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.
Workers Aim To Prevent GOP Takeover
The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reports on the AFL-CIO's massive voter turnout strategy: "Union members have distributed 17.5 million pamphlets at more than 4,000 worksites, made more than 23 million phone calls and volunteers have knocked on more than 1.3 doors ... AFL-CIO political chief Karen Ackerman predicts a better night for Democrats that prognosticators predict ... According to Ackerman, labor's tilt toward Democrats has become more pronounced since unions began their program, increasing by double digits the percentage who favor the Democratic candidate in their district since June."
NYT edit board surveys the damage from the Supreme Court ruling allowing ads funded by secret corporate donors, slaps Chamber of Commerce: "We can’t turn on the television these days without being assaulted by ads anonymously savaging candidates. Welcome to politics in post-Citizens United America ... The United States Chamber of Commerce, which has unleashed a barrage of attack ads against Democratic candidates and the White House, denies that offshore moguls are anteing up. That would be more credible if the chamber disclosed its donors."
Politico follows the money: "The long roster of House Democrats who were outraised by their GOP opponents — a list that totals at least 40 — is just the latest indication that cash is following GOP momentum ... Several of the closest Senate races feature opponents who have nearly the same size bank accounts — promising for two weeks of evenly matched drama."
W. Post's E. J. Dionne says corporate-backed groups "are doing the dirty work" for Republicans: "They are doing the dirty work of pounding their Democratic opponents in commercials for which no one is accountable. The Republican candidates can shrug an innocent 'Who, me?' Deniability is a wonderful thing."
GOP candidates unable to explain how they would pay for tax cuts. HuffPost's Amanda Terkel: "On Sunday's morning public affairs shows, both Republican Senate candidates Carly Fiorina in California and Ken Buck in Colorado struggled to give specifics about how they would reduce the deficit while also supporting expensive extensions of the Bush tax cuts. Although journalists ask Republicans this question almost without fail in debates and interviews, candidates and lawmakers still consistently stumble over it."
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson make the case against bipartisan governance, in The American Prospect: "...gridlock is not neutral. It is corrosive. The policy results that follow are neither centrist nor stable. Rather, stalemate in Washington leads to a slow and steady deterioration of governance -- deterioration that is at the heart of our present economic crisis."
China Bristles Against Investigation Of Illegal Subsidies
China delivers sharp rhetoric in response to US allegation of illegal subsidies for clean energy. NYT: "Mr. Zhang accused American trade officials of repeatedly delaying talks over the same issues that the White House now wanted to investigate and suggested the administration was playing election season politics ... It is highly unusual for an official of Mr. Zhang’s standing to convene a news conference on short notice and denounce the American government in such blunt terms ... The [U.S.] trade representative’s inquiry, in reaction to the Steelworkers’ complaint, is potentially a first step toward filing formal charges against China with the W.T.O. ... The Steelworkers’ complaint ... echoes charges by other foreign manufacturers, who argue that China gives hidden subsidies like free land and low-interest loans to its clean energy industries, while substantially restricting access to its domestic market."
Sen. Sherrod Brown urges strong follow-through on clean energy complaint, in NYT oped: " If the White House finds that the support violates international trade rules, Section 301 [of the Trade Act] allows it to respond with a range of aggressive measures, including tariffs. This strategy has worked before: in the 1980s and ’90s, the United States used its 301 authority to combat Japanese and Korean subsidies and trade barriers. Though critics warned of bitter trade wars, the get-tough approach actually led to more balanced trade relationships, and even encouraged foreign investors, like Asian auto companies, to build plants in America."
NYT's Paul Krugman calls for aggressive measures to counter China's rare earth mining monopoly: "..., the world needs to develop non-Chinese sources of these materials. There are extensive rare earth deposits in the United States and elsewhere ... [We need to pursue] recycling of rare earths and other materials from used electronic devices."
Ecocentric's Krista Mahr notes there's no quick fix to the rare earth monopoly: "A story posted last week in Technology Review also details various projects in Japan and the U.S. to find new materials to replace or decrease the need for rare earths. Tesla Motors, for instance, is using electromagnets in its Roaster, as opposed to the more common permanent rare-earth magnets. Hitachi and BMW are making similar moves to get out from under China's thumb. But, the article points out, most of these, including several government-backed research projects in the U.S., are years off from completion."
Fed Now Fighting Deflation
Bernanke makes clear Fed's mission has changed from fighting inflation to fighting deflation. NYT: "The Fed is legally required to try to keep prices stable and maximize employment. Those often conflicting goals are, for the time being, no longer in tension as the economy limps along. In framing his cautious arguments for additional Fed action, Mr. Bernanke said inflation (about half of the implicit target of 'about 2 percent or a bit below') was 'too low' and that unemployment (9.6 percent) was 'clearly too high.'"
Mark Thoma argues what's needed more is more fiscal policy: "My doubts are about how much people and firms will respond to lower interest rates, i.e. whether they will increase consumption and investment in response. For example, firms are already sitting on piles of cash they aren't spending, and it's just not clear to me that a small downward tick in real rates will motivate them to buy a new delivery truck or build a new factory ... we should be making it absolutely clear that monetary policy is a second best alternative right now ... Unfortunately, Republicans and a few misguided Democrats have taken further fiscal action off the table, and monetary policy is the only hope we have left, however meager that hope might be."
Robert Kuttner worries austerity activists will be emboldened after Election Day: "In a fair debate, growth beats austerity. But the necessary recipe to get us back to prosperity will be doubly on the defensive after November. From one side, an enlarged Republican caucus in Congress will be going after public investments. From the other side, the bipartisan caucus of austerity-mongers will be promoting belt-tightening."
WH Lays Out Foreclosure Strategy
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan lays out strategy responding to foreclosure fraud scandal: "Bringing together more than 20 federal agencies, 94 US Attorney's Offices and dozens of state and local partners to form the broadest coalition of law enforcement, investigatory and regulatory agencies ever assembled to combat fraud, the Task Force is examining this issue and the Attorney General has said publicly that if it finds any wrongdoing the members of the task force will take the appropriate action ... But a national, blanket moratorium on all foreclosure sales would do far more harm than good -- hurting homeowners and home-buyers alike at a time when foreclosed homes make up 25 percent of home sales."
Dean Baker criticizes Donovan's argument against national moratorium: "Doesn't the housing secretary know that there is a huge inventory of foreclosed homes that banks are holding off the market waiting for better times. If the pipeline of newly foreclosed homes was temporarily stopped by a moratorium, this inventory would easily keep the market well-supplied with foreclosed properties for long into the future."
Administration officials "stopped short of announcing a criminal investigation, and did not suggest that one was imminent," observes NYT.
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow rips banks for blaming foreclosure fraud scandal on homeowners: "The 'blame homeowners' argument is hypocritical, but it's been effective. It helped bankers get themselves massive bailouts ... Now they want to use the same argument to get around the fact that they've been breaking property laws on a massive scale for years. It's just 'paperwork,' they say. But any homeowner who filed false affidavits - a crime that's legally equivalent to perjury - would be looking at jail time."
NYT explores another say Wall St. rigs the game: securities lending: "... Funds lend some of their stocks and bonds to Wall Street, in return for cash that banks like JPMorgan then invest. If the trades do well, the bank takes a cut of the profits. If the trades do poorly, the funds absorb all of the losses ... Lawsuits are flying against JPMorgan and others, including Northern Trust. Clients say that they were not warned of the risks associated with this practice and that the banks breached their fiduciary duty. Wells Fargo lost such a suit over the summer and was ordered to pay four institutions a combined $30 million."
GOP Turns Back On Environment
NYT edit board slams GOP for abandoning its past on the environment: "..., it is almost impossible to recall that in 2000, George W. Bush promised to cap carbon dioxide, encouraging some to believe that he would break through the partisan divide on global warming. Until the end of the 1990s, Republicans could be counted on to join bipartisan solutions to environmental problems. Now they’ve disappeared in a fog of disinformation, an entire political party parroting the Cheney line."
Financing scarce for large-scale solar plants. NYT: "The U.S. government has two programs to help the industry: a cash grant that pays 30 percent of project costs for plants under construction by Dec. 31, and a loan guarantee program that covers as much as 80 percent of project costs. Applicants to the loan guarantee program have complained that the process is too lengthy and murky, leading to just a handful of projects’ winning approval ... Bankers generally prefer smaller, less risky projects and shorter-term loans than the 20-year terms solar plants typically need. Even if big banks are willing to get involved, their lending rates run about 8 percent, roughly double the government rate."
