other
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