Progressive Breakfast - 1/27/2009

Jobs Rapidly Vanishing, Action Needed Now

W. Post assessment of the economy is stark: "The nation's employers, including some of its largest and most sturdy, announced plans yesterday to slash more than 55,000 jobs, a staggering one-day toll that highlighted how quickly layoffs are accelerating and how widely misery is spreading throughout the labor market."

Campaign for America's Future called on its supporters to "Call Congress NOW at 1-866-544-7573, and demand immediate passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," because "Conservatives are doing everything they can to delay and dilute the legislation. Yet quick, bold action on the economy is critical if we are to blunt the accelerating job losses of the year-long Bush recession."

Conservatives are looking to do the same to derail economic recovery. TownHall.com quotes Rep. Michelle Bachmann:"Trust me, they get skittish when their phones start ringing off the hook. We need you to literally melt the phone lines and tell them 'do not vote for the stimulus plan.'"

The Hill lays out the timing: "House Democrats hurriedly added the economic stimulus bill to a Monday evening Rules Committee meeting in a move designed to allow general debate on the legislation to begin Tuesday ... House Democrats altered their strategy, and decided to opt for two separate Rules Committee meetings: One on Monday night to consider the standing bill and one on Tuesday afternoon to consider the rules governing amendments. The House is still scheduled to vote on final passage of the bill Wednesday night. Until the Tuesday Rules Committee meeting, it will be uncertain how many amendments will be allowed to be debated on the floor."

OurFuture.org's David Sirota urges Dems to go bold on The Rachel Maddow Show last night:

Actual Anti-Poverty Action

CBPP gives the edge to the House over Senate in reducing poverty: "The House recovery plan contains a number of poverty-reducing provisions, three of which -- a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit and proposals to expand the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit -- would keep out of poverty about 1.1 million children who otherwise would be poor. Counting adults as well, these temporary tax provisions would keep a total of more than 2.5 million Americans out of poverty. The Senate’s similar but somewhat weaker set of provisions would keep more than 800,000 children out of poverty, about a quarter million fewer than the House bill but still a substantial number."

Ban on Pork(-sounding) Products

ProPublica reports that the House bill includes a clause that "prohibits stimulus funding 'for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool.'"

D-Day no likey: "This is only in there to rebut conservative arguments about "wasted" stimulus money, but it's absurd. Someone has to build that aquarium or zoo or golf course. That person gets a job, and spending money ...jobs that are more long-term and that multiply solutions by leaving something tangible behind or contribute to, say, reducing greenhouse gases are more desirable. But eliminating projects that may be shovel-ready because of PR concerns is just bad sausage-making."

AP reports on family planning funds: "House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation." TPM's Elana Schor reports: "Republicans Irate Over Expansion of Republican-Approved Program."

Transit Setback in the House

Streetsblog via Transportation from America reports that Rep. DeFazio's $2B transit amendment "was required to be withdrawn ... something to do with parliamentary issues." But, "Now the best hope for getting more funding for transit is Rep. Jerry Nadler's amendment, which would add $3 billion for transit to the stimulus bill. T4A suggests calling the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (202-225-0100) and House Appropriations Committee Chair David Obey (202-225-3365) to say Nadler's amendment must make it to the House floor."

A Real CBO Report!

Time's Jay Newton-Small: "Overall the CBO estimates that more than two-thirds, 64%, of the bill will be disbursed into the economy over the next 18 months ... more in line with the 75% OMB director Peter Orszag said would be spent over then next 18 months in a letter to Congress. But in looking at discretionary spending – the three-page portion that was leaked to the press, myself included, last week -- things look very similar. Only 41% -- up from the 38% in last week's version – of these funds, which involve the bulk of the infrastructure spending, will make it into the economy by the end of fiscal 2010, or $145 billion out of $356 billion. The stagnancy of these numbers shows that the CBO didn't redefine 'shovel ready,' and their definition is based on a narrow historical view as Scott Lilly explains."

Beat the Press' Dean Baker: "It will be interesting to see if the Republicans are as anxious to use these CBO numbers as they were of the numbers in the preliminary report. It will also be interesting to see if all the media outlets who highlighted the preliminary analysis give the same prominence to CBO's actual report."

Angry Bear's Bruce Webb goes deep into the numbers (via Economic Populist): "...if the premise is that the bill is simply laden up with spending on condoms and that too little is targeted at spending that will provide real stimulus, well that just doesn't survive encounter with the numbers. Near as I can see the spending is projected to be converted into infrastructure and hence jobs in about as fast as practicality allows. Where they can spend quick (schools, military bases, housing) they spend quick, where the nature of the project requires extended build out (clean energy, water projects, clean water, highways, mass transit) they project that it will be spent as fast as reasonably possible."

More Bad Conservative Ideas

CBPP rips Boehner-Cantor tax plan: "A House Republican proposal to cut income tax rates would provide its largest benefit to the top fifth of households and prove less effective as economic stimulus than the provision it would replace --President Obama’s 'Making Work Pay' tax credit."

NYT's Bob Herbert incredulous at the state of the GOP: "The Republican answer to this turmoil? Tax cuts. They need to go into rehab. The question that I would like answered is why anyone listens to this crowd anymore. G.O.P. policies have been an absolute backbreaker for the middle class ... The G.O.P. has successfully engineered a wholesale redistribution of wealth to those already at the top of the income ladder and then, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, dared anyone to talk about class warfare ... When the G.O.P. talks, nobody should listen."

Obama will listen congressional GOPers today, though one Dem "leadership" aide tells The Hill: “The issue here is that the legislation is moving and Republicans have a choice to make: work in a bipartisan way to see this legislation become law or continue to advocate for policies of the past that have resulted in millions of jobs lost and the American economy in crisis.”

More Conservative Lies

Politifact rips House Republican Whip Eric Cantor for "Pants on Fire" lie: "In an interview with Fox News on Jan. 23, 2009, Rep. Eric Cantor ... said that in a meeting with President Obama, Cantor asked if he 'could use his influence on this process to try and get the pork barrel spending out of the bill. I mean, there's $300,000 for a sculpture garden in Miami.' But do a word search on 'sculpture' in the 647-page stimulus bill now before the House and you'll come up blank. That's because it's not in there."

Media Matters gets Lou Dobbs angrier than usual after treating the selective leaking from the CBO as a complete report: "On the January 26 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs falsely claimed that in a previous item criticizing White House correspondent Ed Henry's January 23 report on President Obama's economic recovery package, Media Matters for America 'tr[ied] to conflate the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] numbers as somehow superior with the Congressional Budget Office [CBO],' which he asserted 'is an absurdity.' Media Matters did no such thing, merely pointing out that according to OMB director Peter Orszag, the CBO conducted only a partial analysis of the bill."

Also last night, Dobbs' reporter Ines Ferre relies on right-wing Citizens Against Government Waste to levy unchallenged false attacks against the economic recovery. OurFuture.org FLASHBACK: Exposing the hackery behind Citizens Against Government Waste.

Wonk Room: "Conservatives Peddle Myth That Stimulus Spends $275,000 For Every Job Created"

Heritage's Conn Carroll tries to claim the since Obama econ aide Larry Summers supported a "timely, targeted and temporary" strategy for early 2008 stimulus, his current support for a bolder plan is hollow. That ignores Summers changing his view in November because "the situation has deteriorated very substantially" and now a “speedy, substantial and sustained [plan] over a several-year interval" is necessary.

Health Care This Year?

D-Day: "So I guess Jim Clyburn, the House Majority Whip, would rather go slow with an incremental approach to health care reform ... [Health Care for America Now!] is asking South Carolinians to call Clyburn and urge him to reconsider his comments. His DC office is at (202) 225-3315."

The Hill has Speaker Pelosi with a different message: "A spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted Monday that the House would “take a major step” toward comprehensive health reform this year, a comment that appears to contrast with a member of her leadership team."

Can Dems Unify to Deal With Global Warming?

Marc Ambinder speculates on timing of global warming legislation: "The House will move the bill; Rep. Henry Waxman intends to get it out of his committee by Memorial Day ... But action in the Senate will be stalled for a while. Some powerful senators aren't sold that it's the best thing to do quickly. And the Obama administration does not seem to be inclined to pursue cap-and-trade over comprehensive health care reform during this time of crisis."

NYT looks at geographic divisions within the Dem caucus, ending on how the gap can/will be bridged: "'Every single wind turbine takes 26 tons of steel to construct,' [Rep. Ed] Markey said. 'A lot of new jobs will be created if we craft a piece of global warming legislation correctly, and that is our intention.'"

Meanwhile, the urgency to address climate change is even clearer. Climate Progress reports: "NOAA stunner: Climate change 'largely irreversible for 1000 years,' with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe ... gives the lie to the notion that it is a moral choice not to do everything humanly possible to prevent this tragedy, a lie to the notion that we can 'adapt' to climate change, unless by 'adapt' you mean 'force the next 50 generations to endure endless misery because we were too damn greedy to give up 0.1% of our GDP each year.'"

EFCA Watch

TPM's Matt Cooper sizes up the EFCA landscape: "Thus far, EFCA opponents have won the battle for elite opinion ... I suspect few folks really know about it but in general the public is in a pro-union mood ... Labor officials now believe that the bill will come up in the Spring, perhaps May or June, and that the administration and the president will indeed fight for it. While the White House has been somewhat chastened by the vigorous campaign against the bill, with some officials privately fearing that it could be their 'gays in the military,' the president, labor leaders believe, is committed to pushing forward with his support of EFCA and hopes to sign it into law this year."

AFL-CIO Blog: Sen.-Designate Gillibrand Supports Employee Free Choice Act