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.
Time To Choose Sides On Tax Cuts For The Wealthiest
Dems warn GOPers that protecting Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest, in planned Sept. vote, will have election consequences. WSJ: "'If you can't get it out of the Senate, then you take it to the election," [Rep. Chris] Van Hollen said in a recent interview. 'You say to the American people that Republicans want to continue to hold middle-class tax relief hostage for an extension of tax breaks for [the well-to-do]. That will be the debate.'"
Treasury Sec. launches push to end Bush tax cuts for the top 2%. NYT: "In appearances on two television programs, Mr. Geithner said that letting tax cuts expire for those who make $250,000 a year or more would affect 2 percent to 3 percent of all Americans. He dismissed concerns that the move could push a teetering economy back into recession and argued that it would demonstrate America’s commitment to addressing its trillion-dollar budget deficit."
Desperate towns scrounge for tax revenue. NYT: "Like Beatrice[,Neb.], places like Dayton, Ohio, and Grafton, Ill., are giving away land for nominal fees or for nothing in the hope that it will boost the tax rolls and cut the lawn-mowing bills ... In Boca Raton, Fla. ... leaders are thinking about expanding the city’s size and annexing neighborhoods as an antidote ... leaders in Manchester, N.H., and Concord, Mass., are taking an approach that might have once seemed politically unthinkable[:] re-examining whether their communities’ nonprofit organizations really deserve to be tax-free."
Newsweek highlights the dumbest cuts states are making: "California furloughed thousands of tax collectors, although they would have earned the state an estimated seven times what they cost. New Jersey (along with at least six other states) canceled funds to help people quit smoking, though tobacco-related illnesses already cost the state an estimated $4.7 billion. And Kentucky even shuttered its Long-Term Policy Research Center, foreclosing a mission to 'report on trends affecting the state’s future.'"
Bond market not suffering deficit hysteria. Bloomberg: "...for the first time in half a century, government bond yields are declining during an economic expansion and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is selling two-year notes with the lowest interest rates ever."
Warren Bandwagon Picks Up Speed
NYT sizes up the battle to nominate Elizabeth Warren: "'A lot of us are terrified about what happens in rule-making,' said Stephen Lerner of the Service Employees International Union ... 'Symbolically, it does seem incredibly important to pick somebody who not only invented the idea, but someone who doesn’t claim to be a neutral.' ... [Oklahoma Bankers Association's Roger Beverage said,] 'Not that she’s not competent. Goodness gracious, I would never say that. She’s exceptionally bright. We just fear what she might come up with,'..."
TNR's Jonathan Cohn notes Warren has proven her managerial skills: "... running the [TARP Congressional Oversight Panel] has been no small job. Warren had to create it from scratch, just as she would the new consumer bureau ... CFPB will obviously be a lot bigger. But if the scale of the task is different, people familiar with Warren's work say, the nature isn't."
Politico notes rebuffing Warren will have costs: "...if Obama picks someone else, it’s likely to further erode the president’s increasingly shaky standing among liberals."
Climate Bill Back Burner Simmers
Utility companies will persist in their efforts to craft carbon cap compromise. Bloomberg: "... the utilities will keep pushing for a bill. A group of companies and environmental groups held a conference call July 23 to plot future advocacy efforts ... [they] had been mostly united on the broad bill, then fragmented over the new measure [only covering utilities], contributing to making it politically toxic."
FT's Clive Crook tries to resurrect the carbon tax: "Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, has said the administration might propose comprehensive tax reform next year. Good idea. Let it include a carbon tax. Some of the proceeds could be spent on research into clean energy and some to cut other taxes. Republicans, wake up: how you tax and how much you raise altogether are separate questions."
Reid says he lacks 60 to increase renewable electricity mandate. The Hill: "Reid is instead coupling spill provisions with relatively non-controversial energy and conservation items -- including boosting residential energy efficiency and converting large trucks to natural gas -- and has predicted he will get 60 votes for what he will bring to the floor."
Even the oil spill provisions are no slam dunk. The Hill: "The main concern with that language is that especially smaller companies may not be able to afford the insurance premiums for projects or be able to receive insurance at all for some riskier projects ... But supporters of the language say the massive Gulf of Mexico spill -- more so than any changes in the liability cap -- has done its part in making some companies rethink whether they should drill in certain waters."
Corporations Hoard Cash While Workers Wait
Companies are making profits, hoarding cash, cutting jobs. NYT: "'Because of high unemployment, management is using its leverage to get more hours out of workers,' said Robert C. Pozen, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School ... Among the S.& P. 500 companies that have reported second-quarter results, more than one in 10 had higher profits on lower sales, nearly twice the number in a typical quarter ... while wages and salaries have barely budged from recession lows, profits have staged a vigorous recovery..."
Conservative claims that businesses won't hire because Obama has caused "uncertainty" is bunk. The New Yorker's James Surowiecki: "...uncertainty is a fact of business life, and the impact of new regulations on most companies has been overhyped ... If businesses aren’t hiring or investing, in other words, it’s because they don’t need to: they have enough workers and factories to meet the demand for their products." Mark Thoma: "Uncertainty about Regulation and Taxes is *Not* the Problem"
Speaking at Netroots Nation, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka called for a new industrial policy for a globalized world: "'We have to think big and we have to go big. We have to let go of this notion that we can't compete in this world. We can compete. Other countries are already doing this and so can we. We can't get left behind.' Speaking as part of a panel on Building a Progressive Economic Vision, Trumka outlined the need for the the nation to invest in infrastructure, implement fair trade policies, change our tax policies, enact comprehensive immigration reform and reform our broken labor laws."
Speaker Pelosi previews pro-manufacturing "Making It In America" initiative at Netroots Nation reports OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson.
Health Insurers Hoard Cash Too
Health insurers hoarding cash, raising premiums. W. Post: "The report released Thursday by the Consumers Union ... found that seven of 10 Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates examined had amassed surpluses that are more than three times the level regulators deemed necessary for them to remain solvent."
Conservative fearmongering on health insurance employer mandate debunked by recent experience. Time: "...in San Francisco, where an employer mandate was instituted in 2008, most business owners are embracing the new rule and reporting it's had little impact on their operations ... In [Hawaii and Massachusetts], the mandate has successfully lowered the rate of the uninsured far below the national average, without substantially adversely affecting businesses."
Obama's Border Crackdown
Immigration audits on businesses, and deportations, are up in the Obama administration. W. Post: "[Deportations are] nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total [and the] pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled..."
US-born children of undocumented workers to rally in Washington Wednesday. Miami Herald: "'The idea is to show President Obama that deportations of undocumented people are having a severe impact on their U.S.-born children,' [American Fraternity's Nora] Sandigo said."
GOPers Love Saying "No"
GOPers insist they will have ideas in time for the November elections. Poltiico: "The GOP response: Create incentives for new jobs, cut federal spending and clean up Congress. Although the specifics remain a work in progress ... GOP leaders are slowly translating ideas from the grass-roots America Speaking Out program into a specific policy platform, to be released in September."
Yet GOPers also revel in "Party of No" status. W. Post: "Republicans say polls suggest that they can oppose all of these initiatives by casting them into a broader critique of Democrats increasing the size of government and the budget deficit, even if their bills are individually popular with the public ... said Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), a veteran Republican and a deputy whip in the House. 'We feel like we are reflecting a broader mood of dissatisfaction. Right now, the American people want us saying no.'"
"RedState’s Erickson to GOP: ‘Stop lying’ and admit that you’re the ‘Party of No.’" reports Think Progress.
