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: Ignorance Index
Part I: The Tax Lie
For the next several days, the Morning Message will be devoted to charts and short posts refuting some of the Orwellian, "ignorance is strength" falsehoods used by conservative leaders to control the economic debate.
Conservatives say they are prepared to blow up the economy by not lifting the debt limit if that is what it takes to avoid raising taxes on the rich – even to avoid closing loopholes that have hedge fund billionaires paying a lower tax rate than their chauffeurs. this basic conservative article of faith is simply not supported by evidence. Read more »
Right Remains Rigid In Debt Talks
House Republicans discuss next moves in debt-ceiling debate in extended closed-door meeting this morning. Politico: "[Their Tuesday morning conference] meeting — which typically runs less than an hour — is now scheduled to last from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. in a room in the Capitol basement. ... House Republicans have been left in the dark about where the debt limit negotiations stand. After a weekend at home, GOP leaders are expected to provide an update on where talks with the White House stand."
Is the tail wagging the House GOP dog in the debt negotiations? Looks that way, reports Time's Alex Altman: "During the high-stakes summit at the White House on Sunday evening, Eric Cantor was the primary voice speaking on behalf of Republicans interests, according to several accounts of the meeting. A senior Democratic aide briefed on Monday’s talks told TIME that Cantor again 'dominated' much of the negotiations on the Republican side, while Boehner 'hardly spoke.' ... Cantor’s stated resistance to a grand bargain freighted with revenue increases–and the perception that his position reflected the pulse of the GOP conference–likely influenced Boehner’s decision to scuttle his pursuit of a 'big deal' with Obama. ... “I think what we learned over this past weekend is that John Boehner…is not really speaker of the House,' New York magazine political columnist John Heilemann argues. 'Eric Cantor is the speaker of the House.'"
But Politico suggests it's Boehner who is using Cantor as his hard-line foil: The second GOP aide dismissed reports that Boehner dropped his bargain over the weekend under pressure from conservatives led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). On Monday, Boehner called on Obama to give up on tax hikes and showed solidarity with the tea party by invoking freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). "The American people understand that tax hikes destroy jobs,” Boehner told reporters at the Capitol on Monday. “As Sen. Rubio said last week, we don’t need more [taxes], we need more taxpayers.”
White House seeks help from Wall Street in debt talks, according to The Hill. "That effort seems to have gained some traction. Business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable plan to send a letter to Capitol Hill on Tuesday pushing lawmakers to avoid a default. A draft document obtained by The Hill warned that failure to raise the debt limit in time would throw markets into “disarray.” ... But early drafts have left some Republicans grumbling because business groups did not take a hard line against raising taxes or closing niche corporate tax breaks, which President Obama has demanded."
In the Senate, freshman Sen. Rob Portman is having outsized influence on the Senate GOP leadership. Politico: "Freshman Sen. Rob Portman’s invitation to a leadership meeting last week came during a crucial stage in the debt negotiations — just a day before Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his top deputy headed to the White House for another round of talks. When the discussion turned to raising the debt limit, Portman — sitting at the far end of McConnell’s conference room overlooking the National Mall — jumped in, making the case during a four-minute presentation that spending, not tax cuts, causes future deficits. It’s unusual access for a freshman senator, but Portman is no newbie to Washington. As a former budget director and trade representative for President George W. Bush, Portman has proved himself a valuable asset to top GOP debt negotiators. And he’s positioned to take some credit for contributing behind the scenes to the most significant issue of the year so far — a feather in the cap of a rising Republican star who some observers say could make a strong 2012 vice presidential contender."
Effort to push tax reforms during deficit talks stall at the starting gate. Bloomberg News: "Republican congressional leaders and President Barack Obama discussed a rewrite of the tax code over the past week and couldn’t resolve even the basic outline of what it should look like. They disagreed on revenue targets, the progressivity of the code, international taxation issues and the treatment of large businesses that aren’t currently taxed as corporations, according to two Republicans familiar with the talks."
James K. Galbraith offers a history lesson and an explanation of why the whole debt-limit debate is an unconstitutional "figment." "[The debt limit] was, from the beginning [in 1917], an exercise in bad faith and has remained so every single second to the present day. Today this bad-faith law is pressed to its absurd extreme, to force massive cuts in public programs as the price of not-reneging on the public debts of the United States. Never mind that to force default on the public obligations of the United States is plainly unconstitutional. ... The United States has many problems at the moment: a high-and-stubborn unemployment rate, a foreclosure catastrophe, a slowing economy that has not recovered and will not recover from the Great Crisis, and the ongoing challenges of infrastructure, energy and climate change. Fiscal crisis? The entire thing is a figment, made up of wise-men’s warnings repeated endlessly and linked to the projections of technicians at the Congressional Budget Office and elsewhere."
Former GOP White House policy aide Bruce Bartlett continues whacking fellow Republicans over deficit wrong-headedness: "It is starting to look like 1937 all over again. ... On the fiscal side, Roosevelt was under pressure from his Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, to balance the budget. Like many conservatives today, Mr. Morgenthau worried obsessively about business confidence and was convinced that balancing the budget would be expansionary. ... This combination of fiscal and monetary tightening – which conservatives advocate today – brought on a sharp recession beginning in May 1937 and ending in June 1938, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Real G.D.P. fell 3.4 percent in 1938, and the unemployment rate rose to 12.5 percent from 9.2 percent in 1937. ... The experience of 1937-38 should be a warning."
Conservative Job Killers
Today's House GOP to repeal legislation designed to make light bulbs more efficient will kill jobs, cost consumers billions. AP reports: "House Republicans are pushing legislation that would overturn measures in a 2007 energy act requiring efficiency upgrades in the old-fashioned incandescent light bulb ... The Obama administration, in a statement released Monday, said it opposes the bill because it would repeal standards that are driving U.S. innovation, creating new manufacturing jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The White House said the bulbs will save American households nearly $6 billion in 2015 alone. ... USA Today and Gallup in February and found that 61 percent judged the law to be good, and 31 percent bad. More than seven in 10 said they've switched to more energy-efficient light bulbs, and 84 percent said they were satisfied with their non-incandescent light bulbs."
Another job killer: The Right's war against the Affordable Care Act. Wendell Potter explains: "Many of America's best and brightest are locked in soul-killing corporate jobs because of this country's employer-based health care system. A lot of them undoubtedly would love to make a break from their corporate jails and start their own businesses. But they won't -- especially if there's a family to support -- because they fear losing health care benefits and not being able to find decent coverage on their own. ... The Affordable Care Act contains a number of provisions that should make it easier and more financially feasible for small businesses to offer coverage to their employees. ... But if the corporate-financed U.S. Chamber of Commerce is successful in blocking the implementation of Affordable Care Act's provisions that make it easier for small firms to attract talent, the U.S. undoubtedly will continue to fall behind other countries that have more equitable and less expensive health care systems. And job growth will continue at a crawl."
Slate asks, "Where's the shecovery?" "During the job-killing economic contraction of 2007 to 2009, men accounted for about seven in 10 positions eliminated. It was deemed the "mancession." But since the anemic recovery started in June 2009, men have picked up about 768,000 jobs and women have lost a further 218,000, according to a much-discussed Pew study that came out last week. It has turned into a "hecovery." ... "There is no ready explanation for why employment growth in these sectors has favored men," the study's author, Rakesh Kochhar, writes."
Breakfast sides
Sen. Orrin Hatch in HuffPo interview doubles down on insisting that shielding lower-income people from taxes is "perverse": "Hatch attracted heavy criticism last week for saying the poor need to "share some of the responsibility" for lowering the deficit while complaining that the rich already pay too much in taxes. Hatch backtracked somewhat on Monday, but still suggested that the rich have an unfair share of the load.... "[T]he point is this: No matter what these Democrats tell you, the wealthy and middle class are already shouldering around 100 percent of the nation's tax burden and 51 percent pay absolutely nothing in income taxes ... Furthermore, because of this perverse distribution of federal income taxes, there is no way to fix our deficit hole and start paying down the debt by increasing taxes only on the so-called rich."
IRS backs off probe into donations to 501(c)(4) political organizations: "The IRS, which said yesterday it was ending the probe, had sought to determine if the five taxpayers owed gift taxes for donations to nonprofit groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code. ... While Republicans took a high-profile role in questioning the IRS’s investigation, both parties are concerned about such questioning of donors. ... The IRS has maintained that politics played no role in the decision to scrutinize the gift tax donors. “All of the decisions in this matter were made by career civil servants without regard to any outside influence,” [IRS spokesman Frank Keith] said.
Conservative wants to create a red 51st state, "South California." AP, via Christian Science Monitor: "Republican Jeff Stone has asked fellow members of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to support a motion to bring together officials from ... 13 counties to discuss the idea. A vote on the proposed meeting is scheduled for Tuesday."
