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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: Will Chamber Spend To Pass Infrastructure Bank?

OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "This week, an actual jobs idea garnered bipartisan support. Sens. John Kerry (D), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and Mark Warner (D) teamed up to introduce 'The BUILD Act' which would create a $10 billion 'infrastructure bank' ... Both the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce presidents came to the unveiling event to endorse the legislation ... My question is: will the U.S. Chamber of Commerce step up, and spend the kind of money to pass the Build Act as it did to kill health care reform ($86 million) and elect a Republican Congress ($31 million)?"

GOP Jobs Forum Missing Jobs Ideas

House Republicans host one-hour "jobs forum," fail to offer any jobs ideas. W. Post: "The jobs forum and economic report — as well as the inclusion of the word 'jobs' in a host of their recent speeches and releases — point to a concern among House Republicans that the message they ran on last year may have gotten lost amid the budget battle."

Policy riders main obstacle to final deal to keep government open. The Hill: "Fifty-four House Republicans broke with party leadership to oppose the three-week stopgap measure the House approved on Tuesday. Many cited the absence of provisions banning funds for the healthcare law and Planned Parenthood, the abortion-rights group."

Tea Party activist leaders threaten to oppose Republicans who backed stopgap measure. USA Today: "Since voting for the short-term spending bill, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois freshman who received Tea Party support, said he has been called out by Tea Party activists and accused of being a 'RINO' —Republican In Name Only. Other Tea Party members who voted for the bill include Reps. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Bobby Schilling of Illinois."

House votes to end $1B program restoring abandoned property and revitalizing communities. AP: "The Bush-era program has been embraced by the Obama administration at a time of mounting foreclosures as a way to prevent neighborhoods from decaying ... the bill is the third of four bills ending federal housing programs that Republicans have been moving through the House ... The White House has threatened to veto them all."

Gov. Barbour shows what happens when you pretend you won't raise taxes, finds W. Post's Ezra Klein: "Barbour, to keep people from noticing his tax hikes, ended up passing some fairly regressive, narrowly targeted, economically inefficient taxes. He still had to raise taxes, but he ended up doing a worse job of it. And ... Barbour had to make extremely deep cuts in public services such as education."

White House budget director says deficit cannot be closed with cuts alone. Bloomberg quotes: "There is going to have to be a serious conversation with everything on the table in terms of revenues and mandatory spending."

22 Senate GOPers threaten to reject raise in debt limit without cuts to Social Security and Medicare, reports Politico.

Sen. Maj. Leader Reid rules out Social Security cuts. The Hill quotes: ""It is not in crisis at this stage. Leave Social Security alone. We have a lot of other places we can look that is in crisis. But Social Security is not."

Walker Grapples With Polling Collapse

Gov. Scott Walker defends his union-busting by arguing that federal employees have it worse in W. Post oepd.

Independents flee Walker. The Hill: "Democrats believe the fight over public-sector unions represents an opportunity for the White House to move independents back to President Obama for the 2012 election ... Walker, who won the independent vote in 2010, has seen his disapproval rate among Wisconsin independents jump to 59 percent, according to a survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic polling firm."

Conservatives fear they're being out-organized in Wisconsin. HuffPost: "A conservative activist working inside the state on recall efforts was even more explicitly distraught. The Wisconsin Republican Party, the operative said, was not lending resources to the recall campaign groups had launched against Democratic Senators, in turn causing those groups to narrow their target list down from eight lawmakers to just three."

Second lawsuit filed to overturn Wisconsin anti-union law reports AP.

Gov. Kasich fizzles in town hall as he tries to sell austerity budget. W. Post: "... his performance was met with only sporadic applause from the crowd of nearly 900. Kasich received tough questions from Republicans and downright skepticism from Democrats as well as teachers and other public workers who say his proposals would gut schools and government services ... Hope Rummell, a police officer from Alliance, Ohio, who voted for John McCain in 2008 but is alarmed by what Republicans are doing in her state now [said,] 'Nobody gets rich being a police officer or being a fireman.'"

"Targeting Working Families for State Budget Cuts Neither Smart Nor Necessary" reports CBPP.

Warren Faces Down Hostile GOP Grilling

Elizabeth Warren defends consumer bureau. Politico: "Lawmakers grilled Warren on who would oversee the bureau, whether Congress should have more oversight and if the agency is worthwhile ... But Warren argued that had her new agency existed before the 2009 financial meltdown, 'we would not be in the mess we are in today.'"

Slate's Timothy Noah provides the ultimate debunking to charges against Warren of excessive power: "The CFPB hasn't done anything yet ... The CFPB doesn't open for business until July 21."

GOP begins effort to repeal Wall St. reform, piecemeal. Politico: "Republicans clearly want to strike at the heart of banking reform with legislation attacking new regulations on derivatives, credit rating agencies and private equity firms. But their piecemeal approach suggests they are trying to do so without appearing to favor Wall Street over Main Street."

GOP Gives Up On "All Of The Above" Energy Strategy

Dems propose multiple measures to deal with gas price spike. The Hill: "One idea comes from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who wants the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to act immediately to limit excessive price speculation in the oil markets. Another comes from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has urged the State Department to press oil-producing nations to increase their production ... A third idea, put forward by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), would give the Justice Department authority to prosecute OPEC member nations that collude..."

Republicans give up on "all of the above" talking points to "drill, baby, drill." The Hill: "[Rep. Doc] Hastings told reporters Wednesday that he's planning separate bills to speed up oil-and-gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, open other offshore regions to drilling and boost onshore development ..."

Time's Bryan Walsh explores what would the cost be if we pulled the plug on nuclear power: "According to rough calculations from Josh Freed of Third Way—a centrist Democratic think tank—replacing all nuclear generation with coal would add 790 million metric tons to the atmosphere, enough to increase the U.S. carbon footprint by 14% ... As Bradford Plumer writes in the New Republic, it's not impossible [to rely on only renewables], but it's not easy either: 'We would need nearly four million five-megawatt wind turbines—i.e., turbines twice as big as those currently on the market. (China just built its first five-megawatter last year.) Plus 90,000 large-scale solar farms—for reference, there are only about three dozen in existence now. Plus 1.7 billion three-kilowatt rooftop solar systems—that is, one for every four people on the planet. But it's doable.'"

EPA proposes standards to sharply curtail toxic emissions from power plants. W. Post: "The plan would force plants to purchase scrubbers and other equipment to prevent 91 percent of mercury from coal from being released into the air ... [Industry lobbyists cited a] report estimating that every $1 billion spent to comply with pollution standards will put 16,000 jobs at risk ... [But it] did not consider costs that would be passed on to consumers by companies and the number of construction jobs that would be created by companies that install the cleaning equipment."

NRDC's John Walke tallies up the benefits: "...are projected to save as many as 17,000 American lives every year by 2015. These standards also will prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and there will be 11,000 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children every year ... [They also will] yield monetized benefits of $59 billion to $140 billion annually, compared to annual compliance costs of approximately $10.9 billion."

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