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 Conservative Mandate
Any GOP victory will not come with a mandate, according to Bloomberg poll: "The poll finds Republicans in an unusual position: on the brink of making political gains while the party and its policies are unpopular ... Less than one-third of poll respondents -- 31 percent -- say they support cutting federal spending in areas such as education and health care ... A Bloomberg poll earlier this month found narrow support for health-care repeal alongside strong backing for most of the law’s provisions ... Voters aren’t overwhelmingly embracing Republican views on the economy, either: the poll shows they are divided on whether Obama’s economic policies need more time to work..."
W. Post's Dan Balz also sees thin support for both parties: "The winners should take little comfort from the results. Dissatisfaction with Republicans also runs deep, and voters have conflicted expectations about what should happen in Washington over the next two years. Politicians of both parties will remain on trial ... 'Generally in a wave election, one party comes up as the other goes down,' [Pew pollster Andrew] Kohut said. 'But Republicans are not well rated.' Dissatisfaction extends to the private sector, too..."
"Tea party antics could end up burning Republicans" reports W. Post: "The tea party's volatile influence on this election year appears to be doing more harm than good for Republicans' chances in some of the closest races in the nation, in which little-known candidates who upset the establishment with primary wins are now stumbling in the campaign's final days."
Kos notes that Democrats are doing significantly better among "registered voters" than "likely voters": "I'm with those who think progressives are justified in being pissed and demoralized ... But no matter how pissed and demoralized we are now, we'll be ten times as pissed and demoralized if we have Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Jim DeMint ... if Republicans make their expected massive gains, it won't be because America turned against the Democrats, but because Democrats stayed home."
Karl Rove's PAC using bank under investigation by KY Attorney General and Dem senate candidate. W. Post: "Conway spokesman John Collins declined to comment because of the state investigation, which centers on allegations of sexual abuse at one of the Forcht Group's nursing home facilities. Forcht Bank officials did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday."
GOP Plans End of PAYGO
House Min. Leader Boehner plans to scrap PAYGO requirements so tax cuts can once again increase deficits. TNR's Jonathan Chait: "...Republicans again propose to eliminate Paygo, as they did under Bush. But this time they propose to replace it with a different rule, Cutgo, which would require that new spending be offset with spending cuts. That would indeed be an effective way to limit new spending programs. Of course, it would retain the ability to pass tax cuts with no offsets whatsoever."
GOP Rep. and BP apologist Joe Barton pledges "vigorous congressional oversight" if he becomes chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Hill: "Barton — a climate skeptic and advocate of expanded drilling — says he would undertake a wide-ranging investigation of Obama administration decisions on healthcare, global warming, communications and other matters."
Sen. Lindsey Graham puts his bipartisan hit back on. The Hill quotes: "...we ought to not put ourself in a position of being the 'party of no' to hard problems. But we ought to sit down with the president and work on Social Security, come up with an energy policy without cap-and-trade."
Defending Health Reform
President Obama rebuts Jon Stewart on health care reform. Politico:: "Stewart pushed Obama on his legislative success, saying that while he ran for president with audacity, the change he’s enacted has felt rather timid. 'John, I love your show, but this is something where I have a profound disagreement with you,' the president replied. 'This notion that health care was timid ... This is what most people would say is as significant a piece of legislation as we have seen in this country's history ... What happens is it gets discounted because the assumption is we didn't get 100 percent of what we wanted, we only get 90 percent of what we wanted — so let's focus on the 10 percent we didn't get.'"
Dems are paying a price for using honest numbers to fund health care reform, argues Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "Were there some optimistic assumptions there? Sure. Are some of the cost control measures not going to work as well as they hope? Sure. To about the 80% level, though, Democrats really did insist that ACA be fully funded. By ordinary political standards that's pretty impressive, and by recent Republican standards it's just a plain miracle. And it was a pretty costly piece of fiscal honesty too. A big part of how ACA was funded comes from that $500 billion Medicare cut, and that's just a flat out electoral disaster. ... They really deserve a little more credit for that."
James Galbraith argues that Social Security and Medicare are fundamentally sound, in Mother Jones: Social Security and Medicare can't go bankrupt, just as the Pentagon can't. They're not in some separate bank account or lockbox—they're government programs that we either choose to pay for or don't. And not only can we afford them, they're a bargain, providing modest comfort and decent care to people who would otherwise financially burden their families—or die."
W. Monthly's Steve Benen reminds us that the campaign against health care reform didn't end in August:: "...there's been more than $100 million in anti-reform advertising 'since signed the bill into law in March. And many ads on health care contain multiple falsehoods and distortions.'"
Scope Of Mortgage Crisis Debated
Disagreement over scope of mortgage crisis at TARP oversight hearing. NYT: "The uncertainty over the legal status of foreclosed homes in the nation could further depress home prices and delay the recovery of the housing market, the Obama administration said on Wednesday ... [But while] banks and mortgage servicers are bracing for a wave of lawsuits over flawed paperwork, [Chief Homeownership Preservation Officer Phyllis] Caldwell said the government believed the overall risks to the financial system were slim ... Other witnesses were less sanguine, telling the panel that financial institutions like Bank of America, the nation’s largest consumer bank, had understated the dimensions of the problem." More from HuffPost.
ProPublica examines Treasury's incredible shrinking mortgage modification program: "A year and a half into the program, the number of homeowners defaulting on their modified loans has been fast approaching the number of new modifications. In September, for example, banks modified almost 28,000 loans, but nearly 10,000 homeowners fell out of the program because they defaulted on their modified payments. Taken together, the programs' growth has slowed by almost a quarter each month since May."
"After Backing Crazy Mortgage Finance Plan, Corker Wants ‘Leading Role’ In Mortgage Finance Reform" reports Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo: "...Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered a truly irresponsible amendment that would have simply set a date certain for dissolving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite the fact that the mortgage giants back more than 90 percent of mortgages in the country ... Corker was a co-sponsor of that amendment and voted for it, saying later that it was a “really thoughful amendment.” And now he’s looking for a way to be even more involved in the process the next time around."
Sen. Kent Conrad trying to make the case to North Dakotans for both TARP and the Recovery Act .W. Post: "On Thursday morning, thousands of North Dakota newspaper subscribers awoke to a full-page ad with colorful charts and graphs about the improving economy ... And it cleverly reminds readers, front and center, that TARP was conceived by a Republican president..."
