Obama Warns Of Price Paid By Inaction On Health Care
Positive Senate reaction to Obama's first health care rally. LAT: "One Senate Democratic aide said Obama's out-of-town stops are helpful in that they create political space for members to cast a vote in support of the bill. 'He still has a powerful bully pulpit and he's still our best spokesman,'... Obama has settled on a simple narrative: Ordinary people are being victimized by profit-minded insurance companies."
WH emphasis on rising costs puts "price" on inaction. W. Post "'Part of the motivating factor here is letting members of Congress know there's a price to pay for failure,' White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday in an interview. 'And for the public, it's important to remind them that there are premium increases of 40 percent for as far as you can see if nothing is done.'"
Top insurance lobbyist tries to shift blame for massive rate hikess, reports Politico, blames legislation for insufficient cost controls.
Why not trust state insurance regulators? Because many shill for the insurance industry. NYT interviews several echoing lobbyist talking points opposing WH plan to restrain rate hikes.
Campaign for America's Future launches grassroots effort to demand "up-or-down" vote on health care reform.
HCAN's Jason Rosenbaum preview's today's "mass citizen's arrest" of the insurance companies: "Thousands of people will descend on the insurance companies, who are having a conference in DC and plotting how to kill health reform at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on 22nd Street. We're going to shut down their conference and stop them and business as usual, and we'll do whatever it takes to succeed."
Rep. Bart Stupak sounding optimistic about an abortion compromise reports Swampland's Michael Scherer.
Survey by The Hill of 100 possible Dem "defectors" finds 6 former "No" votes and 1 "Yes" considering switches. Politico finds two more former "Yes" votes now undecided.
Cloture Vote Today To Advance Long-Term Jobless Aid
Cloture vote expected on long-term unemployment insurance, state aid to fund Medicaid. AP: "...the measure would add $107 billion to the deficit over the coming decade. Democrats have labeled most of the bill an emergency measure, exempting it from stricter budget rules enacted just last month ... Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, provided crucial help last week to keep the measure out of another procedural tangle, and Democrats sound confident they will prevail."
W. Post interviews the people who barely survive thanks to unemployment insurance and the conservatives who hate them.
Provisions to offset cost with taxes on Wall Street execs fail to be included. CQ: "...as the cloture vote nears, controversial amendments ... now seem unlikely to be considered. That includes a closely watched proposal from Jim Webb, D-Va., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to impose a tax on bonuses paid in 2009 to [bailed out] executives ... The House’s version of the tax extenders bill paid for itself by changing the tax treatment of the 'carried interest' income of private equity fund managers ... but that idea continues to have relatively little support in the Senate."
Dean Baker debunks conservative talking point that business won't hire because Obama's agenda breeds "uncertainty": "...employers here can lay off anyone they want, any time they want, with no restrictions whatsoever..."
Robert Reich sounds the alarm over the fiscal crisis facing our schools: "... the federal government should give states and local governments interest-free loans to make up for all school and university budget shortfalls ... A tiny one half of one percent tax on all financial transactions would generate about $200 billion a year ... enough to fund early childhood education, smaller K-12 classes, and lower tuitons and fees for public higher education."
Economist's View's Mark Thoma wants additional pressure put on states to stand with schools: "Once help in some form is available to the states, I'd consider going even further and penalizing states in some way if they reduce educational services to balance their budgets during the recession..."
Fed May Lose Some Reg Authority Over Banks
Fed may retain authority over large banks but not small banks. NYT: "Several high-ranking members of the Senate Banking Committee have reached a tentative consensus on a plan that would strip the Federal Reserve of regulatory powers over all but the very largest banks, those with more than $100 billion in assets ... The vast majority of the bank holding companies would be overseen by a regulatory agency formed from a merger of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees national banks, and the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates savings and loans ... Regulation of the state banks would go to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ... The Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and presidents of the Fed’s district banks have strongly opposed such a move ..."
Calculated Risk notes fervent banker opposition to any consumer protection agency: "...Andrew Ross Sorkin brings us this quote in the NY Times '[Edward L. Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association] says, “We don’t care where you put it,” adding that their position has always been “we’re totally against it.”' That sure makes it clear ... this one is simple - if it is not independent, don't bother. Anything else is failure."
Payday lenders seen as winning exemption in Dodd-Corker deal. Politico: "Payday lenders, check-cashing outfits and rent-to-own stores operate, for all practical purposes, free from federal regulation — and President Barack Obama wants to change that with a consumer agency that spans the world of finance from high to low ... [But] The draft legislation being hammered out by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee is widely expected to shield most nonbanks from the enforcement powers of the new consumer protection body ... Some critics said they believe Corker, Dodd’s top Republican negotiating partner, has pushed for the exemption because Tennessee is home to powerful payday-lending interests..."
Treasury meets with econ bloggers. Reuters' Felix Salmon offers optimistic takeaway: "...the message from Treasury was that financial reform is not dead in the Senate, and that in fact on some matters, including derivatives reform, there’s real hope that the Senate can put something together that’s even stronger than what the House passed. I’ll believe it when I see it, but the general idea seems to be that so long as something gets out of committee, the final bill might actually have some teeth."
HuffPost's Ryan Grim emphasizes Treasury opposition to Fed audit: "The Treasury Department is vigorously opposed to a House-passed measure that would open the Federal Reserve to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a senior Treasury official said Monday. Instead, the official said, the Treasury prefers a substitute offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), and would like to see it enacted as part of the Senate bill. The Watt measure, however, while claiming to increase transparency, actually puts new restrictions on the GAO's ability to perform an audit."
Poor US regulation leads Europe to bar Wall Street from "lucrative" bond sales. The Guardian: "'Governments do not have the confidence that the excessive risk-taking culture of the big Wall Street banks has changed and they still cannot be trusted to put the stability of the financial system before profit,' said Arlene McCarthy, vice chair of the European parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee..."
Direct Student Lending May Pass Along With Health Care
Bank lobby furiously trying to prevent direct student lending from being inserted into reconciliation bill. The Hill: "Senate Democratic leaders have decided to pair an overhaul of federal student lending with healthcare reform, according to a Democratic official familiar with negotiations ... But leaders may have to reverse themselves if they receive strong pushback from Democratic colleagues who represent states where lenders employ hundreds of constituents."
Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo debunks Sen. Lamar Alexander defense of massive subsidies to private student lenders: "The op-ed has plenty of scaremongering about Washington takeovers and long lines for student loans, but it doesn’t acknowledge the simple fact that the government already makes millions of loans every year, in a process that does not look anything like waiting in line at the DMV."
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow tells Sen. Alexander it's the private lending system that's a bureaucratic mess: "I recently helped my son choose an institution for his student loan and, trust me: It's a rat's nest of confusing information, different loan models with no tools for side-by-side comparison, and runaway hucksterism."
WH-Senate Meeting On Clean Energy Today
Bipartisan group of Senators to meet with President on energy policy today, reports The Page. GOPers include Collins, Graham, Gregg, LeMieux, Lugar and Murkowski.
Big Oil backing Kerry-Graham carbon fee in hopes it will be rejected by public. Wonk Room's Brad Johnson: "...the oil industry likes the idea of legislators embracing a carbon fee plan — a plan originally proposed by oil companies — because they’ll be able to blame 'U.S. efforts to deal with climate change' on high gas prices."
EPA taking harsher tone on Rockefeller bill to suspend climate regs. The Hill: "EPA had a cautious response (or non-response) last week ... But EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson reacted more boldly on Monday ... “I am not in a position where I am going to stand here and support the idea of EPA not being able to use the Clean Air Act ... The energy of the Senate on this issue would be wonderful if it would be put towards new legislation to do something."
EPA's Jackson also criticizes narrow energy bill. The Hill: "EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Monday that moving away from a broad 'economy-wide' climate bill could hinder private sector investment in low-carbon technologies."
New report finds international trade accounts for nearly 25% of carbon emissions. Time: "Climate-change critics like Republican Senator James Inhofe may rail against China, but the PNAS paper shows that while Beijing may be leading the world in carbon emissions, that output is in large part due to the fact that it is using energy to make clothes, cars and toys for the rest of us. It also demonstrates that Europe — whose per capita carbon footprint is less than half that of the U.S. — essentially imports some of its green virtue from abroad by outsourcing its carbon emissions."
House fears that Senate climate approach will blow up their own delicate work. Mother Jones: "...some House lawmakers worry that the Senate will abandon the hard-won balance they struck between environmentalists and industry. Their fear is that if the Senate starts over, it will go back to negotiate with the special interests and give away the store in the process —resulting in even more handouts and less-ambitious curbs on carbon."
NYT suggests lessons to be learned from Spain's solar push: "In its haste to create a solar industry, Spain made some miscalculations: solar plants can be set up so quickly and easily that the rush into the industry was much faster than anticipated. And the lavish subsidies inflated Spanish solar installation costs at a time when they were rapidly decreasing elsewhere — in part because of increasing competition from panel makers in China, but also because higher volumes produced economies of scale."
