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.
Income Gap More Like an Abyss
Income gap widest on record. AP: "The top-earning 20 percent of Americans – those making more than $100,000 each year – received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968."
Off The Charts' Chuck Marr puts the income gap in even starker terms: "This great income shift means the average middle-income American family had about $9,000 less after-tax income in 2007, and an average household in the top 1 percent had $741,000 more, than they would have had if the 1979 income distribution had remained ... Each year the average millionaire gets about $125,000 from the Bush tax cuts, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Now seems to be a good time to say enough is enough."
Slate's Timothy Noah explains why the public is not more upset about the income gap: "Why aren't the bottom 99 percent marching in the street? One possible answer is sheer ignorance ... Americans' ignorance about wealth (and, probably, income) distribution is encouraging in the sense that it offers hope that most voters might opt for government policies more conducive to equality if only they knew how unequal things were ... the United States may possess a shrinking middle class, but the number of its citizens who consider themselves middle class (because they can't face that they're rich) may actually be growing."
Final Decision On House Tax Vote Today
Several House Dems in tough races call for floor vote on ending Bush tax cuts for multimillionaires. Politico: "The letter-writing effort was led by Reps. Raul Grijalva, a co-chairman of the Progressive Caucus, Alan Grayson (Fla.) and Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio). Grayson and Kilroy are among the most politically vulnerable Democrats in the House. Other Democrats in tough re-election fights who signed it: Carol Shea Porter of New Hampshire, Mark Critz of Pennsylvania, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Phil Hare of Illinois."
Final decision expected tonight, but no pre-election House vote expected. CQ: "...there were no signs of preparations under way to survey members’ level of support for a draft proposal to extend the expiring tax cuts for individuals earning $200,000 or less and couples earning $250,000 or less. 'A vote this week is unlikely,' a third senior Democratic aide said Monday."
House Min. Boehner tries to shift blame for holding up middle-class tax cut extension. ABC: "House Minority Leader John Boehner today repeated his appeal to Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold a vote on a Republican-led proposal to extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts before the House adjourns and members return to their districts to campaign for reelection. 'If Democratic leaders leave town without stopping all the tax hikes, they are turning their backs on the American people... ' ... Boehner and a bipartisan majority including more than 30 House Democrats have called on Congress to extend the tax cuts for all income levels, including those in the highest tier."
GOP "Pledge" budget makes deficit worse the President's budget. TNR's Jonathan Chait: "...even if the Pledge were to carry out 100% of its phantom cuts, it would still increase the deficit relative to President Obama's budget."
Republicans on WH deficit commission pushing budget-busting tax cuts, resisting tax reform. TPMDC: "That could dramatically hamstring the commission. Thus far, the working group meetings have focused on discretionary and mandatory spending -- and reports suggest two things very clearly: Republicans and some Democrats on the committee are willing to recommend benefit cuts to popular programs, including Social Security, and, possibly, Medicare. But as onerous as those options are to progressive critics of the commission, they've always been premised on the understanding that they only get the green light if paired with commensurate tax reform, making the tax code more progressive and broader-based. That's now in jeopardy."
Daily Kos' Joan McCarter sees silver lining in deficit commission battles: "An impasse at this point could be the best that we could hope for."
China Currency Vote Tomorrow
House vote tomorrow on China currency manipulation. McClatchy pessimistic on bill's prospects: "The legislation enjoys rare bipartisan support ... It's unclear if either the Senate or President Barack Obama would let the measure become law and risk rupturing relations with the world's No. 2 economy ... The version before the House doesn't enjoy much support in the Senate ... The House bill, which has 155 co-sponsors, would make it easier for the U.S. government to consider China's currency peg an illegal export subsidy, and to take punitive steps in response. However, effective tough action would require the Obama administration to go along."
House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer to promote China currency bill as part of broader pro-manufacturing agenda, in policy address today reports The Hill.
Senate GOPers expected today to filibuster bill that would close tax loophole encouraging outsourcing. The Hill: "At issue is a package of bills aimed at small manufacturers, including a payroll tax exemption for companies that move jobs to the U.S. The package also includes provisions that would prevent businesses from deferring U.S. taxes on the income they make from foreign subsidiaries ... Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did his best Monday to portray the offshore bill as a moral issue, arguing that U.S. laws currently fund businesses’ efforts to ship jobs overseas ... 'The bill wrongly assumes that all foreign expansion stems from greed, and that foreign expansion only hurts American workers,' [Senate Min. Whip Jon] Kyl said..."
Foreign-based multinationals lobby to protect loopholes. Politico: "...representatives of some of those firms are coming to Washington on Tuesday for a series of quiet meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill to offer a counterargument — that the combination of tough presidential rhetoric and draconian administration policy could drive their firms away ... Trade and taxes are at the top of the agenda the U.S. subsidiaries will take into the sessions at the White House, the Treasury Department and the Senate. The Obama administration, for instance, has embraced a corporate tax change for overseas-based reinsurers that could cost the firms more than $10 billion."
WaPo's Ezra Klein breaks down our "dumb corporate tax system": "If you actually look at the amount of money our corporate tax raises, we're about one standard deviation beneath the [international] OECD average ... The reason is simple enough: Our corporate tax code is complicated. A lot of businesses, like S-corporations and partnerships, don't pay corporate taxes. Others use loopholes and exemptions and deductions to push their actual rate way down. We could have a simpler code with lower rates that would raise more money. I'm not holding my breath for that compromise..."
DeMint Risks Government Shutdown This Week
Tea Party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint promises to block all legislation before Election Day, risking government shutdown. Politico: "Bret Bernhardt, DeMint's chief of staff, said in an e-mail to GOP aides that his boss would place a hold on all legislation that has not been cleared by both parties by the end of the day Tuesday ... With the Senate slated to adjourn Thursday untiil after the elections, DeMint's stance could mean trouble for Democrats if the two parties don't quickly agree on a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating past Sept. 30."
Several unresolved issues headed for post-election session. The Hill: "The highest-profile item for November and December is the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 ... Democratic leaders have also prioritized the defense authorization bill, which includes a repeal of the 'Don’t ask, don’t tell' policy ... Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat, has promised to push for a vote on the DREAM Act ... Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is intent on passing a renewable electricity standard ... Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) says he intends to hold Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to a promise to schedule a vote on legislation that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from taking action to curb carbon gas emissions for two years."
Recovery Act program funding private-sector jobs for welfare recipients expires Thursday, little hope for extension. HuffPost: "Jaquayla Burton's job will end this week unless the Senate does an about-face and decides to preserve a welfare-to-work program that created more than 240,000 jobs as part of the stimulus bill ... Last week Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked a request to bring up a bill that contained a $1.5 billion reauthorization."
Is Global Warming Committee Cooked?
Top House GOPer wants to pervert global warming committee. Politico: "Wisconsin Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner wants to keep the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming alive so it can investigate climate science and police President Barack Obama’s green policies ... Sensenbrenner [is] a skeptic on the science connecting man-made carbon dioxide emissions to global warming..."
Daniel J. Weiss, writing at Grist, details how special interests have spent millions to oppose climate legislation."
Grist rounds up the climate science denials for the conservative field of gubernatorial candidates.
New oil drilling regulator to make recommendation on lifting moratorium this week. The Hill: "Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Michael Bromwich’s imminent report comes amid heavy political pressure on the White House from the industry and Gulf Coast lawmakers to lift the ban before its scheduled Nov. 30 expiration."
Much untapped wind power on the East Coast. McClatchy: "The report by the conservation advocacy group Oceana argues that offshore wind could generate 30 percent more electricity on the East Coast than could be generated by the region's untapped oil and gas. It predicts that wind from the ocean could be cost competitive with nuclear power and natural gas to produce electricity."
Breakfast Sides
Foreclosures frozen as Ally mortgage scandal heats up. W. Post: "Attorneys general in Connecticut and California ordered Ally Financial's GMAC mortgage unit to freeze all foreclosures within their borders, joining a growing list of states investigating whether the firm and other lenders improperly kicked people out of their homes ... The actions taken by state officials are illuminating an overburdened foreclosure system that relied on shoddy or fabricated paperwork to deal with the massive pile of cases."
Final round of stimulus grants for broadband expansion announced. W. Post: "The Commerce Department awarded a total of 233 projects in every state. Many of those projects are so-called 'middle-mile' fiber-optic loops that can connect several towns in a region to backbone networks."
