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Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.

Cruel Irony: Teachers May Face Layoffs, As Jobless Aid Nears Passage

Senate refuses to include deficit-neutral funding to avert teacher layoffs in war spending bill. House relents. CQ: "House Democratic leaders have decided to accept the Senate’s stripped-down supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and seek a different vehicle for domestic spending, including aid for local school districts ... [House leaders] will try to find other ways to appropriate the money before Congress leaves on its August recess ... One potential vehicle is a leftover package of tax break extensions [or] a slow-moving small-business incentives bill..." More from CNN.

Jobless aid extension expected pass after WV's Carte Goodwin sworn in this afternoon reports CNN.

HuffPost's Arthur Delaney finds Republicans are demanding what has never been done, pay for jobless aid by cutting funds for other services: "Unemployment insurance, like its name suggests, is insurance: benefits are financed through federal and state payroll taxes (FUTA and SUTA). During recessions, Congress gives the unemployed additional weeks of benefits and the federal government pays half the cost, and states can borrow from the federal Unemployment Trust Fund if they run out of money. When the economy improves, states are supposed to replenish their own trust funds and pay back the federal government via unemployment payroll taxes ... Rick McHugh, a staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project [said,] 'In the federal budget world, this does not count as "paid for," even if in the real world those benefits are going to actually get paid for by UI payroll taxes.'"

Obama may call for a further extension of jobless aid in November. HuffPost quotes WH Press Sec. Robert Gibbs: "I think it is fair and safe to assume that we are not going to wake up and find ourselves at the end of November at a rate of employment one would not consider to be an emergency."

Alan Blinder argues redirecting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy into jobless aid is deficit-neutral stimulus: "...instead of using the $75 billion to reduce the deficit, spend it on unemployment benefits, food stamps and the like for two years ... [That would] add almost $100 billion to aggregate demand over the next two years—without adding a dime to the deficit. That translates to about 500,000 more jobs each year."

President to urge Congress to pass equal pay enforcement law. USAToday: "Obama will announce his support for the Paycheck Fairness Act ... The bill would [put] gender-based wage discrimination on par with other forms of wage discrimination, such as that based on race, by allowing women to sue for compensatory and punitive damages, rather than just for back pay."

You Don't Need To 60 To Get Elizabeth Warren

Sen. Chris Dodd suggests Elizabeth Warren couldn't get confirmed to head Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bloomberg: "...Dodd said yesterday on NPR’s 'Diane Rehm Show.' 'Elizabeth would be a terrific nominee ... The question is, "Is she confirmable?" And there’s a serious question about it ... I don’t think there’s only one individual who can do this job.'"

OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage chastises Dodd and other Dems for flinching from a fight: "'Is she confirmable?' Well, who the hell knows? Virtually anyone Obama nominates these days faces a Republican hold or filibuster. So let’s have the fight ... much of the blogosphere, women’s and consumer and senior groups would mobilize big time in favor. Let Republicans stand with the banks against a strong director ... even if it is lost, it defines clearly just what side every Senator is on."

HuffPost's Shahien Nasiripour finds pending Wall St. reform law would let Treasury appoint Elizabeth Warren to set up consumer agency without Senate approval: "According to the bill's language, the Treasury Secretary has sole authority to build the new agency before it's ultimately transferred to the Federal Reserve. That includes anointing a person to head the effort on his behalf, and under his authority ... the legislation doesn't appear to contain a deadline for a Presidential nomination, experts say, which means Warren could start the agency from scratch, put her people in, begin cracking down on predatory and abusive lenders, and initiate a culture that would put consumers' interests above those of the nation's most powerful financial institutions."

SEC chief to testify in Congress today. AP: "Lawmakers may question whether the [$550M Goldman Sachs] settlement is a serious show of enforcement muscle by the SEC in the trail of the mortgage meltdown or just a blip for a firm that earned that much in about two weeks last year ... Schapiro says in her written testimony that the coming months for the SEC will be dominated by rule-writing for the new [Wall St. reform] legislation."

Reid On The Verge Of Unveiling Energy Bill

Sen. Reid says energy bill is almost ready. Politico Morning Energy: "'My bill is basically done,' the Senate Majority Leader told POLITICO as he left his office Monday evening, saying he was now looking for support from the White House and Senate Republicans. Reid declined to give details on the legislation but said he’d be bringing it up for discussion during today’s meeting with Democratic leadership and the larger 59-member caucus ... Whatever bill comes to the floor next week will be subject to only three to five days of debate before the Senate moves on to the Kagan confirmation, and then takes off for recess."

Sen. Kerry in final talks with reps from enviro groups and power companies. The Hill: "There are talks between some green groups and electric utility companies about including placeholder language in a Senate bill that would be a promise to have the Clean Air Act regulatory relief issue resolved during later bicameral discussions between the House and Senate."

Environmental Defense Fund sounds optimistic. NYT: "By week’s end the focus of the talks had moved to details like how baseline emissions would be calculated and whether the trading allowances for carbon dioxide emissions would be awarded free to utilities or auctioned off, or distributed in some combination of the two. 'These discussions have gone very well,' said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. 'There is a sense of momentum and progress.' ... the negotiations have stirred some skepticism in Washington. 'How many votes do they command?' one Senate staffer asked in a deadpan voice."

Change.org's Jess Leber warns against cutting a bad deal with utilities: "So what does a smart utility executive do? He looks to cut a deal. Executives reportedly pushed for 'relief' from air pollution advances as a prerequisite for going-it-alone on a climate bill. As a Duke Energy spokesman put it to The New York Times: 'It’s intuitive that these regulations affect the same equipment, so why not be comprehensive and do it all at once?' Comprehensive is one thing. A step backwards is entirely another, and so far it doesn't seem environmental groups have signed onto this ridiculous trade. Let's hope Democratic senators agree."

Fox News refuses to run ad in support of climate protection bill. Media Matters: "The new ad features Brigadier Gen. Steven Anderson who states that we must 'put Americans to work developing new energy technologies that will save lives overseas.'"

Automakers and oil companies joust which will have tougher standards to meet in Senate bill. The Hill: "The Big Three auto companies and the United Auto Workers have turned to Michigan’s Democratic senators ... to establish a low-carbon requirement for fuels, which is a mandate fuel providers would have to meet, unlike the fuel efficiency requirements faced by automakers ... [Sen. Reid] may want to avoid infighting between Democrats and elect to drop both that and tougher fuel efficiency language ... The [Big Oil-backed] Consumer Energy Alliance will argue in TV, radio and print ads in four Midwestern states starting Tuesday that imposing carbon restrictions on the industry is too much on top of renewable fuel mandates fuel providers are already facing."

Grist's Randy Rieland predicts the next phase of the Gulf disaster: "We've gone from a gush to a seep in the Gulf. ... This is the part where the lawyers and the lobbyists come in. ... Cameron International, the company that built the failed blowout preventer ... claims it shouldn't be responsible because BP had shipped the blowout preventer to China for modifications ... Oil industry lobbyists are swinging into action too, fighting behind the scenes to keep billions of dollars in tax breaks ..."

Ethanol tax credit may not survive. CQ: "Opponents of ethanol subsidies think they are closer than ever to blocking renewal of an expiring tax credit ... thanks to budgetary pay-as-you-go rules and a recent federal report that downplayed the effectiveness of the tax break ... the industry retains a formidable set of supporters in Congress — largely from Midwestern farming states — who plan to push hard to extend the tax credit."

Deficit Hysteria Fails To Undermine Social Security Support

Most reject Social Security cuts, but are expecting them. USAToday: "A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that a majority of retirees say they expect their current benefits to be cut, a dramatic increase in the number who hold that view. And a record six of 10 non-retirees predict Social Security won't be able to pay them benefits when they stop working ... resistance hasn't eased against steps such as raising the retirement age or increasing Social Security taxes. The only policy options that command majority support are imposing the payroll tax on all the wages of higher-income workers — the amount is now capped — and limiting benefits for wealthy retirees."

Paul Krugman debunks the conservative attempt to shift deficit blame from Bush to Obama: "First, they're hoping that you won't know that standard budget data is presented for fiscal years, which start on October 1 of the previous calendar year. So this isn't the 'last year of the Bush administration' — they've conveniently lopped off everything that happened post-Lehman — TARP and all. Second, they're hoping you won't look at what was happening quarter by quarter."

Robert Borosage reminds America has thrived when leaders ignored deficit hysteria, in Politico oped: "[After World War II, with] occasional exceptions, the country continued to run annual deficits, and the accumulated debt continued to rise. But the country grew at a faster rate, and the broad middle class — the triumph of U.S. democracy and the largest in the world — was forged ... U.S. politics then was as poisonous as now. The Republican Senate leader, Robert Taft, opposed virtually all of President Harry S. Truman’s efforts. Conservatives railed about deficit spending. The right conjured up preposterous conspiracy theories ... But a confident America was not distracted by the timid or the crazed."

Four House Dems form "Spending Cuts and Deficit Reduction Working Group." Politico: "Reps. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), John Adler (D-N.J.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) [plan to] propose major cuts to spending in areas like defense, energy, housing and agriculture that they say would save about $70 billion over ten years ... 'we have no support from our leadership, and to this point neither they nor the Republicans have put their money where their mouth is on spending cuts,' [Peters' press sec] said in an e-mail. 'We’re upset.'"

Sen. Carl Levin organizes small businesses to oppose offshore tax havens. NYT: "[The new coalition] will release a 25-page report that contends that American multinational corporations use havens to avoid $37 billion in federal taxes each year, a figure the groups call conservative."

Breakfast Sides

Elana Kagan expected to clear Judiciary Committee today. The Hill: "The only intrigue surrounding the vote is whether Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will break ranks with his six fellow Republicans and vote yes along with all 12 Democrats on the panel."

Immigration reform could provide opportunity to fix discrimination in health care reform. Politico: "Once undocumented immigrants move into a temporary protected legal status — which they would gain after a bill passes and while they apply for citizenship — the exchanges would open up to them because they would no longer be illegal ... proponents say they will try to relax other restrictions, including lifting the five-year waiting period for legal residents to sign up for Medicaid, which was vastly expanded under the health care law."

Washington Monthly's Steven Benen observes that Trent Lott has become the GOP's voice of reason: "Seven years later, Trent Lott is getting slammed by right-wing leaders for being too moderate. Something to remember the next time the David Broders of the world insist the political process would be much better off if Democrats simply worked in good faith with Republicans to find moderate solutions to national problems."

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