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.
GOP Prepares To Use Budget Ax, Subpoena Power, Lobbyist Lunches
Corporate lobbyists already wooing potential GOP committee chairmen. NYT: "[Rep. Dave] Camp is slated to take over the powerful, tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee if Republicans win the majority next week ... lobbyists have gone to his staff to try to get to the head of the line in presenting proposed tax changes that will benefit their clients ... Recognizing the enormous power [Rep. Howard] McKeon could soon have in helping shape Defense Department policy and spending, military contractors are teaming up with his office to form a new association of military suppliers ... The possible shift in power has also generated excitement among energy-sector lobbyists, who welcome the likely rise of Representative Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, as chairman of the Natural Resources Committee ... he has collected $70,000, making him one of the top recipients of money from [oil and gas] industries."
GOPers plan major budget cuts if they take Congresss, reports Bloomberg: "U.S. House Republicans plan to try to slash $100 billion from the federal budget as early as January ... Carrying out spending cuts that Republicans have pledged to seek -- which would amount to 21 percent of the government’s so-called discretionary money pot -- could prove politically difficult. Reducing funds for programs such as college loans for low-income students or medical research at the National Institutes of Health is harder than promising to do that on the campaign trail."
Subpoena power abuse likely if GOP takes House, worries W. Post's Ruth Marcus: "[Rep. Darrell] Issa's larger record does not foretell restraint. His modus operandi has too often been to accuse first -- and keep accusing even in the absence of supporting evidence."
What are GOPers proposing to do differently on health care? Nothing, reports LAT: "... some conservatives acknowledge that the healthcare program offered by party leaders is largely unchanged from the proposals the GOP pushed when it held majorities from 2000 to 2006 ... 'One of our No. 1 priorities needs to be to preserve the good things we have now,' said Rep. Wally Herger of Chico, who would chair the House Ways and Means health subcommittee if Republicans take the House ... But as costs continue to climb and the ranks of uninsured swell, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last year estimated that the House Republican plan would leave 52 million people without insurance in 2019, compared with 50 million today."
TNR's Jonathan Chait responds to Richard Wolffe's Daily Best report that next year the WH will "test Republicans' unity and political resolve on three controversial issues": tax cuts, deficit reduction and immigration: " I'm not following the logic on the deficit commission. If it puts out any plan, it will be an unpopular mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. It's not something you dare the opposition to vote against ... The Bush tax cuts make sense as an issue. Force Republicans to hold the popular universal portion of the Bush tax cuts hostage to the unpopular $250,000-and-up portion ... The immigration issue, meanwhile, is interesting. It's not the case that Republicans are on the wrong side of public opinion [but] it's plausible that the persuadable voters with the strongest intensity on the issue are Latinos."
LAT notes Supreme Court wrongly believed influx of corporate campaign cash would be transparent and accountable: "'With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions,' Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in January ... But Kennedy and the high court majority were wrong. Because of loopholes in tax laws and a weak enforcement policy at the Federal Election Commission, corporations and wealthy donors have been able to spend huge sums on campaign ads, confident the public will not know who they are..."
Global warming key issue in several contests. LAT: "For the first time in nearly a decade, not one Republican running for the Senate supports proposals to limit carbon emissions and trade pollution rights. Most openly question the science of global warming or denounce it as a hoax ... In coal-rich southwestern Virginia, Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher, who has served 28 years in the House, has been pounded for his vote on global warming ... Boucher said he helped negotiate provisions 'to get the best deal for coal' he could in the legislation. The final bill included tens of millions of dollars for 'clean coal' technology, funds that would have directly benefited the region ... In the adjoining district, [Rep. Tom] Perriello has tried to turn the argument to one about clean energy and jobs."
NYT reviews how Dems are responding to attacks on health care reform: "Polling on the law shows that the electorate remains split along partisan lines, with independents leaning against it. The evolving Democratic response has varied therefore by geography and political circumstance ... In select districts, however, Democratic candidates have gradually come to defend and even embrace the law’s most popular provisions, perhaps because Republican attacks have left them little choice."
"By the next election cycle, younger Americans will be as opposed to tweaking the benefits of the Affordable Care Act as today’s seniors are to changing Medicare," argues Wonk Room's Igor Volsky.
Warren Doesn't Back Foreclosure Moratorium
Elizabeth Warren downplays need for national foreclosure moratorium, argues new consumer protection bureau already making impact, in LAT interview: "The fact that the agency is now in place means that a number of credit providers are starting to reexamine their business models for long-term sustainability in a world with a cop on the beat. So I think the changes are starting now ... Look at the credit card offerings online and note how many are trying to advance the notion of clarity, simplicity and the absence of tricks or traps ... [Regarding the foreclosure scandal,] my money is on the attorneys general [who have launched a joint investigation in all 50 states]. Foreclosure rules differ from state to state, and they are in the best position to determine who has and who has not followed the law."
Investors amp up effort to force Bank of America to buy back fraudulent mortgage securities. W. Post: "Once run by a loose group of hedge funds, the investors' campaigns have bulged in size in recent weeks, turning them into a force that could recoup tens of billions of dollars from Bank of America and other large lenders and act as a major drain on their earnings. Previously, this group struggled to force the banking industry to hand over data critical to their lawsuits. Now with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the regulator of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and some of the world's largest funds on board, the investors may be able to compel banks to reveal more about their lending practices."
Mass. foreclosure firm facing scrutiny. Center for Public Integrity's Ben Hallman: "A law firm with connections to the attorney at the center of a Florida foreclosure scandal is under investigation by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office for unlawfully evicting tenants of bank-owned properties. The investigation came to light on Monday, when Harmon Law Offices in Newton, Mass. responded in state court to a demand by investigators in Martha Coakley’s office to produce documents related to several foreclosures."
Fed Prepares To Stimulate
WSJ previews next week's expected Fed moves: "The central bank is likely to unveil a program of U.S. Treasury bond purchases worth a few hundred billion dollars over several months, a measured approach in contrast to purchases of nearly $2 trillion it unveiled during the financial crisis ... The Fed's aim is to drive up the prices of long-term bonds, which in turn would push down long-term interest rates. It hopes that would spur more investment and spending and liven up the recovery. But officials want to avoid the 'shock and awe' style used during the crisis in favor of an approach that allows them to adjust their policy, and possibly add to their purchases, over time as the recovery unfolds ... internal opposition to Mr. Bernanke's approach could intensify as presidents of three regional Fed banks who have expressed skepticism about the plan ... take voting positions on the Fed's policy-making body."
NYT's David Leonhardt reminds the stimulus wasn't too much, it was not enough: "Recoveries from financial crises tend to be long and slow. The European debt crisis, which began early this year and sent stocks around the world falling, seems to have taken away the American economy’s slim margin for error. By May, hiring by companies had slowed. Stimulus spending was starting to slow, too. And White House political aides were looking at polls showing voters were worried about deficits and spending. Put it all together, and the aggressive policy response of 2008 and 2009 faded ... Only recently has the Fed started trying to lift growth again."
W. Post's Harold Meyerson explains it slowly to the Tea Party: America didn't become socialist, it became hyper-capitalist: "...the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich -- the super-rich in particular -- have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America's wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007 ... it would be reasonable to infer that when the Tea Partyers say that they want to take the country back, they mean back to the period between 1950 and 1980, when the vast majority of Americans encountered more opportunity and security in their economic lives than they had before or since. Reasonable, but wrong. As the right sees it, America's woes are traceable to the New Deal..."
