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: Romney Makes Clear His Plan For Medicare, Partial Privatization
OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "Mitt Romney whipped out a whiteboard yesterday primarily to simplify and amplify his brazen lie that President's Obama health care law cuts benefits for seniors -- literally putting '$716B Cut' next to the word 'Seniors', when in fact Obama saves $716 billion in the cost of Medicare without cutting benefits to seniors. But in doing so Romney made clear that his position on Medicare contains the same feature as what made Paul Ryan's Medicare plan so toxic: a voucher system that would partially privatize Medicare."
Romney Writes Lies On a Whiteboard
Business Insider's Brett LoGiurato calls Romney's whiteboard presentation on Medicare, "One Of The Most Bizarre Moments Of The Campaign": "…, it didn't quite accomplish the mission it set out to do. He didn't offer many specifics to advance his policy plan forward. He offered pretty much no new information. In the end, it wasn't nearly as simple as the three words that ended up on Romney's plan: 'No change' and 'Solvent.' … The Obama campaign pushed back on this by saying that Medicare remains solvent for eight additional years compared to the Romney-Ryan plan."
New Obama ad takes on Romney-Ryan Medicare partial privatization plan. TPM: "The Obama ad uses AARP analyses of both the Ryan plan and Obama's health care law to craft a message aimed directly at seniors that suggests Medicare under Ryan-Romney will cost seniors more, while highlighting the waste, fraud and abuse savings under the law signed by Obama."
Ryan Begged For Stimulus Funds
Ryan busted after falsely claiming never to have solicited stimulus funds. NYT: "…Ryan said on Thursday it was a mistake to have requested funds in 2009 from the federal stimulus bill after voting against it. Mr. Ryan earlier denied asking for money from the $787 billion stimulus on behalf of companies in his Wisconsin district, contradicting a report by The Boston Globe on Tuesday that he wrote to the federal Energy Department requesting funds for two companies to develop so-called green jobs."
Ryan's initial attempt at denial contradicts past responses over requesting stimulus funds. W. Post: "The Wall Street Journal in 2010 reported that Ryan had also sought funds from the Department of Labor on behalf of a local group and asked his office to square that with his anti-stimulus rhetoric. 'If Congressman Ryan is asked to help a Wisconsin entity applying for existing federal grant funds, he does not believe flawed policy should get in the way of doing his job,' his office said at the time."
"Ryan budget would hurt poor and elderly, experts say" reports McClatchy: "According to the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, many of the programs targeted for $3.3 trillion in cuts, like Medicaid, food stamps, public housing and Medicare, anchor the nation’s safety net of public assistance programs for the poor, elderly and disabled … Ryan’s planned tax cuts favor the affluent. Those who earn more than $1 million annually would see an average tax cut of $265,000 and a 12.5 percent increase in after-tax income under Ryan’s budget plan, according to an analysis by the Urban-Brookings Institute Tax Policy Center."
Romney Claims He Never Paid Zero Taxes
Romney asserts, "I never paid less than 13 percent" on his taxes, but still won't release more returns. The Atlantic's David Graham: "So Romney pays a lower effective tax rate than 60 percent of Americans, and those who pay lower are the poorest 40 percent of the population.
"What’s really remarkable is that Mr. Romney now expects the public to accept his word and move on," says NYT's David Firestone: "…Mr. Romney doesn’t seem to understand that voters don’t automatically trust the assurances and promises of politicians. He and his wife seem genuinely shocked … this haughty trust-me attitude—why can’t we escape these pestering questions and run on our own obvious goodness and decency?—extends to the rest of Mr. Romney’s campaign."
FT investigates the anti-union origins of Bain: "The tale of Key Airlines spans the creation of Bain Capital in 1984 – spun out from the Bain & Company management consultancy … Bain bought the company on the cheap, rode a turn in the industry cycle and then sold for a remarkable price. A start-up pilots union was unlawfully suppressed, according to a federal court ruling … Bain’s management team at Key recognised that a union would be a problem – particularly because Bain was ready to sell Key, adopting a plan of liquidation for its holding company at the end of 1985."
Proof That Obama's Recovery Act Worked
The Atlantic's Robert Wright uncovers a graph that shows Obama's economic performance beat Europe and Japan: "… there's one simple operation that partly clarifies the picture, and it's especially useful when the economy suffers from troubles that are international in scope: compare the performance of the American economy to other similar economies … What do you see as of May [2009]? You see the sharp upward slope of the unemployment curve, which Obama inherited from the Bush years, begin to moderate. And within five months the unemployment rate has reached its acme, after which it drops considerably. Of course, it would be great if it had dropped further, but it would be a lot easier to blame its failure to drop further on president Obama had Europe's unemployment rate, in the same period, not risen by a full percentage point; or had Japan's unemployment rate fallen more sharply than, or even as sharply as, America's."
Politico details Obama's revitalization of antitrust enforcement: "Just ask Apple, Google, AT&T, Visa, MasterCard and H&R Block. And now you can add Verizon to the list. Obama’s Justice Department said Thursday it would approve the company’s plan to buy nearly $4 billion in wireless airwaves from other cable companies — but only with strict limits the department says are needed to protect consumers … Obama’s government lawyers say they have been so successful in suing industry titans that other companies have voluntarily changed merger plans or torn up pricing agreements to stay out of the courtroom."
CO2 emissions drop to 20-year low. AP: "…government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal … 'There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources,' said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado."
