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MORNING MESSAGE: Individuals vs. Giant Corporations

OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "In a Sunday op-ed Arthur Laffer provides one of the funniest lines of the week, 'Right-to-work laws provide individual workers with greater freedom to negotiate the terms of their employment.' I almost spat out my coffee, thinking about what would happen to the worker who goes alone to management, demanding a raise and more vacation time. It's like you or me asking the cable company to show up at 10:30 sharp, and to take those added 'fees' off my bill right now! … My local newspaper, like most, regularly feeds its readers these right-wing 'you should work for less so the rich can be even richer' and 'if you tax the rich you won't have jobs' op-eds. … Since the alternative viewpoint is almost never presented, people over time come to accept it."

Romney Stuck On Defense

Romney to again attack Obama for something he did too. W. Post: "…the Romney team and its allies will say that the president has been a 'typical politician' and has demonstrated 'systematic favoritism' toward top campaign fundraisers by lavishing them with federal appointments and their companies with taxpayer money and special government deals … Obama campaign officials see this as a weak line of attack, in part because, they said, Romney played favorites by steering tax breaks to some companies over others as governor of Massachusetts."

NYT explores how long Romney really was at Bain: "On Sunday, Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, told CNN that the candidate had 'retired retroactively' from Bain more than two years after leaving in 1999 … Mr. Romney appeared to be leaving open the possibility that he would return to Bain. His leave was originally characterized as part time, and he told The Boston Herald in 1999 that he would be providing input on investment and personnel decisions in his absence … because he retained technical control of Bain Capital’s management and because his wealth remained heavily tied up with the firm, Mr. Romney’s name or signature appears on dozens of documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission between February 1999 and August 2001."

Documents shows Romney in charge as late as 2002. HuffPost: "A corporate document filed with the state of Massachusetts in December 2002 -- a month after Romney was elected governor -- lists him as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors, LLC 'authorized to execute, acknowledge, deliver and record any recordable instrument purporting to affect an interest in real property, whether to be recorded with a Registry of Deeds or with a District Office of the Land Court.'"

Obama campaigns lists unanswered Bain questions. Politico quotes: " … What did you do for this $100,000 salary you earned from Bain in both 2000 and 2001? … If, in fact, you did not veto any major investment decision during your 1999 though 2002 ownership, doesn’t that imply your broad consent of management’s decisions?"

Dems Hold Line On Taxes, As Grand Bargain Looms

Dems threaten to go over "fiscal cliff" without tax increases on wealthy. W. Post: "'If we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013,' [Sen. Patty] Murray plans to say [in a speech today.] … The speech comes less than a week after Obama assured Hill Democrats during a White House meeting that he would veto any attempt to maintain the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000 a year … Given the stakes, some Republicans are rethinking their opposition to higher taxes. In recent days, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and other GOP defense hawks have been talking with Democrats about raising cash by 'closing loopholes' to replace scheduled military cuts."

Romney's bio makes the case for progressive tax reform, says NYT's Paul Krugman: "…the entirely true charge that Mr. Romney wants to slash historically low tax rates on the rich even further dovetails perfectly with his own record of extraordinary tax avoidance — so extraordinary that he’s evidently afraid to let voters see his tax returns from before 2010. The equally true charge that he’s pushing policies that would benefit the rich at the expense of ordinary working Americans meshes with Bain’s record of earning big profits even when workers suffered … talking about Bain and offshore accounts is the only way to bring the real policy issues into focus."

Sen. Tom Coburn slams Grover Norquist to promote "grand bargain" on deficit reduction, in NYT oped: "What unifies Republicans is not Mr. Norquist’s tortured definition of tax purity but the idea of a Reagan- or Kennedy-style tax reform that lowers rates and broadens the tax base by getting rid of loopholes and deductions. It’s true that Republicans would prefer to lower rates as much as possible, and it’s true that Republicans believe smart tax reform will generate more, not less, revenue for the federal government. But Republicans would not walk away from a grand bargain on entitlements and tax reform that would devote a penny of revenue to deficit reduction instead of rate reduction."

Breakfast Sides

Conservatives shift tactics to undermine Affordable Care Act. Politico: "..an academic paper that says federal exchanges [in states that refuse to create their own] can’t give people subsidies to help pay for their coverage … that could effectively enable states to kill federal exchanges by empowering them to cut off the subsidies … any challenge to the exchange subsidies would have to target the Internal Revenue Service’s interpretation of the law’s premium subsidies provisions."

This is what climate change looks like, notes New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert: " because of the dryness, the U.S.D.A. declared more than a thousand counties in twenty-six states to be natural disaster areas. This was by far the largest such designation the agency has ever made. In the past month, as the severity of the situation has become apparent, corn prices have risen by more than forty per cent. Since so much corn is used to feed livestock, it’s likely that the increase will translate into higher prices for dairy products and beef … In late June, just as a sizzling heat wave was settling across much of the country—in Evansville, Indiana, temperatures rose into the triple digits for ten days, reaching as high as a hundred and seven degrees—wildfires raged in Colorado … Meanwhile, a 'super derecho'—a long line of thunderstorms—swept from Illinois to the Atlantic Coast, killing at least thirteen people and leaving millions without power."

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