MORNING MESSAGE: You Can Pay Taxes And Create Jobs
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "House Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority leader each claimed this week that higher taxes on the wealthy will cause the 'job creators' to cut jobs and 'hurt growth.' The Heritage Foundation makes specific claims about how this will happen … that a businessperson who has an income from their business — after all personal deductions — of about $794,000 ($250,000 plus the 544,000 on which the additional tax would apply) 'can’t' hire a needed person … Employees are only hired or kept on the payroll if they are needed, and not hiring one necessary person would therefore hurt the business that was successful enough for the owner to make at least $794,000 after all deductions. So assuming the business owner knew what he or she was doing, and only had the number of employees that were needed, the following year the business would do worse without that needed employee, and the owner would make less. Would an employer really do this? Of course not."
Deal Or Digging In?
Politico suggests deal is emerging in private talks, with higher taxes and a Medicare cut: "Cut through the fog, and here’s what to expect: Taxes will go up just shy of $1.2 trillion — the middle ground of what President Barack Obama wants and what Republicans say they could stomach. Entitlement programs, mainly Medicare, will be cut by no less than $400 billion - and perhaps a lot more, to get Republicans to swallow those tax hikes. There will be at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and 'war savings.' … The vast majority of the [entitlement] savings, and perhaps all of it, will come from Medicare, through a combination of means-testing, raising the retirement age and other “efficiencies” to be named later. It is possible Social Security gets tossed into the mix, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to fight that … Democrats want most Medicare and other entitlement savings to kick in between 10 and 20 years from now, which will make some Republicans choke. Democrats will point to the precedent set by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) of pushing most mandatory savings off until a decade from now."
But progressive groups heartened by Dems negotiating posture. TPM: "An array of liberal and labor groups are currently running pressure campaigns out of longstanding concerns that the White House will cede too much ground in a deficit deal. And while they aren’t planning on disarming anytime soon, several activists told TPM that they’re cautiously optimistic that Democrats are heading into battle with the right goals and the leverage to obtain them. 'I think most people are buoyed by the fact the president seems intent on sticking with his demand that taxes go up on the top 2 percent even if it means going over the cliff,' Bob Borosage, president of the Institute for America’s Future, told TPM. 'He’s been stronger than I might have anticipated.'"
Boehner tries to put focus back on spending cuts. The Hill: "Yet the post-election focus on tax revenue is partly the GOP’s own doing. It was Boehner, on the day after Obama’s reelection victory, who delivered a formal speech to announce that Republicans would accept new revenues — but not higher rates — in a fiscal deal, if they were coupled with significant spending cuts and entitlement reforms. Since then, the public debate has remained centered on taxes, and that escalated on Wednesday after Cole, a member of the GOP whip team, made headlines by confirming that he told party leaders privately that he believed the House should act soon to pass an extension of tax rates for the middle class — exactly what Obama has asked Congress to do."
Krugman suggests better to go over the "cliff". HuffPost: "'There is nothing in there [the fiscal cliff] that is going to cause the economy to implode,' Krugman said [on WNYC]. 'Better to go a few months into this thing if necessary than to have a panicked response or to give in to blackmail, which is certainly the question that's facing President Obama.'"
WH Backs Filibuster Reform
WH backs Reid on filibuster reform. HuffPost: "This endorsement of Reid's effort to reform the filibuster is the firmest White House statement to date on the matter."
Some Senate Dems hesitate. NYT: "[Sen. Reid is] running into resistance from fellow Democrats about the way those rules would be changed — essentially by ramming the changes through with 51 votes, rather than with the agreement of two-thirds of the Senate, which is how rule changes are meant to be made … Because Republicans are united in their dislike of the proposed changes, Mr. Reid would never get 67 votes — two-thirds of the Senate — to break a filibuster on the filibuster change."
Breakfast Sides
Massive campaign to unionize fast-food workers launches today. NYT: "…the biggest effort to unionize fast-food workers ever undertaken in the United States, a campaign that will be announced publicly on Thursday. The effort — backed by community and civil rights groups, religious leaders and a labor union — has engaged 40 full-time organizers in recent months to enlist workers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Taco Bell and other fast-food restaurants across the city."
AZ won't set up health insurance exchange, ceding power to feds. Reuters: "About 17 states have told the Obama administration that they plan to move ahead on their own exchanges, while at least nine Republican governors in recent days have rejected the plan outright…"
Lawsuit seeks to force cap-and-trade. Politico: "The [Institute for Policy Integrity] cites Section 211 of the Clean Air Act as the main vehicle for its demands. In 2009, the institute filed a petition asking the EPA to use its Section 211 authority to 'institute a regulatory cap-and-trade system on the sale and manufacture of fuels used in vehicles.' EPA hasn’t yet responded to the petition."
