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.
State Aid Fight Renews Today, Tax Fight Looms
Senate to vote today on new compromise for $26B aid package to fiscally stressed states and cities. Politico: "... Reid offset the full cost through a combination of foreign tax credit provisions and $17.1 billion in savings chiefly from cuts to food stamps and prior appropriations ... The Medicaid assistance ... is designed now to phase out in the first six months of 2011—something recommended by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine.) ... Republicans would argue that the Medicaid funding would have a better chance of passage without the teachers aid included. ... a loss Monday might ... allow [Reid] to come up later in the week with a straight Medicaid package, stripped of the teacher funds."
Democrats have the "upper hand" in the tax argument for once, argues Bloomberg's Al Hunt: "For the $40 billion extension [of tax cuts for the wealthy], proponents then would have to find massive spending cuts to finance lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans or waive the budget rules. That’s a fight Democrats would relish. The same budget rules require offsets for any estate-tax relief beyond the 2009 levels ... the Democrats could kill those tax cuts for the affluent and substitute a combination of assistance to hard-strapped state and local governments and a dose of deficit reduction. That would head off some tax increases from those places and help them avoid laying off police officers, firefighters and teachers."
USA Today looks at tension between economic recovery and deficit reduction: "Obama advisers say the way to resolve the apparent policy dilemma is through carefully sequenced moves. Shore up aggregate demand today and deal with the deficit tomorrow."
HuffPost's Robert Kuttner observes prominent moderates are rejecting debt commission co-chair's call for an austere permanent cap on government spending levels: "...where is the high-profile Obama speech making clear that the top priority for now is putting America back to work, that deficit reduction will come when the economy is back on track -- and that the budget will not be balanced on the backs of those who depend on Social Security, Medicare, and other key social outlays?"
NYT's Paul Krugman worries that establishment will deem high unemployment "normal.": "...instead of taking responsibility for fixing the situation, politicians and Fed officials alike will declare that high unemployment is structural, beyond their control ... these excuses may turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the long-term unemployed lose their skills and their connections with the work force, and become unemployable."
W. Post's E.J. Dionne praises Presidents Obama and Bush for saving the auto industry: "The decision to lose one of our core manufacturing sectors would also have been irreversible -- a severe enough threat that even Bush, the staunch free-marketer, wouldn't let it happen. That's why the Obama administration is bragging a bit about the 55,000 auto jobs added since June 2009 ... [Conservative Steve Forbes] wrote in Politico that 'GM's management is using solid, conservative, free-market management principles to get the company back to long-term profitability' But this is exactly what opponents of the bailout said could never happen if the government stepped in. By Forbes's own testimony, they were wrong."
Oill Spill Bill Headed For Filibuster
Oil drilling reform bill expected to meet GOP filibuster this week. The Hill: "Republicans will demand votes on a host of amendments and then will filibuster the bill, with both sides battling over arcane procedural agreements. In the end, they expect the energy bill to stall on the floor. ... If Republicans block the oil response legislation, Democrats will use the vote to attack GOP candidates in the fall."
Prospects promising to further tighten cap on Gulf gusher. AP: "Engineers are preparing to launch a so-called static kill as early as Monday evening, shoving mud and perhaps cement into the blown-out well to make it easier to plug the gusher up forever ... 'If we can get this thing shut in permanently before the August hurricane season, we will have dodged a huge bullet,' said Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the government's on-scene coordinator."
Corporations plan all-out effort to block EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, scouring for hysterical charge to launch: "'You attack it at all fronts,' ... 'You go the judicial route. You go the legislative route.' ... 'I don’t know if its backyard barbeque grills or hitting small business,' said Robert Stavins, a Harvard University economist who has been working on climate rules for several decades. 'But there will be some regulation that looks silly that just becomes a poster child for the right. And it could lead to less, rather than more, national enthusiasm on climate policy.'"
This Election Brought To You By Your Friendly Neighborhood Corporation
Corporations and conservatives plan to flood 2010 campaign with money. LAT: "One report circulating among Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill last week estimated that more than $300 million has been budgeted for the campaign by a group of 15 conservative tax-exempt organizations ... The money's power is magnified because it will be concentrated in a relatively small number of swing states and districts."
The corporate campaign cash is flowing in Minnesota. Mother Jones' Suzy Khimm: "Liberated by the new rules, Target and Best Buy have each contributed at least $100,000 to a conservative political action committee that's running ads in support of GOP state Rep. Tom Emmer's campaign for Minnesota governor."
Democrats plan August town halls to defend record, draw contrasts. Time: "These themes portray the party as devoted to creating jobs for the middle class, preserving Social Security, protecting troops and veterans and galvanizing America's manufacturing sector."
Republicans queasy as anti-Social Security, anti-Medicare Rep. Paul Ryan become fiscal face of the party, says W. Post puff profile: "The discomfort some Republicans feel for Ryan's proposals goes beyond November. If Republicans were to take control of Congress next year, Ryan will rise to chairman of the Budget Committee. He could use the position to hold colleagues accountable for runaway budget deficits and make it more difficult for fellow Republicans -- and Democrats -- to stuff bills with expensive projects that add to the problem."
Robert Reich aruges that dissatisfied Left, lack of cohesive movement, threatens Democratic chances in November, in The American Prospect: "The Republican base is part of a conservative movement. The Democratic base, by contrast, is a loose coalition that elects a new president and then goes home, expecting the new president to deliver miracles."
Where's The Health Care Outrage?
The Guardian's Sahil Kapur explains how Americans stopped worrying and learned to love health care reform: "So, you might ask, why the change of heart? For starters, Armageddon never happened. But mainly, the disinformation campaign emanating from the healthcare industry and conservative establishment quietened, allowing the public to think about the Affordable Care And Patient Protection Act more clearly."
Even Paul Krugman barely remembers the health care reform hysteria: "Do you remember how public hatred of the health care reform was going to be the dominant issue in the midterm elections? Do you remember how there was going to be a firestorm of disapproval over the Democrats’ use of reconciliation to pass the legislation despite the fact that they only had 59 out of 100 Senators? Neither do I."
GOP rallies behind cutting off funding for health care reform. Politico: "Republicans have proposed a bill to deny funding to any part of the law. But a more likely scenario is to choke off funding for pieces of the legislation that they find particularly troublesome, such as the requirement to buy insurance, changes to Medicare and the one most cited by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio): the 'army of new IRS agents' to implement new requirements for business ... this strategy could prove troublesome if Americans are denied some of the popular provisions of the law that they’ve already experienced."
Hope For Immigrants Despite Legislative Gridlock
Immigration officials may be able to put some undocumented workers on path for legal permanent residence without comprehensive reform. Miami Herald: "An internal memo prepared for the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ... says young students who could qualify for green cards under pending legislation known as the DREAM Act could be granted deferred action, an immigration measure that delays deportation."
Truthout's Yana Kuchinoff reports that more than 300,000 immigrants languish in detention centers across the country. And for some people, that's good business: "More than 3.7 million immigrants have been deported since 1994, and in the past decade, immigration detention has tripled. ... The rise in immigration detention also has many critics pointing to a more sinister reason than political expedience or security fears - the profit that private prison corporations make..."
LAT explores why Arizona's tolerance of immigration drastically dissipated: "...said Mesa Mayor Scott Smith[,] 'There was a combination of demographic changes, the introduction of a criminal element that didn't used to be here and the drop in the economy, which has put everyone on edge.'"
Increased border patrols not expected to have much effect. NYT: "Doris Meissner, a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute ... said the number of border guards ... would never truly solve the problem of illegal immigration. 'During my time, 10,000 Border Patrol agents was considered the magic number,' she said. “Then it became 20,000 ... But illegal immigration is an economic issue. It’s a market phenomenon. Legislation that deals with the problem as a whole is the only real solution.'"
Warren Has The Right Enemies
Elizabeth Warren has gotten on the wrong side of all the right people. TNR's Alexander Hart: "Warren advised her readers to stay away from credit cards. But her criticism of credit-card companies cuts deeper ... She writes with righteous indignation of 'credit counseling' companies that are 'run by crooks who have set up bogus nonprofit shells.'"
WSJ's Jessica Silver-Greenberg reports that credit card companies have brand new tricks up their sleeves: "The Card Act is expected to wipe out about $390 million a year in fee revenue, according to David Robertson, the publisher of industry newsletter Nilson Report. ...So the banks are getting aggressive. According to a July 22 report from Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonpartisan research group, the industry's median annual fee on bank credit cards jumped 18% to $59 between July 2009 and March 2010. At credit unions, annual fees soared 67% to $25. During the same period, the median cash-advance and balance-transfer fees jumped by 33%."
