Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: The Tax Evaders Of The 1%
OurFuture.org's Sam Pizzigati: On Tuesday, the annual federal income tax filing deadline came and went with America’s super rich once again stiffing Uncle Sam for hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes due ... The tiny handful of audits the special IRS task force has completed did recover $47.7 million in unpaid taxes. At that recovery rate, if the IRS had completed audits on all the taxpayers making over $10 million, the federal treasury would likely have picked up over $200 billion ... why aren't IRS officials doing more to audit the super rich? ... Congress over recent years has consistently declined to adequately fund IRS tax-collection operations."
Simpson-Bowles Backers Look To Lame Duck
Simpson-Bowles advocates think Obama-Romney debate will increases chances for passage. NYT: "Mr. Romney accuses the president and his party of resisting needed changes in Medicare and other entitlement programs; Mr. Obama insists that Mr. Romney’s opposition to any tax hikes would eviscerate vital government functions ... their campaign arguments ... could help prepare the public for a compromise as long as the candidates preserve some room for postelection maneuvering ... [Yet the] Simpson-Bowles plan was defeated overwhelmingly last month when offered as an alternative in the House budget debate."
New book reveals divisions within GOP after 2010 elections. W. Post: "The freshman resistance caused feuds among Boehner and his lieutenants that led some to fear a mutiny, heightened several showdowns with President Obama and eventually led to fissures among the rookies ... the group is poised to play a pivotal role in a lame-duck session in which Congress must reach a compromise to keep more than $5 trillion worth of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts from kicking in Jan. 1."
Deficit once again overshadowing jobs crisis. The New Yorker's James Surowiecki: "The phenomenon in which a sizable chunk of the workforce gets stuck in place, and in effect becomes permanently unemployed, is known by economists as hysteresis in the job market. This is, arguably, what happened to many European countries in the nineteen-eighties—policymakers did little when joblessness soared, and their economies got stuck, leaving them with seemingly permanent unemployment rates of eight or nine per cent. The good news is that there’s not much evidence that hysteresis has set in here yet. The bad news is that we can ride our luck only for so long."
Romney budget slams the poor. AP: " Reducing government deficits Mitt Romney's way would mean less money for health care for the poor and disabled and big cuts to nuts-and-bolts functions such as food inspection, border security and education."
Romney hopes you have forgotten that Bush policies wrecked the economy, says NYT's Paul Krugman: "How does the campaign deal with people who point out the awkward reality that all of the 'Obama' job losses took place before any Obama policies had taken effect? ... [And] Romney is essentially advocating a return to those very same Bush policies."
AZ Anti-Immigrant Law Faces Supreme Court
Supreme Court hears arguments on AZ anti-immigration law this week. McClatchy: "...the justices must decide whether Arizona went too far with a crackdown that includes ordering police to routinely check the legal residency status of people they stop. The court’s final answer this election year could ignite Capitol Hill, other states and, not least, Hispanic voters."
Obama campaign reminds Latino voters who blocked immigration reform. TPM: "'To say because you have an implacable group of Republicans in the Congress who simply aren’t to let that move, that the president hasn’t kept his promise, is a little bit disingenuous,' [David] Axelrod said [on CNN.]"
Breakfast Sides
60 Minutes explores why no one at Lehman Brothers has been held accountable for the 2008 financial crisis: "There is one plausible explanation why SEC hasn't has not gone after top Lehman executives. As it turns out, some of Lehman's most egregious accounting shenanigans took place right under the noses of government regulators. ... The very fact that government regulators were inside the company with access to its books and records would complicate any prosecution of Lehman officials."
President displays increased willingness to exercise executive power in response to obstruction. NYT: " In February 2011, Mr. Obama directed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act ... In the following months, the administration increased efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions through environmental regulations, gave states waivers from federal mandates if they agreed to education overhauls, and refocused deportation policy in a way that in effect granted relief to some illegal immigrants brought to the country as children. Each step substituted for a faltered legislative proposal."
ObamaCare will save Medicare beneficiaries $208 billion through 2020. USA Today: "The new numbers are based on savings so far: 32.5 million people used preventive services last year with no costs to themselves, senior citizens saved $3.2 billion for prescription drugs that fall in the 'doughnut hole' in 2010 and 2011, and the government recovered $4.1 billion in 2011 in anti-fraud efforts. CMS also projected savings based on portions of the health care law that will be enacted soon, such as penalties for hospitals for readmitting patients for the same health episode, and paying providers based on quality standards."
