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.
House Begins Reconciliation Process, Aims For Final Vote This Week
TNR's Jonathan Cohn argues that since Dem leaders can't be sure they have the votes for health care, public pressure is critical: " It’s not clear if that push will come. Recent polls show a clear change in public opinion: People are demonstrating more approval both of the Democrats and their reform bill. But, as far as I can tell, an enthusiasm gap remains. Conservatives hate the bill. Liberals, well, they’re still learning to like it."
House budget cmte begins the reconciliation progress. Swampland's Kate Pickert: "The House budget committee took a procedural step late Sunday night that opens the door to begin moving a reconciliation package on Monday ... Expect to see major procedural progress - or major stalls - happen every day this week."
W. Post lays out the expected schedule: "House Democrats expect to receive a final cost estimate by Monday afternoon, when the House Budget Committee is scheduled to vote on the reconciliation package. It would then go to the House Rules Committee, where Chairman Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) could package it with the $875 billion measure the Senate passed on Christmas Eve. The package is also expected to include Obama's proposed overhaul of the student-loan system. The full House is expected to vote on both measures by week's end, with the climactic moment coming as soon as Thursday but, more likely, Friday or Saturday, aides said."
Slate's John Dickerson finds GOP misreading and mistreating Sen. Byrd in their efforts against health care reform: "They cite the Senate's longest-serving member to support their argument that President Obama and Senate Democrats are breaking the rules to pass health care legislation. ... [But] Republicans don't need to guess at what the senator believes ... he wrote a letter to the Charleston Daily Mail [and] essentially endorsed reconciliation as Democrats plan to use it."
President campaign for health care in Ohio today. LAT: "The president ... plans to campaign for the measure in Strongsville, Ohio, on Monday. Natoma Canfield, a cancer patient and self-employed maintenance worker from the Cleveland suburb, wrote the president saying she no longer could afford healthcare after her insurance premiums rose to $8,500 a year. The decision forced her to choose between insurance and her home, and she decided to keep her house."
"House Democratic leaders are growing increasingly confident that they can avoid an impasse on abortion," reports Roll Call.
Swampland's Amy Sullivan reports that the Catholic Hospitals Association has endorsed the president's final health care proposal. "Among the charges lodged against the Senate's abortion language by opponents is the idea that it weakens conscience protections for Catholic health providers. The CHA's statement makes no mention of this concern..."
Swing Democrats hammered with multi-million dollar anti-health care ad campaign. NYT: "The coalition of groups opposing the legislation, led by the United States Chamber of Commerce, is singling out 27 Democrats who supported the health care bill last year and 13 who opposed it ... could total $30 million before week’s end ... the lawmakers Mr. Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi were trying to persuade to vote for the measure were taking a pounding in their districts."
MoveOn raising money to fund challengers to anti-health care Dems reports HuffPost.
W. Post edit board debunks myth that student loan reform, likely to be part of health care bill, is a "government takeover": "Opponents would make it appear as though Democrats want bureaucrats to destroy a functioning private market for federally backed student loans. In fact, the only reason any private company is in the business of originating such loans is because of government support, and propping up that artificial market is expensive..."
After health care, W. Post speculates that WH will prioritize financial reform and campaign finance over climate and immigration this year: "...although Obama expressed a commitment to work for energy and immigration reform, according to the meetings' [congressional] participants, he did not pledge to take the lead this year ... he made clear it was up to those in the room to come up with the votes."
Dodd Bill To Be Released Today
Dodd to announce financial reform proposal today. NYT: "... a consumer protection agency within the Federal Reserve ... In a concession to liberals, states’ attorneys general could sue violators of those rules ... in a nod to Republicans, the bill would allow a council of regulators, led by the Treasury, to overturn proposed consumer rules by a two-thirds vote ... [The Fed] would be entrusted for the first time with oversight of all of the largest and most interconnected financial companies, even if they are not banks... The bill would allow regulators, after a study, to implement elements of [the Volcker rule.]"
"Dodd has scheduled a markup for the week of March 22," reports The Hill.
GOP Sen. Bob Corker expects to like the bill .. and not vote for it. W. Post: "Corker said Dodd's new bill almost certainly would not get his and other Republicans' support. Still, he said it will be 'a huge improvement' over the initial proposal that Dodd released last November ... 'I think this last month has helped produce a far better product.'"
Calculated Risk sums up the early reports of the Dodd bill: "The derivative regulation is a positive step forward. I'm not sure about the systemic risk council, but this could be helpful. The consumer financial protection agency as part of the Fed is really no change."
NYT's edit board slams Fed for weak rules on credit cards: "The biggest flaw is that the proposed rules fail to regulate so-called 'penalty interest' charges, under which interest rates can be doubled or even tripled for infractions like late payments. The Fed tries to defend this omission by arguing that the proportionality provision in the legislation does not specifically refer to penalty interest rates. That’s a convenient interpretation if you own a credit card company."
China Digs In On Manipulating Currency
Chinese Premier denies currency is undervalued. W. Post: "Wen countered that he didn't think the yuan was undervalued and that the U.S. method -- seeking to enlarge exports through tweaking currency exchange rates -- was protectionist ... letting the yuan, or renminbi, appreciate again ... might increase the price of Chinese goods, thereby lowering America's $225 billion trade deficit with Beijing."
IMF reportedly deems China's currency undervalued, notes NYT in larger piece on how China is "skillfully using inconsistencies in international trade rules to spur its own economy at the expense of others, including the United States."
NYT's Paul Krugman backs tariff on China if they won't stop manipulating currency: " In 1971 the United States dealt with a similar but much less severe problem of foreign undervaluation by imposing a temporary 10 percent surcharge on imports ... it’s hard to see China changing its policies unless faced with the threat of similar action — except that this time the surcharge would have to be much larger, say 25 percent."
