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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 Talented Mr. Romney

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Economists are pressing Romney to explain how his plan works because the numbers don't add up. They don't know they're living in a unsettling mystery novel where nothing adds up. Other economists are staggered by the fact that Romney's tax plan would cut taxes for the richest among us while actually raising them for the 95 percent of Americans who aren't wealthy. The average American earning less than $200,000 would get a tax hike of $2,000, while the wealthiest 0.1 percent would would get an average tax cut of nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Who has the audacity to attempt a deception that big, that bold, that obvious? Who thinks they could could get away with something like that? Tom Ripley, that's who. Romney's plan takes everybody else's money and gives it to ultra-rich people like himself. Remember: What was once yours becomes his …"

Obama Hits Romney Tax Plan, Romney Lies About Welfare Reform

President slams Romney tax plan. The Hill: "President Obama on Monday said his opponent Mitt Romney's tax plan is 'like Robin Hood in reverse,' taking money from middle class families to benefit the wealthy. 'It's Romneyhood …He's asking you to pay more so that people like him can pay less.'"

Romney ad lies about HHS plan to give states opportunity to experiment with welfare reform. CNN: "'Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check,' the announcer [says.] … The Obama administration directive, issued July 12, allows individual states to experiment with changes to their welfare-to-work programs, which are federally funded. The intent, according to the directive, is to 'challenge states to engage in a new round of innovation that seeks to find more effective mechanisms for helping families succeed in employment.'"

Romney's tax returns aren't the only thing he's hiding. Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky: "Hiding his tax returns is bad enough. But also hidden are the names of his bundlers, certain Salt Lake Olympic records, and records from his tenure as governor. That’s roughly … oh, his entire career. It’s bad enough that he thinks he can make it to the White House in this fashion. But it’s worse that he wants to."

Republicans Could Lose House

Democracy Corps polling memo argues Ryan budget could sink GOP: "After hearing about the elements of the Ryan budget and an even debate, voters move away from these incumbents, shifting the edge on the vote to Democrats’ advantage—47 percent to 46 percent … To get from serious vulnerability to a wave election, progressives need to make these incumbents pay the price for the positions they have taken."

Single women may hold key to election. NYT: "Democrats say single women are highly motivated by women’s issues like threats to abortion rights, access to contraception and equal pay, arguing that what seem like social issues have a direct impact on their bottom line. But Republicans insist those concerns have been trumped by the poor economy. 'Rome is burning — our country’s burning — and you’re concerned about these issues?' asked Maureen Karas, southern director for the Nevada Federation of Republican Women. 'Birth control pills are like nine bucks. That’s like two lattes.'"

Power of small donors diminishing under Citizens United. Politico: "Roughly 2.5 million people have kicked in $200 or less to the various committees helping their candidate win the White House. But those 2.5 million people account for less than 18 percent of the total money haul."

Charles Postel explains "Why voter ID laws are like a poll tax" in Politico oped: "First, a voter restriction is like a poll tax when its authors use voting fraud as a pretext for legislation that has little to do with voting fraud. Second, it is like a poll tax when it creates only a small nuisance to some voters, but for other groups it erects serious barriers to the ballot. Third, it is like a poll tax when it has crude partisan advantage as its most immediate aim."

Jobless To Lose Aid

Extended jobless aid comes to the end. CBPP: "After this week, no state will provide additional weeks of emergency federal unemployment insurance (UI) payments through the Extended Benefits (EB) program … not because most states’ economies have improved to anywhere near pre-recession conditions, but because they have not significantly deteriorated in the past three years.

Fed split on stimulus. NYT "Eric S. Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said that the Fed should again expand its holdings of mortgage bonds and Treasury securities, and that the purchases should steadily continue until the Fed was satisfied with the health of the economy … But another Fed official, Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said in an interview with Reuters on Monday that he did not support additional monetary stimulus because he did not think it would reduce unemployment. He said the real drag on the economy was a lack of action by fiscal policy makers."

Breakfast Sides

"Study Finds More of Earth Is Hotter and Says Global Warming Is at Work" reports NYT: "The percentage of the earth’s land surface covered by extreme heat in the summer has soared in recent decades, from less than 1 percent in the years before 1980 to as much as 13 percent in recent years, according to a new scientific paper … The change is so drastic, the paper says, that scientists can claim with near certainty that events like the Texas heat wave last year, the Russian heat wave of 2010 and the European heat wave of 2003 would not have happened without the planetary warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases."

CFTC's Gary Gensler proposes reforms to prevent interest rate manipulation, in NYT oped: "Markets work best when benchmark rates are based on observable transactions … One solution might be to use other benchmark rates — like the overnight index swaps rate, which is tied to the rate at which banks lend to one another overnight — that are based on real transactions … borrowers, lenders and hedgers who rely on Libor would benefit from a process for an orderly transition."

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