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.
No Public Schools, No Estate Taxes
Tea party favorite congressional candidate David Harmer proposed abolishing public schools ... all of them. Mother Jones: "He's advocated eliminating public schools entirely and returning education to 'the way things worked through the first century of American nationhood,' when educational opportunities for poor people, African-Americans, women, the disabled, and others were, to say the least, extremely limited ... He also coauthored an article in which public schooling is referred to as 'socialism in education.'"
Estate tax flashpoint in several congressional races. WSJ: "More than 250 current congressional candidates, mostly Republicans, have signed a pledge this year to support elimination of the tax ... A strong showing for repeal in November, however, could raise pressure on lawmakers to lower rates and increase exemptions, Republican aides say ... Eliminating the estate tax would cost about $410 billion over the coming decade ... the estate-tax repeal has become an issue in Senate races in Florida and Kentucky, as well as in House races in Missouri, Georgia and other southern districts. In Washington state, Republican Senate candidate Dino Rossi has made a full repeal a focus of his candidacy..."
Rev. Jesse Jackson says the GOP is running on a "Big Lie": "[Newt Gingrich] urges them to contrast Republicans as the party of 'paychecks' against Democrats as the party of 'food stamps.' ... it is simply a lie. In reality, Republican presidents have a worse record on job creation going back to Herbert Hoover and the onset of the Great Depression. And the worst record since World War II was racked up by George Bush..."
Yes You Can ... Run On Health Care
Upstate NY Rep. Scott Murphy runs ad attacking opponent for opposing health reform law. CNN: "Evan Tracey, the president of Campaign Media Analysis Group which tracks campaign commercials, tells CNN this is the first TV ad he has seen that comes to the defense of the health care law ... a GOP source involved in strategy there says although internal polls show it a tight race, they believe Murphy has the advantage."
Insurers can't have more restrictive enrollment procedures for children with pre-existing conditions. McClatchy: "While HHS had previously said that insurers and states could have a limited enrollment period, today's letter offered additional guidance: Insurers can't have a window of enrollment for some children and not others ... Insurers reacted to the letter, claiming that HHS 'has created a powerful incentive for parents to defer purchasing coverage until after their children need it ... ' ... Consumer advocates praised the guidance. In a written statement, Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families said that 'While only a small number of families are in need of individual insurance coverage for their children, they are a particularly vulnerable group' who often make too much to qualify for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program."
But insurers can charge more to cover children with pre-existing conditions. NYT: "...on Wednesday, the administration, answering a question raised by many insurers, said they could charge higher premiums to sick children outside the open-enrollment period, if state laws allowed such underwriting, as many do."
HHS Sec. and Medicare actuary duel over privately-run Medicare Advantage plans. Wonk Room's Igor Volsky: "...actuary Rick Foster has sent a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) arguing that the health law’s reduction in subsidies to private Medicare Advantage plans will eliminate some benefits in the Medicare Advantage program and increase co-payments ... as HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius writes in her own letter to Grassley, some of the fears surrounding MA are already unfounded. In fact, despite Foster’s predictions, the actual MA premium bids for 2011 show that '99.7 percent of Medicare beneficiaries who have access to a Medicare Advantage plan today will have access to a a Medicare Advantage plan in 2011.'"
WH Faces Criticism For Foreclosure Stance
All 50 state AGs team up to investigate foreclosure fraud. NYT: "The inquiry will focus on signed affidavits that mortgage loan servicers have filed with the court without confirming their accuracy, a practice known as robo-signing. Some were signed without a notary public present, in violation of state law. Others were signed by employees who spend their day signing one affidavit after another, raising questions about whether they could possibly attest to knowing the facts claimed in each document."
Federal regulators, instead of backing foreclosure moratorium, pushing lenders to fix problems quickly. LAT: "...top White House officials worry that imposing a national moratorium on foreclosures would backfire by driving down prices even more, delaying the real estate shakeout and potentially creating more foreclosures as additional homeowners find themselves underwater ... Rather than calling for a moratorium, a key federal regulatory agency on Wednesday directed lenders to verify their foreclosure processes, quickly fix any problems and refer potential fraud to authorities."
Moratorium backers dissatisfied with WH position. W. Post: "Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said the plan 'seems to only require that servicers conduct an internal review - the very same servicers that brought us this mess.' John Taylor, head of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said he was disappointed with the Obama administration's continued reliance on the banking industry to do he right thing. 'I think the magnitude of the crisis is such that we want to do something other than rely on a voluntary system of compliance,' said Taylor..."
Treasury responds to critique from Reuters' Felix Salmon: "Geithner is absolutely right that empty houses are a Bad Thing. But he seems to think that a foreclosure moratorium would cause empty houses. Isn’t it foreclosures which cause empty houses? ... Treasury responds, via email. 'First, at least 40% of all homes in foreclosure are vacant. Delaying conveyance of title and resale has devastating impacts on neighborhood values and increases demand for municipal services. Also, a blanket moratorium equally impacts the banks that are acting in accordance with the law increasing costs for servicers and investors.'"
Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith suggests banks aren't following through on their voluntary moratoriums: "GMAC announced a foreclosure halt in all 50 states; JP Morgan and Bank of America have stopped in 23 judicial foreclosure states. Or have they? Florida is a judicial foreclosure state, and local reports suggest the banks are still moving forward with foreclosures. Note the inconsistencies between the statements of the bank employees versus the action on the ground..."
Robert Scheer argues that the mess is too big not to have a moratorium: "To facilitate the scam, the records of homeownership came to be largely maintained without the traditional local paper trail in a new computerized national database. The ensuing difficulty in tracing such ownership is now at the heart of the courts’ objections and the compelling argument for a government-enforced national moratorium on home foreclosures to provide sufficient time to sort this mess out."
Big banks appear vulnerable to lawsuits from mortgage investors. W. Post: "For more than a decade, big lenders sold millions of mortgages around the globe at lightning speed without properly transferring the physical documents that prove who legally owned the loans. Now, some of the pension systems, hedge funds and other investors that took big losses on the loans are seeking to use this flaw to force banks to compensate them or even invalidate the mortgage trades themselves. Their collective actions, if successful, could blow a hole through the balance sheets of big banks and raise fundamental questions about the financial system..."
NYT investigation finds banks relied on unqualified low-paid staff to rush processing of mounting foreclosures: "...the banks had few financial incentives to invest in their servicing operations, several former executives said. A mortgage generates an annual fee equal to only about 0.25 percent of the loan’s total value, or about $500 a year on a typical $200,000 mortgage. That revenue evaporates once a loan becomes delinquent, while the cost of a foreclosure can easily reach $2,500 and devour the meager profits generated from handling healthy loans."
JPMorgan Chase expands its internal review. NYT: " JPMorgan Chase & Company became the first big lender to acknowledge that it had stopped using Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, for foreclosures [which] has been criticized for sloppy practices ... the bank had expanded the scope of its review to more than 115,000 loan foreclosure files in 41 states, a move that will effectively delay its foreclosure sales in most of the country .. Mr. Dimon also tried to reassure the public that in spite of sloppy documentation practices, the bank had not mistakenly foreclosed on homeowners, because the underlying information was accurate."
Mixed Reaction To AEI-Brookings Energy Plan
Grist's David Roberts skeptical of hanging hopes on AEI-Brookings clean energy plan that eschews carbon cap: "I have nothing against R&D spending -- far from it -- but I object to the notion that it's an alternative to cap-and-trade or that it will prove, in practice, any less partisan ... we need to leapfrog the poisonous notion ... that different policy approaches are at war with one another, that one approach is the Brave New Paradigm for the 21st Century and all others tattered remnants of an exhausted and discredited worldview."
Climate Progress' Joe Romm slams lack of standards, claims of post-partisanship: "...most of the proposals in the new report aren’t a bad idea [but] the omission of any federal standards for either energy efficiency or renewable energy is quite glaring ... my central criticism of this report ... is that it is just grossly disingenuous to claim that their set of proposals is somehow more politically tenable than regulations or could avert catastrophic climate change ... whatever this Brookings-AEI report is, it ain’t a 'climate proposal.'"
Ecocentric's Bryan Walsh leans in favor: "It's hardly 'beyond disingenuous' to suggest that a more straightforward, government-focused plan to spend on energy research might have better luck with conservatives than a very complex cap-and-trade scheme ... Would the recommendations in this report lead to the kind of carbon reductions needed to avert dangerous climate change? That's far less certain ... But everything that I've seen over the past two years on climate and energy policy makes me think that Post-Partisan Power is a pretty good place to start."
A "Green New Deal" will bring a "Middle Class Renaissance" argues New Deal 2.0's Jon Rynn: "Reconstructing transportation, energy, and urban infrastructures will more than take up the productive energies of the almost 27 million underemployed and unemployed people ... Even taxes for the middle and lower classes could go down if transportation, energy, and urban systems were built using debt-free greenbacks, as in Lincoln’s day. The revenue from these systems, the savings from retiring the national debt with greenbacks, and fair taxes on the wealthy and corporations would all lead to little or no income taxes for the bottom 80% of the population. Drink that, Tea Partiers!"
Wonk Room's Brad Johnson profiles five gubernatorial races featuring Tea Party affiliated climate science deniers: "...we look at five competitive state contests that pitch climate champions against global warming deniers with Tea Party backing, in Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, and Ohio. The future of renewable electricity standards, efficiency and clean technology support, and climate policy rest on these election results."
WH oil spill commission split over future of drilling. WSJ: "The commission deliberated over draft language of its findings that said, in part, 'the national interest requires the continuation and expansion of a strong offshore drilling program ... ' ... [Co-chair William] Reilly then discussed how the media might interpret the panel's findings. 'I was just thinking of a headline that says: "Offshore drilling commission, responding to the blowout in the gulf, recommends the expansion of offshore drilling."' Replied Commissioner Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council: 'Let's not do that.'"
Who's To Blame For The Currency War?
Simon Johnson argues US bears more responsibility than China for the "currency war": "...most emerging markets feel their currencies pressed to appreciate by growing capital inflows. Investors in Brazil are being offered yields around 11%, while similar credit risks in the US are paying no more than 2-3%. To many, this looks like a one-way bet ... the US has been overconsuming – living far beyond its means – for the past decade ... The big problem is that the core of the world’s financial system has become unstable, and reckless risk-taking will once again lead to great collateral damage."
Steelmakers try to block Chinese investment in U.S., charging illegal subsidies. Bloomberg: "Groups representing Nucor Corp. and U.S. Steel Corp. listed government loans, tax breaks and payments they said their counterparts in China receive in the report to be released today. Much of the aid violates World Trade Organization rules and may give Chinese companies an unfair advantage if they invest in the U.S, according to the report."
Breakfast Sides
Public pension issue splits left in California. Bloomberg: "[San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi] is drawing the scorn of fellow Democrats for ... a November ballot proposition that would force city workers to pay more of their rising pension and health-care costs. 'How dare you!' Leland Yee, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco, thundered ... 'How dare you take it off the backs of city workers!' ... 'This is a progressive issue,' said Adachi ... 'All of the progressive programs that we fought so hard for over the years are getting crowded out by rising pension costs.'"
W. Post's David Ignatius praises the government-led restructuring of the auto industry: "The government interventions worked. The companies were saved. Most of the money that taxpayers invested is likely to be repaid. Many politicians talk as if the whole process was a disaster, but it wasn't. Private actors made bad decisions, but public officials generally made good ones."
No wrongdoing by SEC in filing lawsuit against Goldman Sachs. NYT: "An investigation by the inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission found no evidence that the agency’s lawsuit against Goldman Sachs was politically motivated or that S.E.C. officials leaked advance information about the lawsuit to the media."
