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.
States Move To Investigate Foreclosures As WH Resists Moratorium
Treas. Sec. Geithner pushes back on blanket moratorium on foreclosures, in Charlie Rose interview: "...the consequence of that would be in neighborhoods that have been most affected by the foreclosure crisis, where you see lots of houses on the block empty, unoccupied, what it means is those communities will be living longer with houses unoccupied, with more pressure on their house price with the people still in their houses. That would be very damaging, and so again we want to make sure we're holding these services accountable ... But we also want to make sure that we're not going to make the problem worse."
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow charges resisting full moratorium only protects banks: "If the foreclosure process is halted and lending practices are thoroughly investigated, it might eventually force bankers to own up to their own lawlessness - and write down billions of dollars in artificially inflated assets."
California will join multi-state attorneys general investigation into foreclosure fraud. LAT: "A multistate task force is expected to be publicly unveiled Wednesday. It will be headed by Iowa Atty. Gen. Tom Miller, who has taken the lead role in previous mortgage-related inquiries conducted by coalitions of state officials. Officials from 38 states took part in a recent conference call on the investigation, although it's not clear how many will sign on. But the Golden State is in..."
GMAC expands review of foreclosures to all states, resists freeze. NYT: "GMAC’s announcement stops short of halting foreclosures in each of the states, favoring reviews instead. After each case is scrutinized, the foreclosure process will resume if everything is in order. To date, GMAC has not found any evidence of inappropriate foreclosures, officials there said."
Florida's high-speed foreclosure system takes a beating. Bloomberg: "...Florida sought to clear out its backlog with a system of special court hearings that dispensed with cases quickly, sometimes in less than a minute ... bank moratoriums are already thwarting the initiative by Florida officials to clear jammed court dockets. Now, efforts by homeowners such as West to bring claims of fraud to the attention of judges are further prolonging evictions, and in turn slowing purchases of foreclosed properties."
More mortgage loan modifications expected. Bloomberg: "More than 63 percent of those [property professionals] surveyed said they expect maturing loans to be modified, while 7.1 percent said loans will continue without changes to defer losses, a practice known as 'extend and pretend.'"
Fed May Raise Inflation Target To Avert Deflation
Expectations rise for Fed action soon. NYT: "Most Wall Street analysts expect the Fed to decide, at its meeting in early November, to resume the debt-buying strategy known as quantitative easing, in which the Federal Reserve would purchase Treasury securities to make borrowing cheaper. But while that outcome is possible, it is not certain, according to minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting ..."
Bernanke to give major address Friday. WSJ: "High on the list of options: restarting a program of buying U.S. Treasury bonds to drive down long-term interest rates and boost growth, despite strong reservations among some colleagues. Fed officials also are debating how to make clear their commitment to preventing deflation, a state of falling prices that economists say can be even more debilitating than inflation. This is a task that puts them in the uncomfortable position of calling for more inflation."
Bloomberg suggests higher inflation target may be announced: "Central bankers, seeking ways to boost flagging growth after lowering interest rates almost to zero and buying $1.7 trillion of securities, are weighing strategies for raising inflation expectations as well as expanding the balance sheet by purchasing Treasuries ... By encouraging Americans to believe prices will start rising at a faster pace, the Fed would reduce inflation-adjusted interest rates and stimulate the economy ... The policy may backfire if actual inflation drifts higher than the Fed would like."
NYT reviews why it still feels like a recession: "At the current rate of job creation, the nation would need nine more years to recapture the jobs lost during the recession. And that doesn’t even account for five million or six million jobs needed in that time to keep pace with an expanding population ... Commercial vacancies are soaring, and it could take a decade to absorb the excess in many of the largest cities."
WV Senate candidate John Raese reiterates support for abolishing minimum wage. HuffPost: "The Senate contender said he believes government has no place 'micromanaging the economy,' ... "I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it," he said [previously.]"
China trade surplus biggest in two years. Bloomberg: "China posted a $16.9 billion trade surplus for September, capping the largest quarterly excess since the financial crisis in 2008 as pressure mounts for a stronger renminbi."
New Drilling Rules Prompt Early End To Offshore Moratorium
McClatchy suggests early lifting of moratorium could help Gulf Coast Dems: "While drilling isn't expected to start again immediately, the timing of the announcement — six weeks ahead of schedule and three weeks before congressional and state elections — could give Democrats a boost at the polls. The moratorium has been blamed for thousands of lost jobs in an already damaged economy and posed a potential drag on some Gulf-area Democrats' election prospects."
NYT reviews new drilling rules: "The new rules ... tighten standards for well design, blowout preventers, safety certification, emergency response and worker training. The bureau estimates that compliance with the added regulations will cost the deepwater industry $183 million a year, largely for changes in well design and the requirement that operators maintain subsea robots to operate blowout preventers in case primary control systems fail ... offshore operators will first have to submit new applications showing they have complied with the tougher rules and have their rigs inspected. Officials said they expect at least some of the rigs to be drilling again by the end of the year..."
New drilling rules criticized by Big Oil and enviros. TNR's Caitlin Dickson: "Some industry backers, like [Sen. Mary] Landrieu, worry that the permitting process will be to sluggish—that the drilling won't resume fast enough ... Other experts, though, are skeptical that the new regulations will go far enough: 'One thing we have learned is the oil companies really do have talented engineers,' says Jeffrey Rachlinski, a law professor at Cornell. 'They can come up with good plans but they're not going to do it unless they have to because it’s costly.'" More reaction from The Hill.
New Push For Energy Bill Without Carbon Cap
Compromise clean energy proposal from AEI, Brookings and Breakthrough Institute prioritizes public investment over carbon cap. Politico: "Their vision: to accelerate energy innovation by investing $25 billion per year in clean energy technologies. The proposal advocates funneling cash into the Energy Department’s science funding, energy education, and the Defense Department’s energy innovation efforts. The authors also advocate a new generation of small nuclear reactors as part of a larger clean energy portfolio. Federal energy subsidies ought to be overhauled, they say, to reward innovation."
NYT's David Leonhardt gives the plan a qualified thumbs up: "Along similar lines, Al Gore is working with Reed Hundt and John Podesta, former Clinton administration officials, on a proposal aimed at 'lowering the cost of clean,' ... raising the cost of dirty energy is unpopular, especially when the economy is so weak. Finding the money to make clean energy cheaper, even when government budgets are tight, will probably be an easier sell. The approach does have one big disadvantage, of course. It does not leverage the power of the market, the way that a cap-and-trade system (or direct carbon tax) would. [And] the weakest link in the pro-research argument is that no one knows exactly where the money will come from."
NYT's Tom Friedman pushes Congress to fund President Obama's energy innovation hubs: "It’s a plan to set up eight innovation hubs to solve the eight biggest energy problems in the world ... smart grid, solar electricity, carbon capture and storage, extreme materials, batteries and energy storage, energy efficient buildings, nuclear energy, and fuels from sunlight ... So far Congress has appropriated partial funding — 'up to $22 million' but probably less — for three of these hubs for one year ... Congress should be funding all eight right now for five years — $1 billion — so that we not only get graduate students, knowing the research money is there, flocking to these new energy fields but we get the benefit of all these scientists collaborating and cross-fertilizing."
New report finds California's historic investment in clean energy has created jobs. Change.org's Zachary Shahan: "A new report out by independent, non-partisan organization Next 10, the 2010 California Green Innovation Index, examined 'California’s history of policy and technology innovation, and resulting economic and environmental gains or losses.' It found exactly the opposite of what the dirty energy lobby is busy telling the public—rather than being a job-killer, investment in green innovation and green manufacturing creates jobs, attracts businesses, and is thus good for the economy."
"C.D.C Girds For Climate Change" reports NYT: "Some $5.25 million will be split among eight states and two cities seeking to evaluate and mitigate health impacts from everything from hotter summers to an anticipated increase in waterborne illness resulting from flooding as glaciers melt and raise sea levels..."
Wonk Room's Brad Johnson identifies four governor's races that could "shut down the clean energy revolution in the Midwest.": "In Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, four Democratic governors who have supported clean energy may be replaced by Republicans who have expressed fealty to big oil."
Treehugger's Brian Merchant notes conservatives in other countries "are actively competing with liberals to become the authority" on climate: "...when the impacts of climate change can no longer be denied even by the oil industries' think tanks, sympathetic politicians, and demagogic pundits, whichever party has built a reputation for ignoring the issue will lose out. Eventually."
Blaming Public Servants Instead Of Reckless Tax Cuts
Dean Baker pushes back on NYT article hyping New York state public pension problem: "The NYT reported that state, local, and county governments in New York face a liability of $200 billion for retiree health insurance payments ... It would have been helpful to include a measure of future income so that readers could assess the importance of this cost. If New York State grows at roughly the same rate as the overall economy, then its total income (discounted at a 4.5 percent rate) would be over $37 trillion. This puts the unfunded liability for health care for New York's public sector employees at approximately 0.5 percent of income."
Ezra Klein debunks notion that public employees deserve blame for state budget crunches: "Just like for the federal government, it's health-care spending, not pensions, which poses the greatest long-term threat to the states ... Republicans (and some Democrats) and business interests have passed massive unfunded tax cuts that turned pension programs into ticking time bombs. See California for more on this play. There's plenty of blame to go around."
GOP Sen. Orrin "Hatch Complains It Would Be ‘Idiocy’ To Cut Funding For Stimulus-Funded Project" reports ThinkProgress' Zaid Jilani: "... while Hatch is now acting as a strong defender of [the Utah irrigation and power project] and warning against the loss of any federal funding of the program, he fails to mention that some of the project’s greatest support came from last year’s stimulus package ... Hatch may now be sanctimoniously lecturing others about not playing politics, that is exactly what he was doing when he railed against last year’s stimulus bill."
Wall St. Fight Not Over
Katrina vanden Heuvel urges public to stay engaged on financial reform, or risk bad implementation: "The fight to create a powerful financial watchdog for consumers is not a right-vs.-left fight, but a wrong-vs.-right fight. Or as [Elizabeth] Warren puts it: 'This is a dispute of families versus banks. It's not conservatives versus liberals.' It was inside-outside organizing that carried reform this far, and it is inside-outside organizing that Warren needs at her back now to win this next fight and beyond."
FDIC begins to implement Wall St. reform, establish authority to wind down failing firms. NYT: "Considerable doubt remains among legal specialists about whether the new mechanism is feasible, particularly because international regulators have yet to agree on “cross-border resolution” of failing institutions that have global reach. Even so, the F.D.I.C. said Tuesday that its board had agreed to propose a rule [which] would require the creditors of a large financial firm to suffer losses if the firm fell apart ... the proposal would give the F.D.I.C. board some flexibility to make payments to certain creditors if the payments were for 'essential operations,'..."
Health Care Supporters Stand Tall
Wonk Room video show health reform supporters successfully challenging conservatives on the campaign trail: "During a series of rapid fire questions about health care in the Colorado senate debate, Bennet’s challenger Ken Buck said he supported some of the popular provisions in the law, to which Bennet retorted, 'until the very end, Ken Buck was for the health care reform bill.'"
New report shows what abuses will return if health care reform is repealed. Wonk Room's Igor Volsky: "A new report from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce has found that the top four insurers 'denied health coverage to 49 percent more people in two years for reasons such as pregnancy and the likelihood of adopting a child,' resulting in some 651,000 rejected applicants between 2007 and 2009. Before the Affordable Care Act, moreover, 'each company had a business plan to exclude pre-existing conditions, said the report, citing internal insurer documents the panel obtained.'"
White House vs. Secret Campaign Donors
Chamber of Commerce "Vows to Ramp Up Campaign Spending" reports WSJ: "The chamber has denied that foreign members’ payments—which chamber officials say total less than 1% of its $200 million budget—are used for political activities. The chamber is not legally required to disclose its donors."
White House releases non-existent "enemies list," demands Karl Rove release donor list. HuffPost quotes Robert Gibbs: "I'm releasing our enemies list. No one is on it. Now can I see the donors to American Crossroads?"
AFL-CIO argues its members can prevent GOP takeover of Congress. WSJ: "By Trumka’s math, 75 Democratic House seats are in play, a number roughly in line with independent estimates. To secure a majority, the GOP needs to net 39 seats. Of the 75 in play, 37 are what Trumka calls 'high union density' districts ... If Democrats can take four Republican seats, as many analysts expect ... Republican candidates would need to win 59% of the Democratic seats up for grabs ... If Democrats can secure 60% of the 'high union density' seats, Republicans would have to win three quarters of the Democratic seats in play."
