The Republican Party is in search of a message to attract voters who are angry with just about everything — healthcare, the U.S. deficit, Wall Street bonuses, increased unemployment and home foreclosures to mention a few.

“There’s a lot of anger out there and there’s a lot of frustration,” said Republican Senator John McCain, who was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama for president last year.

Thousands of people are turning up at townhall meetings and “tea party” protests against government policies, he noted.

“So there’s something going on out there. And I’d love to sit here and tell you that we Republicans are attracting all of those unhappy people but we’re not, we’re not,” McCain said at a Reuters Washington Summit.

“They’re out there kind of in the middle and they haven’t found a home. And in fact they haven’t even channeled their anger yet,” he said.

Many have swung into the Independent category — “They’re leaving the Democrats but they’re not coming home to Republicans” — because of the deficit increases during the previous 8 years of a Republican (George W. Bush) White House, McCain said.

“So they are not finding a message from the Republican Party that resonates with them, and so I think we’re in one of the most interesting times politically in Amercia,” he said.

One possible answer would be a return to a formula that worked when Republicans took control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years — “Something like the Contract with America that we gave them in 1994, portray a far more positive agenda for America,” McCain said.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senator McCain at Reuters Washington Summit)

If cars can be fuel-efficient, why can’t education be time-efficient?

That’s the premise that Republican U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander is promoting.

Alexander served as U.S. education secretary in the administration of the first President George Bush and also as president of the University of Tennessee.

Speaking at the Reuters Washington Summit, Alexander suggested that more colleges take a look at allowing at least some students to obtain an undergraduate degree in three years rather than the normal four. “It’s one way to attract students,” he said.

How does he expect colleges to respond? “Skeptically,” Alexander said. “Colleges don’t change easily.”

He said that the idea has been tried and worked on a limited basis — and that the marketplace will likely determine how widespread a three-year degree becomes.

The United States has the best universities in the world, and they have been key to developing competitive advantages that help Americans produce 25 percent of all the world’s wealth, he said.

But Alexander said tuition has soared, leaving students with unprecedented debt.

Writing in the Oct. 17 issue of Newsweek magazine, Alexander noted that Hartwick College, a small liberal arts school in upstate New York, offers three-year degrees to “well prepared-students” — providing them the opportunity to save $43,000, the amount of one-year’s tuition and fees.

He said a number of other “innovative colleges” are making the offer, too.

“The three-year degree could become the higher-education equivalent of the fuel-efficient car,” wrote Alexander. “And that’s both an opportunity and a warning for the best higher-education system in the world.”

For more Reuters Washington Summit news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senator Lamar Alexander at Reuters Washington Summit)

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke says one thing he doesn’t want to see is a Shanghai Silicon Valley develop from China’s investment in clean energy.

He warned that if the United States doesn’t move forward on clean energy, it risks falling behind China where the government is spending almost $100 billion a year to support renewable energy and clean energy efficiency.

And China is not doing it just to address climate change issues, but because it sees an economic opportunity. “They’re really focusing investing in the clean energy field to serve the needs of the world,” Locke said at the Reuters Washington Summit.

“And so that’s why it’s very important that we pass clean energy legislation because there’s so many investors, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists who are sitting on the sidelines waiting for that certainty,” he said. “They just want to know what the rules of the game are, what the tax incentives are, what the tax rules and regulations are before they commit.”

The longer the U.S. government takes to pass comprehensive energy legislation, “the farther ahead the Chinese will be and we certainly do not want 10 years from now Shanghai and other parts of China to be the Silicon Valley of the clean energy field,” Locke said.

He agreed with President Barack Obama’s equation. “The president has said that the country that leads in the clean energy sector will lead the world economy, I believe that’s true,” Locke said.

For more news from the Reuters Washington Summit, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Commerce Secretary Gary Locke at Reuters Washington Summit)

Ever wonder how the U.S. Treasury Secretary gets through some of the most economically stressful times this country has seen in a while — does he go for long runs? Sleep two hours a night?

Timothy Geithner has been in the job less than a year, and came in after the economy had slumped into recession. Now unemployment is approaching 10 percent, he’s had to navigate through an economic stimulus package, and on top of all that the weakness of the U.S. dollar has other countries questioning whether it should still be the reserve currency.

Enough problems, we imagine, to give anyone a big giant headache and more than a few sleepless nights.

So what does Geithner do under the weight of it all?

“I’ve been in the middle of this for quite a long time,” he said in an interview at the Reuters Washington Summit on Tuesday. (Remember, before this job, Geithner was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank).

His general approach, Geithner said, is to “focus on trying to make sure you’re making the best of a bunch of bad choices.”

And to make sure “you are helping the president make sensible decisions,” he said.

“I think the basic imperative in these things is just to make sure people understand that we’re not going to debate when there’s a problem anymore, we’re not going to like hope it takes care of itself, we’re going to commit to fix it,” Geithner said. “And we’re going to do what it takes to fix it.”

For more news from the Reuters Washington Summit, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Geithner at Reuters Washington Summit)

Congressman Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says the November 2010 midterm elections will be difficult, but anyone who believes Republicans will wrest majority control of the House of Representatives is living in “la la land.”

The midterm elections will be viewed by many as a referendum on the policies of Democratic President Barack Obama.

“It is going to be a very volatile, political environment,” Van Hollen said at the Reuters Washington Summit.

He pointed out that since the days of President Abraham Lincoln, only twice has a new president’s party picked up seats in the first midterm election — in 1934 (when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president) and 2002 (when George W. Bush was president).

“So other than those two times, the president’s party has lost seats and the average losses are fairly dramatic,” averaging about 35 seats, Van Hollen said.

Right now there are 256 Democrats and 177 Republicans, and two vacancies in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives.

“So we told our members to be prepared, no one’s going to be surprised,” Van Hollen said.

“I would say that anyone who thinks this is going to be a 1994 redux is in la la land. The Democrats are not going to lose control of the House,” he said.

In the midterm elections in 1994, when Democratic President Bill Clinton was in the White House, Republicans gained seats and won control of both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years.

Van Hollen engaged in a little name-calling, saying the Republican Party these days was “the party of pessimism” and “the party of no” that did not want to be part of the solution to America’s problems.

For more Reuters Washington Summit news click here

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Congressman Chris Van Hollen at Reuters Washington Summit)

He unplugged the extra refrigerator in the basement. He got a tankless water heater and reduced the heat setting. He turned down the air conditioning last summer and used fans to keep cool.

Yes, Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged, “I’m an energy efficiency nut.”

The Nobel physics laureate said he’s slowly weatherizing his home in the Washington DC area, but “weatherizing” isn’t a word he likes. “I’m decreasing its energy consumption and making money,” was how he put it at a Reuters Washington Summit. Chu figures his energy bills are about half what the home’s previous owners paid.

But he said that he, and most people, could still do more.

“In terms of energy efficiency, it’s what the economists would say is a market failure … Most people don’t have the knowledge or inclination, there’s inertia, they just can’t be bothered, they let some things slip,” Chu said. And he himself is not immune: “We’ve been living in the house for five months and it’s still a work in progress — and I’m an energy efficiency nut.”

“Going to the hardware store, getting the foam and putting it around your hot water pipe, that doesn’t take that long for a homeowner to do it themselves,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer, but people don’t do it.”

Time for some stepped-up public education about energy efficiency? “We’re trying, we’re trying!”

Chu bikes around Washington when he can, but said that is mostly to keep fit rather than save on fuel. Still, he’s working on whittling down the time it takes to ride his bicycle from his home to the city center.

Click here for more Reuters Washington Summit news.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Chu at Reuters Washington Summit, October 20, 2009)

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the Obama administration’s plans to bring terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States — countering critics who questioned whether it would create security risks.

“There’s no question in my mind that those detainees who would be moved to the United States would be held in such a fashion that they would not be any threat to public safety, and I say that as a former prosecutor,” Napolitano said in an interview during the Reuters Washington Summit. She served as a U.S. attorney in Arizona during the Clinton administration.

President Barack Obama has pledged to close the controversial prison by Jan. 22, 2010, including bringing some of the terrorism suspects to U.S. soil for trial in military commissions or U.S. criminal courts. There have been questions and doubts about whether his goal can be achieved because of political, legal and logistical complications.

Napolitano held out hope that the administration could meet the fast-approaching deadline: “I would hope so.” She declined to comment on the likely location of where the detainees could be held in the United States.

But Republicans have criticized the idea of bringing the terrorism suspects to U.S. soil, arguing that they are not entitled access to the criminal court system and could pose threats to the communities where they may be imprisoned.

Her remarks came as former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey issued a stinging condemnation of the Obama administration plan, writing in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that civilian courts were not the right place to try the terrorism suspects and could make communities, jurors and courts targets.

“Based on my experience trying such cases, and what I saw as attorney general, they aren’t. That is not to say that civilian courts cannot ever handle terrorist prosecutions, but rather that their role in a war on terror—to use an unfashionably harsh phrase—should be, as the term ‘war’ would suggest, a supporting and not a principal role,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Mukasey served as a federal prosecutor in the 1970s and then as a federal judge in New York from 1988 to 2006, presiding over terrorism cases that included the trial of those who plotted to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. He was attorney general under former President George W. Bush.

While Mukasey also argued in his op-ed that imprisoning terrorism suspects in the United States could expose others in the prison to their beliefs, many of the individuals convicted like Zacarias Moussaoui are kept in maximum security facilities isolated from the general population.

He also warned that U.S. criminal court procedures would risk revealing too much sensitive information and that the cases against Guantanamo detainees were not built for civilian court proceedings. Many of the hearings in U.S. District Court for petitions by prisoners seeking their release from Guantanamo have been held in closed session to protect classified information.

So do you believe U.S. criminal courts can handle the terrorism cases and would communities become targets or should terrorism suspects from Guantanamo only be tried in military commissions?

For more news from the Reuters Washington Summit, click here.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Napolitano speaks to the Reuters Washington Summit)

A war of words over U.S. policy on Afghanistan is heating up between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill as they await President Barack Obama’s new strategy.

“This kind of partisanship in the middle of a war I find to be really out of place,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, said.

He was responding to House of Representatives Republican leader John Boehner’s statement that “the current political uncertainty should not be used as a pretext for the White House to back away from the counter-insurgency strategy the president announced in March.”

Levin, at the Reuters Washington Summit, said former Republican President George W. Bush took three months to decide on the troop surge in Iraq — “Nobody was saying that President Bush is jeopardizing anything by taking three months to deliberate on a new strategy.”

Levin said he agrees with much of what General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, says.

“One of the things he (McChrystal) says is the deliberative process is useful and healthy. So, I wish Boehner would listen to McChrystal,” Levin said.

For more news from the Reuters Washington Summit, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senator Carl Levin at Reuters Washington Summit)

The massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system backed by President Barack Obama could face a court challenge if it is ever enacted into law.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley, speaking at the Reuters Washington Summit, said a number of people, including Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, have questioned whether it is constitutional for the government to require U.S. citizens and residents to purchase a product offered by private, for-profit companies.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.

But many conservatives believe that clause does not allow Congress to require U.S. residents to purchase a good or service.

Healthcare reform legislation would require U.S. citizens and residents to purchase healthcare insurance, with the federal government providing subsidies to help low and moderate income people afford it.

Grassley said he thought the mandate - which is something health insurers have insisted on in exchange for dropping many industry practices such as excluding coverage for preexisting conditions - would face a court challenge.

But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus disagreed. He said the mandate was constitutional and that all Americans share a “moral” responsibility in making sure the U.S. health system works.

“Some Americans are rich, some are poor, some are beautiful, some are ugly, some are tall, some are short, some are fat, some are skinny — when it comes to healthcare reform, everybody is the same,” Baucus told reporters on a telephone conference call. “Illness does not care if you are old or young or beautiful or ugly or whatnot. We are all in this together as Americans.”

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credits: Above: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst. (Grassley at Reuters summit); Blog thumbnail: Reuters/Jason Reed. (Baucus smiles after Finance Committee approves healthcare reform bill)

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says she is reviewing recommendations on the color-coded threat alert system and experts are evenly split over its usefulness.

She said the committee of experts that made the recommendations to her were “equally divided, 50-50″ on whether the color-coded threat alert system developed after the Sept. 11 attacks was useful. It currently stands at “yellow” for elevated.

One recommendation the experts gave her is when the code becomes elevated, after a certain number of days it ought to automatically revert back to the lower level unless a decision is made to intentionally leave it higher.

“The problem is once you raise the level it is virtually impossible to reduce it for a number of political and public affairs reasons. So there would be an automatic revert once it were raised after a certain number of days,” she said at a Reuters Washington Summit. “I think that kind of recommendation makes a lot of sense.”

Any decision could impact airlines, and Napolitano said the Department of Transportation and other agencies would have their say after she makes her recommendation.

“I have a first go at it and I’m looking at it right now,” she said. “I would hope to finish my process by no later than the end of next week.”

“Late night comedians aside, you can really argue color codes a lot of different ways, a lot of countries use them. The problem is a color code, or a number, or whatever, without information to people as to what it means, and what they’re supposed to do, that’s really where the frustration is,” Napolitano said.

“The code itself, absent a connection with real information, doesn’t have much utility,” she said.

For more news from the Reuters Washington Summit, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Napolitano at Reuters Washington Summit)