Milwaukee, Wisconsin (CNN) — President Barack Obama, in a bid to create jobs and boost economic growth, called on Congress on Monday to pass a $50 billion plan to renew the country’s transportation infrastructure.

His address was the first of two speeches the president is scheduled to make this week to frame his administration’s ongoing response to the recession, less than two months ahead of midterm elections in which Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are in jeopardy.

“Today, I am announcing a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America’s roads, and rails and runways for the long term,” said Obama, who spoke on Labor Day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — a state with competitive gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.

“We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. We can have it again,” he said to loud cheers from a crowd of union workers.

The proposal envisions — over a six year period — rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads, 4,000 miles of rail and 150 miles of airport runways. It also would include modernizing the nation’s air traffic control system in an effort to reduce delays and travel time.

“This will not only create jobs immediately. It’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul,” said the president.

Obama hopes to work with Congress to enact an up-front investment of $50 billion — an amount a White House statement said would represent a significant chunk of new spending on infrastructure.

The investment would then be paired with what the administration called a framework to improve transportation spending.

The long-term plan would include the establishment of an Infrastructure Bank, which would leverage federal dollars and focus on projects that could deliver the the biggest bang for the buck, Obama said.

The president stressed the need for Democrats and Republicans to work together on the transportation initiative, which would need to be approved by Congress.

Congress returns from recess next week and will likely be in session for less than a month before leaving Washington for midterm elections.

On Monday, before Obama’s speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, criticized the plan and said Americans do not want to pay want higher taxes.

“A last-minute, cobbled-together stimulus bill with more than $50 billion in new tax hikes will not reverse the complete lack of confidence Americans have in Washington Democrats’ ability to help this economy,” he said in a statement.

Obama is focused this week on the economy, after a week in which his administration concentrated on Middle East peace talks and the end of America’s combat role in Iraq.

Senior aides have said the president recently asked his economic team to come up with various proposals he could roll out to show he’s working hard to kick-start growth. Ideas have included more federal spending on infrastructure projects and tax cuts popular with the business community, such as a permanent extension of the research and development tax credit.

However, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday suggests the White House still has work to do to win over the American public. Nearly six in 10 respondents disapproved of Obama’s track record on the economy, which is the No. 1 issue in the minds of Americans.

On Wednesday, the president is scheduled to deliver an economic speech in hard-hit Cleveland, Ohio — a state that has competitive U.S. House and Senate races that will help determine control of Congress.

CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry contributed to this report.

Obama pushes infrastructure spending to spur growth

Obama is set to give his second Oval Office address, a speech meant to mark the end of combat missions in Iraq. But besides the remarks he will make, the setting of his speech will convey something, too.

“The Oval Office invokes the center of the presidential authority. That’s the president’s office, that’s where he supposedly makes decisions, where he governs,” says presidential historian Robert Dallek.

“[When] a talk to the nation is given from that office, [it] is underscoring his executive powers, his leadership.”

Video: U.S. combat role comes to an end

The Oval Office symbolizes power, command, and authority, Dallek said. It shows the president, “as George W. Bush put it, is the ‘decider’ ” and that symbolism is important.

For example, former President George H.W. Bush announced the start of the first Gulf war from the Oval Office, telling Americans and the world that he was the commander in chief just by setting the scene in the Oval Office.

And on the night of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, former President George W. Bush spoke to the American people from the Oval Office, to show he was in command and to reassure the nation.

Dallek points out the differences between giving a speech in the Oval Office versus a speech in a different venue.

For example, Obama’s speech in front of the joint session of Congress a year ago conveyed his desire to get Congress to act on health care reform.

“A joint session of Congress has a different function,” Dallek said. A speech in front of both the Senate and House shows the president is “trying to convince Congress to join with him.”

When Obama addressed both chambers in September 2009, the health care debate was still waging. He called for bipartisan proposals to address health care reform and focused attention on the issue, on Congress and on the presidency.

An Oval Office address is different. The prime-time address focuses the attention singularly on the subject matter.

“Presidents don’t give speeches from the Oval Office casually,” Dallek said. “It’s given with forethought and consideration. So the fact that he’s giving the current speech about the end of America’s combat role in Iraq is something that he wishes to emphasize and underscore and in a sense I think it’s a demonstration of his completion of his mission or fulfillment of a commitment that he made.”

Because of the singular focus on the subject matter during Obama’s Tuesday evening address, Obama will have to navigate the tricky road of marking the end of a war he did not support and honoring the lives of all the Americans killed in the war, Dallek said.

Obama must use a “certain amount of domestic diplomacy to bring the war to a close; you don’t just end the war and say it’s a mistake. It’s unpalatable because of all the deaths,” Dallek said.

So Obama must do it in a way that is “politically palatable to the American public — that is at the heart” of his address Tuesday, Dallek said.

The Oval Office will also help convey a sense of intimacy of the message. Since former President Jimmy Carter, each president has delivered his farewell address from that room, using the office of the presidency to say goodbye to the American public.

President Reagan used the intimate space to comfort the public after space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986.

President Johnson used the room in 1968 to tell Americans he would not seek re-election and President Nixon gave several speeches regarding the Watergate scandal, including his decision to resign from the presidency in the wake of Watergate in 1974.

Obama’s other Oval Office address was two months ago to address the nation about the Gulf oil disaster.

And who does the presidential historian think was most successful at intimate talks to the American people?

Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside addresses — although there were no televisions at the time, these radio talks were effective in boosting the country’s confidence.

Obama speech setting sends message

Speaking at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans to mark the fifth anniversary of Katrina, Obama said construction of a fortified levee system to protect the city is underway and will be finished by next year, “We should not be playing Russian roulette every hurricane season,” he said.

“There is no need to dwell on what you experienced and what the world witnessed,” the president said, speaking to a crowd that included current New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and members of Louisiana’s Congressional delegation.

“We all remember it keenly — water pouring through broken levees; mothers holding their children above the waterline; people stranded on rooftops begging for help; and bodies lying in the streets of a great American city,” Obama said. “It was a natural disaster but also a man-made catastrophe; a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men and women and children abandoned and alone.”

But the president spoke of the resilience of city residents. “Because of all of you — all the advocates, all the organizers who are here today, folks standing behind me who have worked so hard and never gave up hope, you are all leading the way toward a better future for this city with innovative approaches to fight poverty, improve health care, reduce crime and create opportunities for young people — because of you, New Orleans is coming back.”

The president noted that New Orleans is now one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, and small businesses have surged. “Five years ago, the Saints had to play every game on the road because of the damage to the Superdome,” he said. “Two

weeks ago, we welcomed the Saints to the White House as Super Bowl champions.”

“I don’t have to tell you that there are still too many vacant and overgrown lots,” Obama said. “There are still too many students attending classes in trailers. There are still too many people unable to find work. And there’s still too many New Orleans folks who haven’t been able to come home.”

“So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you — and fight alongside you — until the job is done, until New Orleans is all the way back.”

He said his administration has made efforts to reduce red tape and turf wars between agencies, and has put in place a new way to handle disputes, with help from Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana. More than 170 projects are now underway as a result, he said.

In addition, federal officials are tackling “corruption and inefficiency that has long plagued the New Orleans Housing Authority,” he said.

And a group led by Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is examining disaster recovery nationwide. “We’re improving coordination on the ground, modernizing emergency communications and helping families plan for a crisis,” Obama said. “And we’re putting in place reforms so that never again in America is someone left behind in a disaster because they’re living with a disability or because they’re elderly or because they’re infirm. That will not happen again.”

On Friday, he said, his administration announced a final agreement on $1.8 billion for Orleans Parish schools, money the president said had been “locked up for years, but now it’s freed up, so folks here can determine how best to restore the school system.”

In addition, the largest civil works project in American history — the construction of a fortified levee system to protect New Orleans — is underway and will be finished by next year, he said.

“Together we are helping to make New Orleans a place that stands for what we can do in America — not just for what we can’t do,” he said. “And ultimately, that must be the legacy of Katrina: not one of neglect, but of action; not one of indifference, but of empathy; not of abandonment, but of a community working together to meet shared challenges.”

Some wounds, the president acknowledged, have not yet healed, and “there are some losses that can’t be repaid. For many who lived through those harrowing days five years ago, there are searing memories that time may not erase. But even amid so much tragedy, we saw the stirrings of a brighter day.”

He said he recalled being struck, upon visiting New Orleans four years ago, by the amount of greenery that had returned.

“The work ahead will not be easy,” he said, “and there will be setbacks. There will be challenges along the way. But thanks to you, thanks to the great people of this great city, New Orleans is blossoming again.”

Following his speech, the president, accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama, were given a short tour of a new neighborhood built on a part of the city that experienced severe flooding when Katrina hit.

Obama: ‘New Orleans is coming back’

The 10-week to-do lists resulted in thousands of comments and suggestions from CNN readers, ranging from constructive to highly critical.

Readers suggested Obama look for a new job and put a muzzle on Vice President Joe Biden, while commenters providing advice for the GOP recommended a muzzle for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Mouth guards aside, readers also offered up practical guidance for Obama and the GOP. Here are some of the suggestions:

1. For Obama: Govern from the center

CNN readers say they want to see Obama get behind a more bipartisan agenda. The No. 1 thing they want to see is job creation, and they don’t want partisan games to get in the way.

Commenters advised Obama to not be influenced by those on the far left and instead focus on what the American public wants.

2. Tout the administration’s accomplishments

Supporters of the health care legislation passed this year say they’re proud of it — and they want Obama to talk about it more. “Talk up Healthcare, because so many supported the bill!” one commenter suggested.

Obama signed the health care bill in March after a long, emotional debate in Congress. Now that the dust has settled, backers of the bill want to hear all about it.

“Talk about what you have done, and what you would like to do, and why,” another reader wrote.

3. Rise above the partisan bickering

“Quit politicking which further divides our nation,” one commenter posted.

Readers say they are sick of partisan games getting in the way of action on Capitol Hill — and they want the administration to stay out of the mudslinging.

4. Shake up the staff

Commenters are ready for some fresh faces. Even those supportive of Obama say they are ready for him to reload the strategy and bring in some new staffers.

5. Stay out of local issues

Readers say the want to see more presidential leadership from Obama. They want him to avoid getting involved with local issues and distractions and focus on the job at hand.

“Be a leader, be positive, plan for success, stay focused,” one reader said.

1. For Republicans: Steer clear of the far right commentators

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter are doing more harm than good for the GOP, some commenters warned.

Readers say they want Republicans to avoid accepting what’s meant to be shock-jock entertainment as sound advice for the party.

2. Keep religion out of politics

“I’m a conservative person, and I’m all for people believing what they want to, but please keep it out of your politics,” one commenter posted.

Readers say they want Republicans to focus on issues such as jobs and the economy instead of trying to prove who is the better Christian.

3. Be conservative, but be bipartisan

Some commenters say that while they like conservatives, not all Republicans fit the bill. Readers say they want lawmakers to stick to their conservative ideas, with an understanding that working with Democrats instead of against them will be more productive.

4. Represent your constituents, not your party’s agenda

“The only thing I want to see from either party is a return to REPRESENTING THEIR CONSTITUENTS, not their party,” a reader said. “When your constituents in large numbers oppose a bill, your obligation is to them.”

“I’m tired of politicians being elected and then ignoring what their constituents want or don’t want. Suddenly the only thing they care about is party support,” the reader continued.

Commenters want their elected officials to listen to them instead of being afraid of breaking with the party.

“Show the American people that you’re capable of putting them ahead of your party,” one person said.

5. Tell the voters what will be different if Republicans take power

“Republicans are going to take back the House and Senate, and it will change absolutely nothing,” one reader said, arguing that both parties are controlled by special interests.

Voters want to know how things would change if Republicans had the majority.

Do you have more suggestions for President Obama or lawmakers? Weigh in below.

To-do list: Your ideas for Obama, GOP

“This is party politics as usual with respect to all of these wedge issues,” said Jacqueline Salit, president of independentvoting.org, a national strategy and organizing center for independents. “I think there’s more and more of a steady recognition that these kind of wedge issues and political manipulation, sensationalism and opportunism is exactly what is degrading the American political process and our democracy.”

Salit, who is also the executive editor of The Neo-Independent magazine, said that people are having a hard time understanding what’s happening with the economy because of partisanship.

“I think people can’t tell what’s going on because the political environment is so polluted by partisanship,” she said. “The parties are trying to change the subject from things they think can inflame voters on and win elections on. How does that help the country? That hurts the country. And that’s what independents are deeply concerned about.”

Independents are increasingly concerned by both parties, and it’s evident in recent polls.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll from late June found that nearly six in 10 independent voters said they are angry at both parties, with 4 percent angry only at the GOP and 6 percent mad only at Democrats. Just over three in 10 say they are not angry at either party.

Read more about the poll

Gallup Poll numbers from July indicate that while registered independent voters prefer Republican congressional candidates to Democratic ones, there is also some uncertainty.

“Currently about one in five independent registered voters are undecided or prefer a candidate from outside the two major parties, suggesting the potential for movement in these numbers between now and Election Day,” according to Gallup’s analysis. “The preferences of these voters, as well as which independents turn out on Election Day, will have a major impact on the direction and magnitude of seat change in the midterm elections.”

Independent voters often side with Republicans on fiscal issues and Democrats on social issues. But with the economy as issue No. 1, appealing to the influential voting bloc will be essential for Democrats as the midterm election approaches.

Bringing up divisive issues that distract from fixing the country’s economic woes will only create cracks in the bridge between the two major parties and independents, said Omar H. Ali, an independent voting analyst and professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

“Right now, there is a movement for nonpartisan reform in America and independents are leading that movement,” Ali said. “In some ways, this issue with the mosque is the latest attempt of trying to gain partisan interest against the Democrats. … But Democrats do the same thing to the Republicans [on other issues.]“

Independents, he said, are the watchdogs and “conscience of America” when it comes to issues like the economy. The blame game over who caused the economic recession only highlights what is wrong in American politics today, Ali said.

“Americans generally are very concerned about the economic state of the nation with rising unemployment and joblessness,” he said. “Independents feel that way but they’re much more attuned to the fact that economic downturn is connected to a poor political process, which keeps power concentrated in the hands of deeply partisan interests — namely the two major parties.”

While independents are generally turned off by partisan politics, they are not immune from weighing in on controversial issues.

Seventy percent of independents oppose the plan to build the Islamic center and mosque near ground zero, according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll. By contrast, 54 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans opposed the plan.

The same poll also found a clear partisan divide on changing the Reconstruction-era 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection of law and defines who is a U.S. citizen. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans support a change while 39 percent of Democrats do so. Independents are split 50-50.

Read more about the poll

But the issue that most independents are concerned about pertains to political reform.

“There’s a lot of controversy, for example, around a whole set of political reform issues, which are the very things independents are concerned with — like open primaries and nonpartisan elections,” Salit said. “In state after state, independents are barred from voting in first-round primaries.”

Ali said having nonpartisan elections, ballot access reform and referendums are essential things for independents like himself.

“These are structural issues that go to the heart of the process and independents for over a quarter century have been voicing their concerns.”

Wedge issues angering independents

“Absolutely, I want him to take his shirt off and get in the water and show it’s clean and safe,” said Stephen Leatherman, a professor at Florida International University in Miami who puts together an annual list of America’s best beaches.

Leatherman rates the beach there as one of the top 10 in the country, and he said Obama has a unique opportunity to showcase the fact that the Gulf Coast is still open for business despite the worst oil spill in American history.

“It’s got lily-white sand, and frankly the oil didn’t really make it there — it was pretty well spared,” said Leatherman, who noted that the water is 87 or 88 degrees because of the steamy Florida weather, making it conducive to at least a quick presidential plunge.

“There is no better symbol than the president of the United States showing us the way,” Leatherman said.

But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was cagey Friday when reporters asked whether the president will take a swim during the first family’s 27-hour mini-vacation.

“Stay tuned,” said Gibbs, who grew slightly impatient and a bit bemused about getting so many queries about something as seemingly minor as a presidential swim.

“Look, he’s going to have some fun,” Gibbs said. “Whether or not he gets in the water is up for clearly some debate. But, look, he will have an opportunity to enjoy … the physical beauty of the Gulf and do some work at the same time.”

Mindful that Obama caused a bit of a tabloid stir when he took off his shirt to reveal a muscular physique during trips to Hawaii during the 2008 presidential campaign and subsequent presidential transition, Gibbs turned it around on reporters and wondered whether they would bare their midriffs this weekend.

“Are you bringing your suits?” Gibbs said with a smile.

But Leatherman suggested it’s no joking matter because the president’s decision to swim or not to swim will carry tremendous symbolic weight.

“I think it’s very important that he gets into the water because I think there’s this feeling that if you get in, you’re going to get contaminated or get all kinds of diseases,” he said.

This will be the president’s fifth trip to the Gulf region since the April 20 explosion that sparked the horrific oil disaster. The trip is already generating criticism over whether Obama is giving the region short shrift by spending only parts of Saturday and Sunday in Panama City.

White House officials announced the trip earlier this summer after critics wondered why the president and first lady had urged Americans to vacation in the Gulf but originally chose Bar Harbor, Maine, and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, as the only locations for their own sojourns.

Now, the criticism has shifted to whether 27 hours in Panama City is too quick of a jaunt, and the Republican National Committee released a statement Friday that also said Obama has included Florida in only a couple of his trips to the region in recent months.

“It’s nice to see the president take the time out of his busy schedule of golf games and campaign fundraisers to clear his conscience and visit Florida for only the second time since the oil crisis began,” RNC spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said. “As he meets with business owners in the Panhandle, it seems like the perfect opportunity for him to explain how his reckless spending, tax increases, and government takeover of health care are supposed to help the Gulf’s devastated economy. Not even the Sunshine State can put a positive light on the president’s failed liberal policies that have sunk his approval ratings to an all-time low.”

The president will be accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama and their younger daughter Sasha — big sister Malia is still away at camp and will not be in Florida. Obama will also be joined by his Gulf Coast recovery chief, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, to try to show the administration is committed to a long-term turnaround.

Gibbs largely deflected questions about whether the trip was too short, saying the president is focused on promoting the “health of the region” with the vacation.

“Tourism in Florida and along the Gulf Coast is the economy,” Gibbs told reporters Friday. “This is an opportunity to highlight the notion that this important region of the country is still doing well and open for business.”

While Leatherman said he does think the trip seems too short, Obama should be applauded for carving out some time to help the region.

“I think it’s basically a photo-op, isn’t it?” said Leatherman. “But I still think it’s a good thing for the president to come down and show the world that it’s clean and safe. That will go a long way to helping the Gulf Coast.”

Leatherman added: “The best thing that could happen is the president saying, ‘I’m going in!’ And I don’t mean damn the torpedoes. I mean him saying, ‘It’s clean and safe, and I’m going in the water!’ “

He concluded that it’s a good thing the president is visiting one of the nation’s best beaches in the summer instead of earlier in the year.

“It’s also one of the best spring break beaches, but I don’t recommend going then,” Leatherman said. “I went once, and there were 500,000 people there. I don’t know if it was actually 500,000 all at once, but it felt like it.”

Will Obama take the plunge in Florida?

A report to be released Tuesday by conservative Republican Sens. Tom Coburn and John McCain cited these and 97 other projects as leading examples of misguided or wasteful spending under the Obama administration’s $862 billion economic stimulus bill.

Titled “Summertime Blues,” the report is the third by the two senators targeting projects that they say fail to meet the job-creation goal of spending under the Recovery Act of 2009.

“We owe it to all Americans that are paying taxes and struggling to find jobs, to rebuild our economy without doing additional harm, and to do it in a way that expands opportunities for future generations,” said the introduction to the report by Coburn, R-Oklahoma, and McCain, R-Arizona. “Too many stimulus projects are failing to meet that goal.”

While some projects in the report “may have merit,” they are “being mismanaged or were poorly planned,” the report said.

The Recovery Act, which was passed a few weeks after President Barack Obama took office, was a government-funded effort to kick-start economic activity in response to the ongoing recession.

It called for “shovel-ready” jobs — from road and bridge repair and construction to scientific research and expanded broadband and wireless service — through federal contracts, grants and loans, as well as helping state and local governments avoid layoffs and funding tax cuts.

The senators’ report challenged the viability or effectiveness of specific projects across the country. However, the report’s use of selected information from hundreds of footnoted sources left it unclear whether the brief summaries of each project told the whole story.

In a previous report in January, the senators included the Napa Valley Wine Train as an example of wasteful stimulus spending, without mentioning that the money was for a flood control project along the train’s route, rather than the train itself.

The latest edition covered a broad range of projects including construction, research, development and conservation.

Topping the list was $554,763 for new windows at the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center at Mount St. Helens in Washington state. The U.S. Forest Service facility opened in 1993 at a cost of $11.5 million to provide visitors with panoramic views of the scenic volcano.

However, it closed in 2007 due to staffing shortages, and now is getting the stimulus funds to replace its trademark windows in preparation for use for another purpose, according to information provided by the Forest Service.

“One government official likened it to ‘keeping a vacant house in good repair,’ while another official noted that there is hope to find some purpose for the building in the future, whether as a hotel, science camp or restaurant,” the report said, attributing the information to a July 2009 article on tdn.com, a local news website. “Despite those efforts, there are no plans to use the empty space.”

The Forest Service information provided no timetable for the possible reopening of the visitors’ center for another purpose.

“The Forest Service is now reviewing several proposals for how the facility could be used in the future through a variety of public-private partnerships, including a science facility, education camp, or an overnight lodge,” the Forest Service document said.

Ranked second on the senators’ list was a University of North Carolina at Charlotte project that received $762,372 in stimulus finds to develop a computerized choreography program, the report said.

Quoting a July 6 story posted on the Charlotte-based news website WCNC.com, the report said the project involves recording dancers on video, then logging and analyzing their movements.

“This will allow choreographers to explore the interactive dance without always having a full cast of dancers present,” said the grant posted on the government’s stimulus bill website, recovery.gov.

“The system will be extended into a Web-based ‘Dance Tube’ application that will allow the public to engage in interactive dance choreography,” the grant goes on to say.

However, the senators’ report initially failed to state the money was spread over three years. Again citing the WCNC.com story, it also initially said lead researcher Celine Latulipe “noted that her funding was severely restricted by the fact that the university is taking a 44 percent cut to cover ‘overhead’ expenses.”

In reality the website story said: “The money is spread over three years and Latulipe points out the university takes 44 percent overhead.”

After the discrepancy was pointed out by CNN, the report was changed, an aide to Coburn said.

In an interview with CNN, Latulipe said the project fit the kind of research and development work called for by the Recovery Act.

Through its application and further development, it could lead to audiences having an impact on performance by registering their reaction through handheld audience response devices, Latulipe said.

“We’ll need to develop a bunch of different software packages that never existed before,” she said, adding that the project employs three students part-time over its three-year span and pays for dancers and other participants in what amounts to direct economic activity.

“I think it’s sad that this research money that is really allowing innovation and funding students doing great research is being used as a political tool,” Latulipe said.

Then there is the project listed at No. 28 by the senators — $71,623 to researchers at Wake Forest University to see how monkeys react to cocaine.

Titled “Effect of Cocaine Self-Administration on Metabotropic Glutamate Systems,” the project calls for monkeys to self-administer drugs while researchers monitor and study their glutamate levels, the report said.

It cited a March 8 Raleigh News and Observer article that quoted Wake Forest University School of Medicine spokesman Mark Wright as saying the stimulus money would allow the university to continue a job that otherwise might have been cut.

Paula Faria, assistant vice president for media relations at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said the grant will “have significant impact on public health in regards to cocaine addiction and the issue of relapse.”

“It’s also important to note that the applications for these grants are peer reviewed and this study was deemed of merit by a panel of scientific experts, and then reviewed by the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse before funds were awarded,” Faria said in a statement to CNN.

Liz Oxhorn, the White House spokesperson for the Recovery Act, called the senators’ report a partisan effort intended to undermine the overall success of the Recovery Act.

According to Oxhorn, new research shows stimulus money is responsible for nearly 3 million jobs and has lowered unemployment by 1.5 percent.

“We’ll look into each of their claims and take action if any have merit, but with more than 70,000 Recovery Act projects underway, any misguided project is just a small fraction of tens of thousands coast to coast that are rebuilding America and putting people to work,” Oxhorn said.

Critics cite 100 worst stimulus projects

The Obama administration has made clear some troops — no one can say how many — will start withdrawing by next July from stable areas where Afghan forces can provide security.

However, questions over how to measure success and whether the almost 9-year-old war is worth the continuing U.S. investment in lives and resources are gaining prominence as congressional midterm elections approach in November.

In interviews with military and political leaders broadcast Sunday, scenarios presented on what happens next year ranged from guarded optimism to serious concern. While most views followed expected party talking points, all appeared grounded in the common belief that success is vital even as they differed on what it would be.

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan defended the planned troop drawdown next year as a necessary part of strategy.

Video: Levin: ‘Mixed picture’ in Afghanistan

“That date is very visible now,” Levin said, adding: “It’s critical that that date was set to show that it isn’t a blank check, it’s not an open-ended commitment of American troops in the same numbers that we’re going to have there.”

Already, he said, the Afghan army is taking over some aspects of security, which gives a psychological boost to the local population while denying the Taliban insurgents of a propaganda tool.

“When their own people see that, it is going to make a difference,” Levin said. “And when the Taliban sees that they are not able now to just paint this as … a lot of foreign troops present in Afghanistan, but now it’s their own Afghan army, a popular, respected army, that they are taking on more and more during this next year, that that is going to make a difference. That’s a real nightmare for the Taliban to be up against an Afghan-led effort.

On the same program, however, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina worried that the Afghan forces and central government may not be ready to assume the necessary responsibilities within a year.

“[G]enerally speaking, this time next summer, we’re still going to be engaged in one hell of a fight,” Graham told CNN. “We’re going to need every troop we have today, I think, still in Afghanistan next year.”

According to Graham, it will be clear by the end of this year where things stand in Afghanistan.

“If, by December, we’re not showing some progress, we’re in trouble,” he said. “And the question is: what is progress? Without some benchmarks and measurements, it’s going to be hard to sell to the American people a continued involvement in Afghanistan.”

Other Republicans are harsher critics of President Barack Obama’s war strategy, saying that any withdrawal date — regardless of intention — provides a strategic and psychological boost to the enemy.

” … (W)e don’t tell the enemy when it is that we’re going to essentially wave that white flag and say we’re leaving,” former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“No, we’re in it to win it. And if we’re not, then the American public needs to know that, too,” Palin said.

Palin acknowledged the nation was tiring of the war that started in October 2001 in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks that year.

“We want to know that if we’re engaged in such activity where we are protecting our own country, we’re helping to protect our allies, we had better be in it for … the long haul,” Palin said. “But we had better be in it to win it or, no, we’re not going to keep supporting this idea of sending innocents, our young men and women, America’s finest, over there for some futile effort.”

In an interview with CBS conducted last week and broadcast Sunday, Obama insisted the mission to prevent terrorists from operating out of Afghanistan was worth the current deployment, including 30,000 additional U.S. troops he ordered in last year to increase the eventual total to about 100,000.

“If I didn’t think that it was important for our national security to finish the job in Afghanistan, then I would pull them all out today,” the president said.

Top military officials emphasized that the draw-down date is part of a strategy, with the actual number of troops withdrawn depending on conditions on the ground. Asked about remarks last month by Vice President Joe Biden that the figure could be “as few as a couple of thousand” troops, Defense Secretary Robert Gates seemed to agree.

“My personal opinion is that drawdowns early on will be of fairly limited numbers, and as we are successful, we’ll probably accelerate,” Gates said on the ABC program “This Week.” But, again, it will depend on the conditions on the ground.”

At the same time, Gates emphasized that it was crucial for the United States to demonstrate a long-term commitment in order to ensure the trust and cooperation of Afghanistan.

“We need to re-emphasize the message that we are not leaving Afghanistan in July 2011,” he said. “We are beginning a process… and the pace will be set by conditions on the ground.”

He welcomed the prognostication by critics that the Taliban fighters will simply hunker down until next July in order to strike after U.S. troops start leaving, saying: “We will be there with a lot of troops.”

The purpose is to ensure stability in order to turn over control to the Afghan government and people, not to embark on nationwide reconstruction, Gates said.

U.S. efforts will focus on “those civilian efforts and governance that help us in our security objectives,” he said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the main goal is to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda.

Even though CIA Director Leon Panetta has said only 50 to 100 al Qaeda figures remain in Afghanistan, Mullen made clear that a hard fight remains to enable the Afghan government to defeat Taliban insurgents who harbored al Qaeda in the past.

“We’re at a point now where over the course of the next 12 months, it really is going to, I think, tell the tale which way this is going to go,” Mullen said, later adding: “Certainly the longterm goal is to make sure that, with respect to the population in Afghanistan, that there’s a governance structure that treats its people well. … But to say exactly how that’s going to look and what specifics would be involved, I think it’s just way too early.”

Influential Democrats, meanwhile, signaled the growing impatience in their ranks for a war effort that continues to inflict an economic and human toll.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the ABC program that she hopes that next year’s withdrawal brings home more than the “couple of thousand” troops Biden had predicted.

At the same time, Pelosi acknowledged “it’s not going to be turn out the lights and let’s all go home in one day.”

Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts told CNN that Obama was determined to bring the conflict to a new phase that allows a U.S. drawdown.

“He is also determined not to undermine his own effort and not to undermine the military effort on the ground, and the sacrifice that our troops have made,” Kerry said. “The president is not going to suddenly pull the rug out from under the very efforts that we’ve all been engaged in over these years. That would be folly. And I don’t see him doing that.”

Graham, who has sided with Democrats on some issues, expressed concern that some anti-war elements of both the political left and right could undermine the war effort.

“You know what I worry most about: an unholy alliance between the right and the left,” Graham said. “That there are some Republicans who are not going to take a, you know, do-or-die attitude for Obama’s war. There are some Republicans that want to make this Obama’s war. … There will be some Republicans saying you can’t win because of the July 2011 withdrawal date, he’s made it impossible for us to win, so why should we throw good money after bad?”

Graham added that liberals could also refuse to back the president’s plans in Afghanistan.

“You’ve got people on the left who are mad with the president because he is doing exactly what [former President George W.] Bush did and we’re in a war we can’t win,” Graham said, adding: “My concern is that, for different reasons, they join forces and we lose the ability to hold this thing together.”

Midterms put focus on Afghan draw-down

As political hopefuls try to persuade voters to send them to Congress, they’re also promising they won’t be there long.

Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul said that if elected, he can’t see himself serving more than two terms. In Rhode Island, Democratic congressional hopeful Bill Lynch has proposed a 12-year cap in the House and Senate. And in Maryland, Republican Andy Harris has assured voters that, should he go to the U.S. House, he’ll be out of there by 2023.

It’s a message that polls well and gets applause at campaign rallies, but David King, director of Harvard’s program for Newly Elected Members of the U.S. Congress, said term limits do more harm than good.

“It’s political junk food. It tastes good but hurts the body politic in the long run,” he said.

Advocates and opponents of term limits are after the same thing: keeping the power out of the hands of lobbyists and special interests.

King says term limits do the opposite by taking the business of lawmaking away from elected representatives and giving it to professional staff and lobbyists.

Instead, the elections process needs better campaign finance laws and a more engaged electorate, he said.

“That leads to a situation in which we reward politicians or statesmen or stateswoman who have been around for a long time and are terrific, while at the same time being able to get rid of the low-quality legislators at all levels,” King said.

But Philip Blumel, president of U.S. Term Limits, points to the high re-election rates as evidence of the need for term limits.

Re-election rates have hovered around 96 percent in the House and 85 percent in the Senate over the past 10 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The average length of service for lawmakers in the current session of Congress is 5.5 terms in the House and 2.2 terms in the Senate, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“You have a situation where you have a long-standing relationship between special interests and an incumbent who can’t lose, and that is a toxic combination, and that’s most of the Congress,” Blumel said. “Term limits ensure regular, competitive elections. They permit change.”

It’s a debate as old as the Constitution that term-limit supporters hope to amend.

Alexander Hamilton spoke against limits, writing in Federalist Paper No. 72 that, “Nothing appears more plausible at first sight, nor more ill-founded upon close inspection.”

Thomas Jefferson, however, said term limitation, at least of the president, was necessary “to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom from continuing too long in office.”

After the Constitution was drafted, Jefferson said one aspect he disliked was “the abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation in office, and most particularly in the case of the President.”

“If you value rotation in office, like the founders did, we need some kind of codified term limits,” Blumel said.

Fifteen states have term limits for state lawmakers. Another six states have agreed to term limits in the past, but the limits were repealed by the legislature or overturned by the courts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Most of the states with term limits got them through a ballot initiative, a process that only 24 states have.

Jennie Bowser, who tracks term limits for the NCSL, said that while voters are generally supportive of term limits, some studies have shown negative effects that aren’t obvious to the average voter, such as a loss of influence in the legislature to the executive branch and a loss of policy champions who spend years building expertise in certain subjects.

“They’re sort of inside the legislature, under-the-dome kind of things that people who are close to the legislature notice … but no legislature has had to go out of business because term limits wrecked them, so it’s not stuff that is visible to voters,” she said.

The new wave of calls for term limits is reminiscent of the lead-up to the 1994 elections. Armed with a legislative agenda called the “Contract with America,” Republicans put forth a message with an emphasis on term limits.

The GOP took back control of the House and Senate for the first time in nearly 50 years, and, for the first time ever, the House voted on legislation that would limit representatives to six two-year terms and senators to two six-year terms.

The vote was 227–204 — a simple majority, but not the two-thirds required for a constitutional amendment.

At the time, 23 states had passed laws imposing term limits on their federal lawmakers, but in May of 1995, two months after the House vote, the Supreme Court ruled that doing so was unconstitutional.

“Allowing individual States to adopt their own qualifications for congressional service would be inconsistent with the Framers’ vision of a uniform National Legislature representing the people of the United States. If the qualifications set forth in the text of the Constitution are to be changed, that text must be amended,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote.

In order to pass a constitutional amendment on term limits, the House and Senate would have to pass legislation with a two-thirds majority, and then three-fourths of the state legislatures would have to ratify it.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint introduced a bill to limit lawmakers to six years in the House and 12 years in the Senate.

DeMint’s bill has yet to come up for a vote, but for Blumel, the outlook is good.

“There are periods in history where term limits are at the fore, and if the people of the country want them and demand them now, we have as good a chance as any that we ever had to have them. So it’s an exciting time,” he said.

But King says that even if the idea had the support of the president and Congress, he is confident that the American public would reject it.

“The evidence after 20 years of this in state legislatures is crystal clear: term limits empower special interests, lobbyists and long-time staffers and they work against the interests of the American people,” he said.

The reason the issue polls well, King said, is because there hasn’t been a vigorous dialogue about it.

“People are reacting by their instinct and anger, which is understandable. But sometimes instinct and anger take us in the wrong direction,” he said.

Term limits like ‘political junk food’

Current department rules require veterans to document events like firefights or bomb explosions that could have caused the disorder. Such documentation was often time-consuming and difficult, and sometimes was impossible.

Under the new rules a veteran only needs to demonstrate that he or she served in a war and performed a job during which events could have happened that could cause the disorder.

“With this new PTSD regulation, we are acknowledging the inherently stressful nature of the places and circumstances of military service, in which the reality and fear of hostile or terrorist activities is always present,” said Michael Walcoff, the VA’s acting undersecretary for benefits.

The new rule “will potentially benefit all veterans, regardless of their period of service and it is not limited to veterans with direct combat experience,” he stressed.

Wolcoff noted that over 400,000 veterans currently receive compensation benefits for PTSD.

In his weekly address on Saturday, President Barack Obama called the change a “long overdue step.”

“For years, many veterans with PTSD who have tried to seek benefits — veterans of today’s wars and earlier wars — have often found themselves stymied. They’ve been required to produce evidence proving that a specific event caused their PTSD. And that practice has kept the vast majority of those with PTSD who served in non-combat roles, but who still waged war, from getting the care they need,” Obama said.

“I don’t think our troops on the battlefield should have to take notes to keep for a claims application. And I’ve met enough veterans to know that you don’t have to engage in a firefight to endure the trauma of war. So we’re changing the way things are done.”

Under the new rules, no benefits will be passed along until a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist or psychologist confirms that a veteran actually suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Department officials say that should reduce the risk of fraudulent claims.

One congressional analysis reportedly put the cost of the new changes at $5 billion.

Obama said the new process “will help veterans not just of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but generations of their brave predecessors who proudly served and sacrificed in all our wars.”

“It’s a step that proves America will always be here for our veterans, just as they’ve been there for us. We won’t let them down. We take care of our own,” he said.

CNN’s Larry Shaughnessy contributed to this report

Feds roll out new PTSD benefits for veterans