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.
How Unified Is The GOP's Unified Front?
Previous GOP holdout now says she would filibuster Dodd bill as currently written. The Hill: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) emerged from a meeting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Monday to announce she would join a GOP filibuster of Wall Street reform ... [Democrats] had seen Collins as one of the most likely GOP votes in favor of a financial overhaul bill ... Geithner [also] met Monday with ... Sen. Olympia Snowe (R), who is also seen as a gettable vote on financial reform."
TPMDC's Brian Beutler finds Dems remain optimistic compromise can be reached: "Snowe, for instance, suggested this evening that it wouldn't take many substantive changes to win her support ... Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) told reporters that he and other members had expressed to their leadership that they want a bill to pass ... 'I think that we're closer than we ever were,' Sen Richard Shelby (R-AL), the GOP's top financial reform negotiator ... If Republicans do filibuster, Dodd added, 'then we go back and have other cloture motions and keep at it. I had six cloture motions on a housing bill two years ago.... And we got a deal on that.'"
Politico reports Dems are sticking with Dodd's liquidation fund, for the moment: "Democrats don't want to give up elements of the bill without hard commitments from Republicans to support the measure. By holding firm to the fund — which even some Republicans, including Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, say isn’t central to their opposition of the bill — Democrats are protecting themselves from having to make major concessions too soon."
Sen. Corker debunks his party's "bailout" talking point. ThinkProgress' DJ Carella: "Corker explained that all serious debate over the resolution fund concerns whether to 'pre-raise' the money in anticipation of a bank failure, or to require the financial industry to fund resolution after an institution has crashed. Corker called the rhetoric 'silly,' pointing out that 'either way, you’ve got to have the monies available to shut the firms down' without endangering the entire financial system."
Mitch McConnell misquotes Robert Reich, and Reich notices:: "No, Senator, I never said Dodd's finance reform bill contains a bailout fund. The fund in the Dodd bill is a $50 billion liquidation fund designed to keep the creditors of distressed banks from jumping ship so fast they'd cause widespread financial panic before the bank's operations could be wound down. .... I did write in one of my recent posts that the bill 'preserves the possibility that the Fed could launch another bank bailout.' That has nothing to do with the liquidation fund. It concerns a different provision of the Dodd bill that gives the Federal Reserve Board authority to open its discount window to healthy banks under its purview in order to protect taxpayers from loss during a major destabilizing event..."
Economics of Contempt argues GOP opposition to liquidation fund is Wall Street's behest: "Killing a 'pre-funded' resolution fund ... is the Street's #1 issue in financial reform. That might seem a bit strange at first, until you realize that the majority of the $50 billion would come directly out of the major dealer banks' profits over the next few years ... what I honestly believe happened is that when McConnell and John Cornyn had their infamous meeting with a group of Wall Street executives a couple weeks ago, McConnell and Cornyn asked what their #1 issue in financial reform was, and after being told it was pre-funding the resolution authority, McConnell and Cornyn basically promised to kill it."
Sen. Maj. Leader Harry Reid pressures McConnell to reveal details of Wall Street meeting. Politico: "'Since Republicans appear to be conducting backroom negotiations with these same people who took our economy to the brink of collapse, the public deserves to know what secret deals and carve-outs Republicans are offering Wall Street executives in exchange for their support,'” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said."
Wall Street showering Senate Ag Cmte members with money in advance of possible derivatives vote tomorrow. NYT: "...more than 1,500 lobbyists, executives, bankers and others have made their way to the Senate committee ... Agriculture Committee members have received $22.8 million in this election cycle from people and organizations affiliated with financial, insurance and real estate companies — two and a half times what they received from agricultural donors..."
Republicans on the S.E.C. voted against filing suit against Goldman Sachs. RBC's Mark Kleiman: "Yes, a bunch of Goldman partners have been Democratic contributors, and some have been or are elected officials and appointees. So what? The Democrats are standing with the public against the banksters – even when that means going after their own donors – while the Republicans are backing the banksters. That shouldn’t be hard to run on."
"Another big shoe to drop on Goldman" reports Newsweek's Michael Hirsch: "[Sen. Carl] Levin's staff has uncovered new documents 'that link certain actions to specific people' at Goldman, according to a senior legislative official who spoke on condition of anonymity ... Spokespeople for Levin said they were not prepared to discuss the nature of the probe, but his committee has been conducting several weeks of hearings and one is planned for April 27 on 'the role of the investment banks.'"
Tim Ferholz asks if the financial reform bill would have stop the Goldman fraud scheme: "So while this bill can't forbid what's already been forbidden (lying about your products) it does make it harder for conditions to exist where this kind of bet will work, and also easier for regulators to see these deals in action rather than after the crisis passes."
Drilling Revenue Splits Right-Leaning Senators, Threatens Climate Compromise
Three interior state Dems, and climate swing votes, announce opposition to sharing oil drilling revenue with coastal states. Greenwire: "Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia called 'revenue sharing' an ill-advised 'giveaway' of money that belongs to all U.S. citizens ... [Sen. Lindsey] Graham is trying to win some Republican votes for the [climate] bill. He has made it clear that revenue sharing is the price of getting members of his party to the table ... The trio did not threaten to vote against the climate bill if their wishes are not fulfilled, as their colleagues Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg did last week."
Coastal climate swing vote Sen. Mary Landrieu fires shot back. The Hill quotes: "If there’s no drilling, the interior states get no money ... They can have 100 percent of zero, or they can have 65 to 75 percent of something huge. Now let them go figure it out."
Some Dems still pushing to drop climate protection altogether from energy bill. The Hill: " A group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.) support bringing an energy-only bill to the Senate floor, and centrist colleagues such as Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) are sympathetic. But liberal Democrats led by Sens. John Kerry (Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.) have blocked the effort because environmentalists believe it will be virtually impossible to pass global warming legislation in the near future without hitching it to incentives in the energy bill."
Som enviro groups fighting to retain EPA authority in climate compromise. Mother Jones: "The House bill traded Clean Air Act authority for the new global warming law, but a number of activists warned that this would mean that while new coal-fired power plants might be built cleaner, it would leave a number of old, dirty plants unregulated. There was hope that the Senate bill would restore at least part of the authority ... but the conversation of late has indicated that it is on the chopping block ... 1Sky and other environmental groups want to make it clear that the Clean Air Act is non-negotiable."
Earth Day must focus on passage of a clean energy jobs and climate protection bill, says NRDC's Dan Lashof in Grist:: "The next step for our environment, our economy, and our security is a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill that adds 2 million clean energy jobs, cuts pollution by 2 billion tons, and saves 2 trillion dollars worth of oil imports. That may sound like a tall order, but those benefits are within reach if Americans join together to demand action as they did on the first Earth Day."
Duke Energy leaves Chamber of Commerce board, reports Wonk Room's Brad Johnson: "Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, a critic of the US Chamber of Commerce’s reactionary stance on climate policy, has left the lobbying giant’s board ... USA’s George Nolen, another critic of the Chamber’s climate opposition, has also left the board. Duke and Siemens are members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which helped develop the Waxman-Markey climate legislation that the Chamber opposed."
Conservative Kabuki Over Individual Mandate
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney now says he wouldn't repeal the individual mandate to obtain health insurance. Wonk Room's Igor Volsky: "On April 8th, Mitt Romney told a New Hampshire newspaper that the individual mandate was 'unconstitutional' and reiterated his pledge to repeal ObamaCare ... This week, however, Romney told Kavon Nikrad, a conservative blogger, that he does not support repealing the 'unconstitutional' individual mandate ... From the RightOSphere blog ... 'he does not wish to repeal these aspects because of the deleterious effect it would have on those with pre-existing conditions in obtaining health insurance.'"
The Heritage Foundation was happy to associate with Romney-care but not so much Obama-care. Slate's Timothy Noah: "It's no surprise that Mitt Romney bent himself into a pretzel to disavow the portions of Obamacare that derive from his own reform in Massachusetts. Romney is a politician ... But naif that I am, I figured the conservative think tanks that developed these same policies would, if they couldn't bring themselves to claim authorship, at least maintain a discreet silence. I was wrong."
Slooooow Economic Recovery
AP visits Twinsburg, OH, where no one is buying that the recession is over:: "For four years now, Julie Bittner has rung up customers in this little store ... she has watched the fortunes of a ransacked autoworkers' mecca slowly drain away. ... Some days, she says, not a soul comes through the door ... She's seen the headlines. The recession is ending! ... Let the spending begin. But in places like Twinsburg — where for so many the misery goes on, unabated — people aren't buying the rhetoric ... The hulking Chrysler stamping plant that once employed thousands will shut down forever in June, and the 400 or so workers left will scatter in search of a paycheck ..."
Time's Michael Scherer cautions politicians that there are more Twinsburgs: "The economy is getting better. ... Just 25 percent of the American people believe that the economy is getting better. ... These two facts are not contradictory. One can have a recovering economy that fails, at least initially, to bring meaningful improvement to the lives of most Americans."
Breakfast Sides
Sen. Budget Cmte Chair Kent Conrad drawing up austere budget resolution, prospects for passage uncertain. CQ: "Conrad will open that process Wednesday when the Budget Committee begins a two-day markup of a fiscal 2011 budget resolution. So far, the Senate is being more aggressive than the House in moving forward with the annual resolution ... Conrad said he believes that if he can produce a budget that shows the deficit dropping to 3 percent of GDP, it will be easier for the [White House debt] commission to focus on its other charge — drawing up proposals for dealing with the long-term growth in debt."
HuffPost's Marco Ceglie introduces us to "The Other 95%" -- those who received tax cuts this year: "On April 15th, alongside the Tea Party's Tax Day protest in DC, members of 'The Other 95%,' a new group we recently formed on Facebook, were on the Mall holding two huge signs reading 'The Other 95% Say Thanks For Our Tax Cuts, Obama!' Our members were initially motivated by a CBS News report showing that 95 percent of working Americans received a tax cut from Obama, but only 12 percent knew it. 'I didn't know it,' said Andrew Boyd, a writer, small business owner and one of our group's founders."
Conservative ally with contractors to block pension and sick leave for construction workers. CQ: "Construction contractors and their allies in Congress are mobilizing against possible new federal guidelines that they fear would give preference to bidders that meet 'work life' standards that go beyond labor law to include providing pensions and paid sick leave ... That [work life] effort has support from House Democrats including Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who has said she will introduce legislation if the White House does not act ... [The] Economic Policy Institute estimate[s] that 20 percent of federally contracted workers earn poverty-level wages and often do not receive benefits."
Business lobby sweating what the NLRB might do for workers' rights, reports Politico: "[GOP Sen.] Isakson is working with colleagues to draft legislation that would make it a federal law — rather than a regulation — to require unions to hold organizing elections. In an interview, NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman said that at best, the NLRB could tinker around the edges of current organizing rules by expediting union elections. But even that would have to be done through a process called rulemaking, which the board hasn’t exercised in decades."
