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.
Scramble To Stimulate Something
President to tout green stimulus today in KC. Earth2Tech: "President Obama on Thursday plans to swing by Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corp., a company working with government backing on electric trucks for commercial fleets. Reportedly the President will use his visit ... to tout stimulus grants as a means for boosting private investment and creating jobs ... Will Smith’s IPO actually happen? We’ll have to wait and see. But the emergence of a sustainable electric vehicle business nourished into life through stimulus funds would sure be an accomplishment for the President to tout."
WH leaning on corporations to quit hoarding and start investing. WSJ: "Among the new initiatives is a renewed effort to get big corporations to unlock some of nearly $2 trillion in cash they are holding as a hedge against uncertainty over the economy and government policy."
Federal Reserve rethinking need for additional economic action, but only "modest" measures: "Top Fed officials still say that the economic recovery is likely to continue into next year and that the policy moves being discussed are not imminent ... One pro-growth strategy would be to strengthen language in Fed policy statements that the central bank's interest rate target is likely to remain 'exceptionally low' for an 'extended period.' ... Another possibility would be to cut the interest rate paid to banks for extra money they keep on reserve at the Fed from 0.25 percent to zero ... Some economists have encouraged the Fed to launch a new asset-purchase program ... Fed leaders view such a strategy as likely to have only a small impact on the economy and as carrying a risk of slowing growth."
"Recovery Summer" soldiers on despite weak economy. The Hill: "Obama and his Cabinet officials will fan out across the country over the next few days to spread the message to voters about how effective their $787 billion recovery plan has been, an effort they’re calling 'recovery summer.' ... As Obama travels Wednesday to a Kansas City, Mo., truck manufacturer and delivers an address on the economy Thursday in Las Vegas, economists and even administration officials say there is very little for him to brag about."
"Rich people have solution to economic crisis: Make lazy poor get jobs" fiercely reports Salon's Alex Pareene: "At the Atlantic Magazine's 'Aspen Ideas Festival,' ... Real estate tycoon Mort Zuckerman -- an intellectual nonentity who buys newspapers and magazines for the express purpose of pretending at being a Serious Public Thinker -- and historian Niall Ferguson -- a neo-imperialist who excuses or whitewashes atrocities done by empires in the name of market liberalization and who parlayed his scholarly expertise into a gig as an idiotic right-wing (occasionally blatantly racist) columnist -- apparently successfully convinced Barbra Streisand and James Brolin that our current economic woes have been caused by Obama's hatred of business and that the only solution is to 'remove the incentives for idleness.'"
Move to improve accuracy of official poverty criteria riles conservatives. Stateline: "...a number of states have become convinced that the federal figures actually understate poverty, and have begun using different criteria ... conservative economists are warning that a change in the formula to a threshold that counts more people as poor could lead to an unacceptable increase in the cost of federal and state social service programs ... Conservatives have consistently argued that if safety-net programs were taken into account, the poverty rate would be much lower ... advocates for the poor have argued that poverty counts would be much higher if the cost of housing, child care and other expenses were factored in ... the Obama administration said it would use the [National Academies of Science] 1995 guidelines to update the federal government’s poverty calculation [unchanged since 1963] and promised to unveil the first new 'supplemental poverty measure' in September of 2011."
Obama Backs New Trade Agreements
President announces push to ratify trade agreements. NYT: "Mr. Obama said in Toronto last month that he intended to make a new push for the South Korean agreement, and on Wednesday he pledged to press ahead with [Panama and Colombia] pacts as well. ... Democrats have expressed concerns about [South Korea's] restrictions on automobile and beef imports from the United States — concerns that Mr. Obama has vowed to address before sending the agreement to Congress for passage."
OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage criticizes trade strategy: "The [South Korea] treaty is an archetype of the old order, an imbalanced 'free trade' treaty advertised as creating jobs that will do little to affect the oligopolistic structure of Korean markets that systematically disadvantages US exports. The president would have been wise to start over, and use the Korean negotiations as a precursor for how to deal with China. Instead, the president's endorsement, a dutiful recitation of free trade pieties, is a tribute to the free trade priesthood that has hounded him to return to the faith. Like Galileo prosecuted by the Church, he avows that the sun does revolve around the earth."
Ian Fletcher busts the myth of the global economy that lets politicians "off the hook": "In reality, the world economy remains what it has been for a very long time: a thin crust of genuinely global economy ... over a network of regionally-linked national economies, over vast sectors of every economy that are not internationally traded at all (70 percent of the U.S. economy, for example). On present trends, it will remain roughly this way for the rest of our lives ... The American people are being force-fed a concept that lets their leadership off the hook. How, for example, can this leadership be expected to provide jobs if the omnipotent forces of globalization trump anything it might do?"
Some Deficit Hysterics More Hysterical Than Others
TNR's Jonathan Cohn keeps finding "deficit hawks" that want more stimulus now: "Conservative opponents of extending job benefits frequently say they are merely trying to be careful with taxpayer dollars--that they'd support an extension if only Democrats would agree to pay for it. Howard Gleckman, a strong fiscal conservative, calls foul over at TaxVox: 'It is pretty clear the economy still cannot stand on its own feet, and nearly all analysts agree that unemployment benefits are a strong stimulus.'"
Paul Krugman notes that economically-damaging austerity measures may not even reduce the budget deficit: "... failing to extend unemployment benefits may actually end up increasing the deficit in the longer run, by pushing marginal older workers into disability ... There’s also the negative effect of a depressed economy on business investment. There’s the waste of talent because young people have their lifetime careers derailed ... if the economy is weaker in the long run, this means less revenue, which offsets any savings from the initial austerity ...I’m not saying that government spending always pays for itself ... These kinds of effects are specific to a liquidity trap situation."
Eastern European leaders are discovering that austerity is not the only option. FT's Michael Hudson: "Most leaders therefore find currency devaluation so unthinkable that, at first glance, austerity seems to be the only choice. [But] austerity prompts strikes and slowdowns, which, in turn, shrink the domestic market, investment and tax receipts ... some of eastern Europe’s leaders have begun to realise that there is, in fact, a third option: radical reform of the tax system ... Lowering taxes on wages would reduce the cost of employment without squeezing take-home pay and living standards. Raising taxes on property, meanwhile, would leave less value to be capitalised into bank loans, thus guarding against future indebtedness."
Salon's Joan Walsh trashes President for embracing the politics of deficit hysteria: "I'm not sure it's possible to be both craven and politically stupid at the same time, but the Obama White House may yet show us how."
"Defense Contractor: It’s ‘Important’ That Taxpayers Keep Wasting Money On Weapons System Nobody Wants" observes Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo.
Christopher Edley proposes allowing states to borrow from the federal government, in NYT oped: "States already receive regular federal matching grants to help pay for Medicaid, welfare, highway construction programs and more ... Congress should pass legislation that would allow a state to simply get an 'advance' on these future federal dollars ... The Treasury Department ... could be assured of repayment (with interest) by simply cutting the federal matching rate by the needed amount over, say, five years ... What would this cost the federal government? Nothing."
Carbon Cap Cuts Deficit. Will Deficit Hysterics Care?
CBO finds Kerry-Lieberman carbon cap will reduce the deficit. Ecocentric's Byran Walsh notes a scaled-back measure may not: "...the CBO found that the bill would actually reduce the budget deficit by about $19 billion over the 2011 to 2020 period ...auctions of carbon allowances under the bill ... would raise government revenue by about $751 billion, more than bill would hike government spending ... [But] Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations has written that a utility-only cap could have fewer sources of revenue because the carbon market itself would be much smaller than with an economy-wide cap. It'd be ironic if, in trying to craft a climate bill that is less ambitious and costs less, the Senate actually produces one that's a greater drain on the budget."
CBO report may give comprehensive bill a boost. The Hill: "The CBO report could give the legislation a boost among deficit hawks before lawmakers return from recess next week ... The score could be particularly appealing to Midwestern Democrats, who have raised fears that the bill would be too much of a tax on the economy..."
If a comprehensive bill isn't already dead. Politico: "Environmental groups have also conceded they lack momentum for the full Kerry-Lieberman proposal that emerged last month ... several conservation groups are now leaning on Obama to step up his efforts to pass a climate bill with a cap on power plant emissions during the dwindling amount of time before the midterm elections."
Possibility of energy bill without carbon cap splitting clean energy coalition. Politico's Morning Energy: "It seems increasingly likely that whatever energy bill comes to the Senate floor in the coming weeks will be built not around a carbon price but rather around the renewable electricity mandate of Jeff Bingaman’s ACELA bill ... Plenty of enviros and a bloc of liberal Dems still say they view an energy-only bill as a failure, and will withdraw their support if it comes up. At least one group, the Alliance to Save Energy, which will see its agenda of new energy-efficiency provisions met either way, says that’s where they’ll part company with many environmental groups ... Also fine with half a loaf are many in the wind and solar power industry ... Next Wednesday, 14 execs from the wind power industry will meet with senators and ask them to get behind a final product with a renewable power standard – and to move it fast."
Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard incredulous that no one in the Senate knows what will be in the bill that will get real consideration next week: "...just days before the July session resumes, no one seems to have any idea where things are headed. 'Staff are preparing options for members to review next week but no decisions yet,' said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. 'I don't have a sense, and I'm not sure that anybody firmly has a sense, of what is being brought up and when,' said a Democratic aide ... Without some direction from Democratic leadership—most importantly, the guy over on Pennsylvania Avenue—the path ahead for energy and climate remains unclear."
Energy Dept. announces funding for 10 carbon capture projects. NYT: "The idea, of course, is to reduce the planet-warming capacity of heavy industries that burn fossil fuels ... by collecting the carbon dioxide they would ordinarily spew out into the atmosphere and, well, storing it somewhere ... Some opponents think that even if efforts are successful to bring something like 'clean coal' to commercial scale — almost certainly decades down the line — it will have come too late to stave off the worst of global warming."
Yet another formal review debunks "Climategate" and upholds climate science. The Guardian edit board responds:: "There was no scientific scandal, only scientific stupidity. There was no attempt to hoax the world into believing that climate change exists, just excessive secrecy. There was no panicky cover-up to hide rigged data, for no data was rigged. There was no cabal of scientists cooking up fake evidence of catastrophe. There is, however, a real crisis of the most extreme nature: evidence suggests that climate change is real, urgent and increasing."
Interior Dept. makes case to appeals courts to bring back offshore drilling moratorium. LAT: "The 5th Circuit panel agreed to expedite the stay request, but it was unclear when the judges would rule. [Judge Martin] Feldman's order gave the administration three weeks to comply, so the appeals court ruling will probably come in the week before that deadline."
You think BP is bad? Offshore driller Transocean's rep is not pretty: "Human rights advocates have called for an investigation into Transocean’s recent dealings in Myanmar ... Transocean has disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings that its drilling equipment was shipped by a forwarder through Iran ... In Norway, Transocean is the subject of a criminal investigation into possible tax fraud ... one of Transocean’s merger partners had repeatedly abused the legal system to try to avoid potential liability in a pollution case in Louisiana."
Privatizing Medicaid Another Conservative Scam
States that privatize Medicaid services getting ripped off. W. Post: " ...businesses are rushing to get a foothold in states that outsource Medicaid, knowing the law could add 16 million people to the federal-state program for the poor and the disabled ... [But a] recent report found that 2.7 million children on Medicaid in nine states, most of them states that outsource Medicaid, are not receiving required screenings and immunizations."
Wonk Room's Igor Volsky cautions states: "...s states begin to think about how to expand their Medicaid programs and contract with managed care companies, they need to remain vigilant in ensuring that the firms are paying providers in thoughtful ways, rather than simply reducing their reimbursements."
Will The Hedge Fund Empire Strike Back?
EU caps bank bonuses. AP: "Bankers will be able to get only part of their yearly bonuses from 2011 in cash upfront. The other 70 percent will be held back and paid out if the company performs well."
W. Post profiles hedge fund veteran trying to oust Manhattan congresswoman who supports Wall St. reform: "[Reshma] Saujani has positioned herself as the anti-[Carolyn] Maloney, the only candidate who understands how stressful and difficult the past few years have been for some of the wealthiest people in America ... Saujani has received more than $800,000 in campaign contributions, an impressive tally for an untested candidate. Many of those checks came from New York financiers and their spouses."
Children Who Give Away Lemonade Are Ruining America
After conservative columnist Terry Savage freaks out on three children who give away lemonade for free, MyDD's Charles Lemos shakes his head: "It is their obsession to monetize everything that has brought us to this juncture. Where once there was a commons, a respect for that which belongs to all of us, conservative ideology has craved up the planet into private enclosures and if they could they monetize the very air we breathe, they would. The irony is that free market ain't free as both the financial crises and the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico prove."
There's a case for Democrats having a difficult time come November, but the GOP has a big November problem itself. Daily Kos: "By all rights, Democrats should get crushed in November. They took office promising change, and their actions have been, at best, weak tea. .. But Republicans, as effective as they've been in blocking much of the change Democrats could've delivered, have utterly failed in presenting an alternative ... the biggest impediment to massive Republican gains this November is the GOP itself."
