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, Boost For Jobs, Secures 60 In Senate
Senate breaks filibuster, secures support for emergency state aid. AFL-CIO's Mike Hall: The Senate today voted 61-38, to end a Republican filibuster of aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others."
Last gasp of help, signals breakaway Republican. W. Post: "'I think that this should be sort of the final down payment,' said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine)..."
House suspending recess to move emergency aid to the President's desk. Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi even tweeted to spread the word in what seemed an almost giddy, midsummer dream for her leadership, grown jaded after months of waiting for any Senate movement on the Democratic jobs agenda."
GOP talking points ignore fact that the bill would slightly decrease the deficit, reduce need for states to raise more taxes. The Hill: "The party is already hitting Democrats for rushing back to Washington to 'spend more taxpayer money.'"
OurFuture.org's Bill Scher adds: "There is no plausible argument for opposing a bill that does not increase spending on the grounds that it would increase spending ... The truth is conservatives posture about the deficit to mask their hatred for public school teachers and out-of-work Americans."
Small biz lending bill still in Senate limbo with time running out. McClatchy: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to try again this week, but it's uncertain whether the vote will happen.
Tax Cut Showdown Set For September
Sen. Reid plans vote on expiring Bush tax cuts next month, but not clear yet what will be voted on. The Hill:Treas. Sec. Geithner leads charge for letting tax cuts for the wealthiest expire. HuffPost quotes: "America is a less equal country today than it was ten years ago, in part because of the tax cuts for the top 2 percent put in place in 2001 and 2003."
Geithner also debunks GOP claims of looking out for small business. W. Post: "[Geithner] said letting the top-level tax cuts expire would affect fewer than 3 percent of small businesses, leaving the vast majority untouched. He also suggested that Republicans are using a misleading definition of 'small business.' According to the GOP's definition, Geithner said, a small business could include partners in a major law firm and directors of a large financial company."
NYT reports "partisan lines" are forming: "Republicans, emboldened by President Obama’s slipping support in the polls, charge that Democrats are advocating a big tax increase; Democrats counter that Republicans are shilling for the wealthy and driving up the national debt."
Economist's View's Mark Thoma reminds conservatives Obama has already enacted tax cuts: "The Obama stimulus package had $237 billion in tax cuts, and more than $100 billion of those were targeted at lower and middle class households, but Fred Barnes doesn't even acknowledge that ...
If they aren't the right type of tax cuts, the type that give even more breaks to the wealthy -- even though there's no good evidence to suggest that this does much to generate new economic activity and job creation -- then they aren't worth even mentioning ... somehow programs like the HIRE Act passed in June 2010 to provide payroll tax breaks to businesses that hire workers who have been unemployed for 60 days or more doesn't merit a word."
Energy Bill May Return In September
After failing to get 60 for narrow energy bill, Sen. Reid may introduce broader energy bill next month. The Hill: "... Democrats such as Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Byron Dorgan (N.D.) want a requirement that utilities supply escalating amounts of electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is still fighting to salvage plans to cap greenhouse gases, although chances of a climate bill moving are considered remote. Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, declined to comment on any changes that might be in the offing..."
Transocean had "widespread safety concerns" in "internal documents." NYT: "...they indicate that the problems highlighted in earlier reports provided to The Times about the Deepwater Horizon were not limited to that rig..."
Scientists split over govt oil spill report. NYT: "The implication of the report was that future damage from the oil might be less than had been feared ... Some researchers attacked the findings and methodology, calling the report premature at best and sloppy at worst ... But other scientists, while acknowledging that the report incorporated assumptions that could not be directly tested, found them reasonable, if not conservative."
HuffPost's Dan Froomkin casts doubt on NOAA analysis: "...NOAA has chronically understated the amount and threat posed by subsurface oil, first by wildly underestimating the flow rate from the well head -- by more than an order of magnitude! -- then by pooh-poohing the results of its own scientists."
Feds slow to release spill data to public, reports Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard: "Under the federal code governing the damage assessment protocol, as the responsible party, BP is guaranteed a role in the process, and therefore has access to data that the government isn't required to show the public. This privileged information, of course, gives BP an advantage, since the company now knows what it's up against in court ... While the government is releasing some data on wildlife deaths, it has not been forthcoming with more specific information, such as the species of birds, reptiles, and mammals that have been found coated in oil or dead."
WH raises prospect of early end to drilling moratorium. The Hill: "White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at a briefing that officials need a full understanding of what caused BP’s catastrophic blowout and the ability to prevent future accidents at deepwater wells. Gibbs also said it’s important to ensure 'these companies have a containment plan that's commensurate with the type of activity they're undertaking.' 'So, once all three of those can be met, the president will lift that moratorium. And if those conditions can be met before the end of November, we'd certainly happily do that,” he told reporters.
Politico reviews soul-searching in enviro community after climate bill stall: "'We fell victim to much broader politics that were beyond our control that really didn’t have to do with the specifics of either the issue or the campaign,' [NRDC's Dan] Lashof added ... GOP senators targeted as possible swing votes said the environmentalists offered little incentive for them to change their minds during an economic recession and with little threat of political payback if they didn’t go along ... The environmental movement needs a radical overhaul if Congress is ever going to pass a climate bill, [350.org's Bill] McKibben said. That means lawmakers need to be aware of the political consequences if they don’t side with the greens. 'We weren’t able to credibly promise political reward or punishment,' McKibben said."
Where Are The Wall St. Prosecutions?
OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage wants to know why bank employees get jail time, while bank execs walk: "This isn't an academic question or an eruption of pitchfork populism. Personal accountability is vital in board rooms ... Johnathan Weil of Bloomberg exposes how ridiculous this has become. A bank employee at UCB embezzeled $235,000 from the bank to cover gambling debts. He was sentenced to jail. The officers of UCB lied about the bad debts on their books to defraud taxpayers out of $300 million from the TARP program. The bank went belly up. The taxpayers lost their money. The bank officials walked."
Outgoing US bank regulator defends international proposal on capital requirements. Bloomberg: "Higher capital requirements that international regulators plan to impose on banks worldwide are likely to push firms to shrink trading activities in favor of lending, U.S. Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said ... The tweaks in the original proposal, informally known as Basel III and released by the committee in December, shouldn’t be seen as 'watering down,' Dugan said ... Other U.S. regulators have voiced concern that proposals may be softened too much."
Shift in exec pay towards performance targets. Bloomberg: "Chief executive officers in the U.S. are getting bigger long-term incentive awards and more firms are tying those payouts to performance goals, a survey shows.
Treasury tries to fix struggling anti-foreclosure initiative. Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo offers limited praise: "These ideas — particularly reducing loan principal — are good ones, but I have to wonder why the amount of money dedicated to them is so small and why this response is limited to states with the worst unemployment. After all, as David Dayen pointed out, just $250 million of the $75 billion promised to HAMP has been spent ... These small ball initiatives are certainly going to help some individual homeowners, but they aren’t on a grand enough scale to address the wider issue."
Fourteenth Amendment, Schmourteenth Amendment
E. J. Dionne's rips conservatives for trying to gut the 14th Amendment: "Honestly, I thought that our politics could not get worse, and suddenly there appears this attack on birthright citizenship and the introduction into popular use of the hideous term 'anchor babies' ... 'People come here to have babies,' said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). 'They come here to drop a child' ... Drop a child? How can a strong believer in the right to life use such a phrase?"
Rep. Luis Gutierrez says to conservatives, you want 14th Amendment hearings? You got it.: "We need a high-level national discussion in both Houses of Congress on the issue of whether to station federal ICE agents in every maternity ward and delivery room right between the OB-GYN and the expectant father."
Dodd Tries To Squelch Senate Rules Reform Effort
Sen. Chris Dodd urges first-term senators to abandon efforts to change Senate filibuster rules. HuffPost quotes: "...you want to turn this into a unicameral body? What's the point of having a Senate? If the vote margins are the same as in the House, you might as well close the doors."
Open Left's Chris Bowers responds to Dodd, offers new narrative on rules reform: "...if we do a better job focusing on the wider range of proposed rule changes--such as making unanimous consent non-debatable, requiring the filibuster to be a real talkathon where Senators have to stay on the floor (as Senator Lautenberg has proposed), or switching the burden of the cloture threshold on the opposition (for example, 45 votes to continue a filibuster, rather than 60 to break it, as Senator Bennet has proposed)-then the interest and momentum for reform could increase as people debate a wider range of possible reforms."
Stop The Bikes, Save The World
Conservative gubernatorial candidate in CO, Dan Maes, accussed Dem rival of using bike-sharing initiative to bring about UN one-world government totalitarianism. Denver Post quotes: "At first, I thought, 'Gosh, public transportation, what's wrong with that, and what's wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what's wrong with incentives for green cars?' But if you do your homework and research, you realize [it's] part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty."
Charles Lemos at MyDD deems Maes' ranting "unsustainable lunacy": "The UN program to which Maes is referring is the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an association with more than 1,200 cities as members, half of which are in the United States. Denver became a member in 1992. The ICLEI helps communities design and implement sustainable living practices such as Denver's bike sharing program ... I'd like to think that lunacy that now reigns supreme in the GOP is unsustainable but I suspect before long another of these paranoid, conspiratorial-minded Tea Party loons will open his or her mouth and offer something even more outlandish and buffoonish."
Breakfast Sides
There is no gay marriage, just marraige, rules federal judge Vaughn Walker in striking down California's Prop 8. Time: "In the end, Walker wrote, laws that limit marriage to straights are rooted in beliefs about the moral appropriateness of homosexuality itself, something he said the Constitution does not permit."
Whatever those billboards said, George W. Bush knows Americans don't miss him yet. HuffPost: "George W. Bush pushed back publication of his memoirs, 'Decision Points,' out of fear that a public reminder of his presidential legacy would hurt Republicans heading into November's midterm elections..."
CAFTA legal victory for mining companies warning shot for upcoming trade deals, argues Public Citizen's Lori Wallach: "... weren't we told that those outrageous NAFTA-style foreign investor special privileges -- that promote offshoring and expose our public interest laws to attack in foreign tribunals -- had been fixed in CAFTA? So, we should not worry that the same provisions appear word-for-word in Bush Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Korea, Colombia and Panama? ... - the notion that foreign corporations could be allowed to sue the U.S. government in private international tribunals, bypassing domestic courts -- undermines federal and state efforts to protect public health, safety, and precious natural resources."
Bloomberg's Ann Woolner slaps right-wing lawsuits against health care reform as cheap politics: "...notice that 18 of the 20 attorneys general suing in Florida are Republicans ... if these cases were about health care, someone might point out that more than 1 million Virginians, or 15 percent under the age of 65, have no medical insurance, a figure that keeps growing."
President reaches out to labor, holds out hope for EFCA, in AFL-CIO speech. The Hill: "Obama vowed to keep fighting for the Employee Free Choice Act ... But Obama also said EFCA is not the only means available for promoting unions. He noted his administration’s work in appointing labor-friendly officials to the National Mediation Board and the National Labor Relations Board, agencies that have oversight of union elections and labor law violations ... [AFL-CIO President Richard] Trumka said he and the White House are working on a way to move forward on EFCA, though he would not disclose any details."
Rep. Henry Waxman gives wide-ranging interview to The Hill.
