Obama's Schedule June 8 Includes Senior Healthcare Meeting in Wheaton

I'm glad to see healthcare back on the schedule.

In addition to all of Obama's usual briefings, his oil spill briefing times are now being posted. Tomorrow at 10:30 am eastern, Obama will get an update on BP's willful disaster in the gulf.

Obama leaves the White House at 11 am for a tele-town hall with seniors in Wheaton, Maryland.

The town hall on healthcare will take place at 11:40 am and it will be broadcast on C-SPAN--either on your TVs or the Internet.

At 2 pm, Obama will meet with his advisers.

At 2:45 pm, Obama meets with Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. Dorgan has been a critic of Obama tending to healthcare and he's got beefs with the financial reform bill. He's also retiring.

At 6:30 pm, the Obamas host a congressional picnic at the White House.

Poll: Most Favor Normal Cuban Relations

CNN: A new poll shows that two-thirds of Americans surveyed think the U.S. should lift its travel ban on Cuba, and three-quarters think the U.S. should end its five-decade estrangement with the country.


Fidel Castro led Cuba's communist revolution in 1959 and recently handed over power to his brother Raul.

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted April 3 to 5, 64 percent of the 1,023 Americans surveyed by telephone thought the U.S. government should allow citizens to travel to Cuba.

And 71 percent of those polled said that the U.S. should reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba, while 27 percent opposed such a move.

Both questions had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The Obama administration has signaled that new rules on family travel and remittances to Cuba may be announced before President Obama goes to the Summit of the Americas on April 17.

A group of senators and other supporters unveiled a bill March 31 to lift the 47-year-old travel ban to Cuba.

"I think that we finally reached a new watermark here on this issue," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, one of the bill's sponsors. Read the rest.

Most U.S. Companies Pay No Federal Income Taxes

ABC: Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.

"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.

"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.

The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren't paying federal income taxes or corporate taxes and it did not identify any corporations by name. It said companies may escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits.

More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.