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: Democracy V. Plutocracy
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "The stories focus on Apple, but it isn't just Apple. These stories of exploited Chinese workers are also the story of how and why we -- 99% of us, anyway -- are all feeling such a squeeze here, because we are suffering the disappearance of our middle class. Our choice is democracy or servitude ... This is not about taking jobs back from Chinese workers. This is about demanding they be paid fairly and given a say in their workplaces. This is about not exploiting people there or here! Trade can be an upward spiral, rather than a lever for exploitation of the 99% by the 1%."
Economic Growth Picks Up Pace
GDP growth accelerates 1 point in 4Q 2011, up to 2.8%, held back by cutting government. BEA release: "The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter reflected positive contributions from private inventory investment, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, residential fixed investment, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased."
The GOP response to the SOTU reveals what it doesn't get about jobs, argues NYT's Paul Krugman: "...Mr. Daniels tried to wrap his party in the mantle of the late Steve Jobs, whom he portrayed as a great job creator — which is one thing that Jobs definitely wasn’t ... Why does Apple manufacture abroad, and especially in China? ... the advantages of industrial clusters — in which producers, specialized suppliers, and workers huddle together to their mutual benefit ... the current Republican worldview has no room for such considerations. From the G.O.P.’s perspective, it’s all about the heroic entrepreneur, the John Galt, I mean Steve Jobs-type 'job creator' who showers benefits on the rest of us and who must, of course, be rewarded with tax rates lower than those paid by many middle-class workers."
Transportation Sec LaHood praises Senate transportation jobs bill, slights House. Politico quotes: "'...the Senate has worked hard on a transportation bill and they’re bringing their bill to the floor. I spoke with Sen. Boxer about that today and I complimented her on a bill that got voted out of her committee 18-0. Unheard of in the halls of Congress ... Maybe we’ll get a bill this year. I have my fingers crossed.'"
Senate transportation bill to advance to additional committees. W. Post: "Boxer said that she received a call from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and that he assured her that two other Senate committees — commerce and banking — would take action on the bill next week. Portions of the bill need the approval of the other committees. 'That means that by the end of next week all the [Senate] committees will have done their jobs,' Boxer said ... She said the bill will reach the Senate floor before transportation funding expires March 31."
President to unveil plan today tying college aid to affordability. NYT: "...the amount available for Perkins loans would grow to $8 billion, from the current $1 billion. The president also wants to create a $1 billion grant competition, along the lines of the Race for the Top program for elementary and secondary education, to reward states that take action to keep college costs down, and a separate $55 million competition for individual colleges to increase their value and efficiency. The administration also wants to give families clearer information about costs and quality, by requiring colleges and universities to offer a 'shopping sheet' that makes it easier to compare financial aid packages and — for the first time — compiling post-graduate earning and employment information to give students a better sense of what awaits them."
Obama Sells Energy Strategy
President Obama pushes both clean energy and domestic oil and gas production on post-SOTU tour. The Hill: "'I’m not going to walk away from the promise of clean energy,' Obama said ...
'We’re not going to cede the wind industry or the solar industry or the battery industry to China or Germany because we’re too timid to make that same commitment here in the United States,' ... he [also] promoted his commitment to expanded natural-gas production and touted the Interior Department’s next Gulf of Mexico oil-and-gas lease sale."
President highlighting green issues and campaign season approaches. Reuters: "This could be smart election-year positioning, according to Karlyn Bowman, who tracks public opinion polling at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank. ;We don't know how big the environment vote is, but in a close election everything matters, and you certainly want to appeal to environmentalists.' ... Obama may have another advantage this year on the green front: a surge in voters who never before considered themselves to be environmentalists. Frances Beinicke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, sees a clear and recent shift, starting with reaction to the massive BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the localized concerns about water contamination in the natural gas drilling boom and the worry about oil spills in the Canada-to-Texas Keystone pipeline."
SOTU focus group shows clean energy is a wedge issue that favors Democrats, argues Grist's David Roberts: "Overall, there was a striking degree of unanimity, quite in contrast to the polarization in Washington. Reactions to the speech split along party lines on only a few issues ... It seems the Republican attempt to drag clean energy into the culture war has reached only the conservative base. Independents outside the Fox-Limbaugh loop still favor it."
WH issues new forest management rules. W. Post: "...the first meaningful overhaul of forest rules in 30 years ... Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said they were crafted to enhance the nation’s water supplies while maintaining woodlands for wildlife, recreation and timber operations ... Several environmentalists and scientists praised the guidelines ... But they cautioned that the rules gave local supervisors considerable discretion in their implementation ... Officials at the American Forest & Paper Association, which represents pulp, paper, packaging and wood products companies along with forest landowners, said they were 'still reviewing' the blueprint. But the group had concerns 'regarding the costly procedural requirements in the proposed rule,'..."
Hectoring of President by AZ Gov. over immigration may turn state blue. NYT: "The run-in, captured in a photograph of the governor wagging a finger at the president as they discussed her book, 'Scorpions for Breakfast,' lit up Hispanic radio stations and blogs all over the state ... 'For that incident alone,' Robert Meza, a Democratic state senator from Phoenix, said Thursday, '85 percent more Latin people will gravitate toward the president.'"
Romney V. Truth
Romney continues to "fudge facts" about his financies in last night's debate. HuffPost: "...Romney said [his Fannie and Freddie investment] was in a 'blind trust' managed without his knowledge by a trustee ... But, as the Boston Globe reported, the Fannie and Freddie investments were not in the blind trust: 'Unlike most of Romney’s financial holdings, which are held in a blind trust that is overseen by a trustee and not known to Romney, this particular investment was among those that would have been known to Romney.'"
American Prospect's Paul Starr explains how Romney's business strategy stunted innovation: "The standard operating procedure for private equity has been to buy firms, take them private, and load them up with debt. By taking them private, the new owners escape from the securities laws, which apply only to publicly traded companies. By loading them with debt, they cut the companies’ taxes because the interest is fully deductible from profits, and they use those tax savings to pay themselves generous fees and dividends. If an overleveraged enterprise then fails, they take it into bankruptcy, firing workers and stiffing creditors even though their own firm has already pocketed large gains ... it can also interfere with genuine innovation because debt-burdened companies are sometimes starved for capital to invest in new technologies and products."
Pentagon Cuts Budget, Or Does It?
Pentagon budget proposal cuts projected spending. LAT: "... spending on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is dropping sharply ... The Pentagon blueprint would cancel several weapons programs, slow purchases of aircraft and submarines, reduce the size of the Army and Marine Corps, shrink the number of Army combat brigades and Air Force squadrons, and move some forces now deployed overseas back to the United States."
But "doesn't cut as deeply as Pentagon says," reports McClatchy: "...the Pentagon's request calls for an increase in its base budget by $36 billion over the next five years. And its planned reduction in ground forces by 2017 would still leave a larger military than before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon's proposal over five years is an 8 percent decrease in the spending levels the Obama administration proposed last year, a total cut of $259 billion over five years. But the figures also represent an average of 2 percent growth each year over five years..."
Senate raises debt ceiling, with minimal phony outrage. NYT: "The 52-to-44 vote generally followed party lines, with Democrats supporting the increase in borrowing authority and Republicans opposed ... Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, complained that the Senate was allowing the debt limit to rise in a perfunctory way, with little debate."
Public Demands Action On Housing Crisis
Gallup poll shows public wants government action on housing crisis. Politico: "A majority of Americans - 58 percent - said they want the federal government to take further actions this year to prevent Americans from losing their homes through bank foreclosures, the Gallup poll found. Just 34 percent said they want the housing market to resolve its problems on its own ... For independents, 61 percent said they also favored the government playing a larger role."
Occupy groups delving into policy. The Nation: "One of the most substantial examples of policy efforts within Occupy is a group called Occupy the SEC, which for months has been meeting twice weekly to review the 298-page Volcker Rule through a diligent, line-by-line reading and analysis ... Occupiers in Washington, DC have taken on a seemingly impossible policy task: reducing the budget deficit..."
Rep. Colin Peterson slams Wall Street's continued reckless behavior. Politico: "Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said Wall Street 'is operating as if 2008 never happened' during a Thursday hearing on bankrupt brokerage firm MF Global."
Additional research provided by Michael Brooks.
