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.
Don't forget to vote today! Check out ElectionLand.com to find your polling place.
What Democrats Did In 21 Months
Rachel Maddow analyzes the Democratic record being judged on Election Day: "A lot of hard stuff done on hard problems in a short amount of time." "The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country and in that sense, it's an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward ... Hard votes with long-time horizons that don't translate into killing the other party in the next election."
Health reform already working, as small businesses expand coverage thanks to tax incentives. WSJ: "The number of small businesses offering health insurance to workers is projected to increase sharply this year, recent data show, a shift that researchers attribute to a tax credit in the health law ... According to a report by Bernstein Research in New York, the percentage of employers with between three and nine workers and which are offering insurance has increased to 59% this year, up from 46% last year."
GM ready to gradually reduce government stake, as Treasury forces plan to maximize taxpayer investment. NYT: "The automaker is planning a three-for-one stock split that will bring its total outstanding shares to about 1.5 billion ... Through the offering, the Treasury Department, which gained a 61 percent stake in G.M. as part of its $50 billion bailout of the company last year, will sell about $7 billion worth of shares. That will cut its holdings in the company to just more than 43 percent ... Treasury intends to further reduce its holdings with subsequent stock sales over several years ... The company’s former government-appointed chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., had expressed a desire to sell the Treasury Department’s stake all at once if possible. But Treasury pushed back, seeking to maximize the price it fetched for its shares."
Who turns out will make the difference. W. Post's E. J. Dionne: "Perhaps the likely voter screens are wrong and young voters will surprise the pollsters. Or the Democrats will have to go back and ask themselves if there was more they could have done to keep younger voters engaged. And the country will have to ask if it should be drawing excessively broad conclusions about the entire country from a midterm election in which older voters are vastly overrepresented compared with members of the rising generation."
Third Way seeks to expand influence with Dems, attack "left-wing economic populism." Politico: "With cap and trade effectively dead in a Republican House, Third Way will release a 'Plan B”' for energy reform. On Dec. 7, it’s hosting a summit on nuclear energy — one of the group’s big causes — with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Obama energy czar Carol Browner. It will come out with a paper on the need for changes that could save Social Security, which it presents as a direct challenge to economist Paul Krugman."
Big Banks Banking On GOP Win
Big banks giddy at prospect of GOP Congress. NYT: "The widely expected prospect of a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate would be warmly welcomed by the banks, who want a break from the regulatory push of the last two years. Divided government makes it harder to pass new legislation and brings with it other benefits for the banks, like reducing the chances of an increase in corporate taxes. 'At this juncture, gridlock is good,' said Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association. 'It’s time we take a breather from all the excess of regulation and Congressional legislation.' ... Republicans could block appointees the industry considered hostile at the Treasury, as well as at the S.E.C. and C.F.T.C."
But businesses that cooperated on reforms may get cold shoulder from GOP. W. Post: "Companies that worked with the Democrats over the past two years would face a far less sympathetic audience from Republicans, who are expected to make significant gains in the midterm elections. If they gain control of Congress, party leaders have pledged to revisit the health-care bill and lower taxes for businesses."
Leader of last Republican-controlled House, Tom DeLay, begins corruption trial. AP: "Tom DeLay took part in a scheme to illegally channel corporate money into Texas legislative races to strengthen his power and influence, prosecutors said Monday in opening statements of the former House majority leader's money laundering trial."
HuffPost's Jonathan Weiler predicts Republicans will misread tomorrow's election results:: "The GOP is a more extremist party now and lacks anything approaching a coherent policy agenda. It probably won't try another government shutdown or impeachment trial, because these are proven failures. But it will try something extreme, in all likelihood. After Tuesday, it will have no meaningful goal other than to continue to do what's it has tried to do since January 2009 - obstruct whatever plans Obama and the Democrats might have for dealing with America's myriad problems."
Laura Stampler, at the Nation, reports that conservatives are planning to suppress the vote: "Although Republicans cry 'voter fraud' almost every year, this election is unique in that the GOP now has an army of Tea Party foot soldiers to man the polls. Numerous reports have documented how state GOP chapters, local Tea Party groups and organizations like Americans for Prosperity are mobilizing across the country—holding training sessions and posting instructional videos on their websites about how to challenge suspicious voters ... The act of voter challenging, however, is problematic for many reasons. It not only creates long lines at polling centers but also disenfranchises and intimidates legitimate voters."
The top 10 races that will impact the climate and energy debate from Politico.
Juan Cole warns of foreign policy ramifications under GOP-led House: "Obama’s hopes for better relations with the Muslim world were based on a renewed U.S.-brokered peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, on direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, on gradually bringing the Afghanistan war to an end after an initial troop surge, and on a military withdrawal from Iraq. If the freshman class of 2010 comes into town riding atop elephants, it is likely to contribute to the failure of these policies, some of which were already in trouble, and thus to worsen U.S. security."
Breakfast Sides
Deficit commission to reconvene after elections to meet Dec. 1 deadline. NYT: "...given Republicans’ opposition to tax increases and Democrats’ to changes in benefits, expectations are low that any plan can get the 14-vote supermajority required to send it to Congress for a vote in December. Advocates’ best hope seems to be that the co-chairmen ... can negotiate a package that attracts a sizable minority ... and provides a framework for future bipartisan action ... The panel is not considering higher income tax rates given Republicans’ resistance. It is exploring ways to shave the roughly $1.2 trillion annual cost of 'tax expenditures,' the tax breaks for individuals and businesses ... Social Security is getting more of the members’ attention. Republicans are more inclined to scale back future retirees’ benefits than are Democrats ... Especially controversial is the idea of raising the retirement age for full benefits ... Other options include less generous formulas for both initial benefits and annual cost-of-living increases for retirees in future decades. Democrats say any compromise ... would have to include increased payroll tax revenues ... To Democrats’ surprise, some Republicans are taking aim at military spending."
Debate rages as Fed prepares to act. Curious Capitalist's Stephen Gandel: "...if the Fed's plan to buy bonds increases inflation, which is one of the goals, and drives down the value of the dollar that could get more foreigners to buy our goods, creating jobs. Right? Not so. Says another Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz ... any thing we do to make our goods more attractive will only hurt the economies of those that would buy our goods. So even if their dollars go farther in our markets, they will have less of them to spend ... To be fair, there are a number of economists who think the Fed's plan is the right move, and will create jobs, if only modestly ... My thinking is that the Fed's move could help if it is able to moderately boost inflation. The threat of higher prices gets people to spend now because they are afraid they will have to spend more later for the same good ... . But I agree that the Fed is playing with fire."
State officials challenging MERS' right to foreclose. WSJ: "Robert G. Marshall, a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, requested that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli determine whether the Reston, Va., company violates state law because it doesn't pay a fee every time a loan changes hands ... In a state-court lawsuit filed in Georgia last week seeking class-action status, lawyer David Ates says MERS isn't a secured creditor, meaning it lacks the power to foreclose on behalf of lenders, mortgage servicers or other parties ... , the District of Columbia's attorney general, Peter Nickles, issued a statement saying no D.C. homeowner can be foreclosed upon unless the security interest of the note holder has been physically recorded with the district's Recorder of Deeds, a condition that electronic assignments through MERS don't meet."
Bloomberg investigates the weaknesses in the foreclosure prevention effort: "About half the 1.4 million temporary or 'trial' [mortgage] modifications granted since the program’s March 2009 inception have been canceled ... About one in five of the canceled modifications is either in foreclosure or bankruptcy ... Even borrowers who do win approval and never miss a payment can wind up in foreclosure ... 'They may face back payments, penalties and even late fees that suddenly become due on their ‘modified’ mortgages and that they are unable to pay,' [says the TARP inspector general.]"
US hopes to apply multilateral pressure on China for currency reform at next week's G-20 meeting. NYT: "American officials have indicated that they believe a multilateral discussion on imbalances would be a more fruitful strategy than a head-to-head confrontation with China, which has been increasingly outspoken in defending its currency policy ... 'We do not expect the China currency issue or the imbalance issue to be solved once and for all in Seoul,' [Michael Froman, the deputy national security adviser] said. 'This is part of an ongoing effort.' ..."
Mixed signals from appeals court on AZ immigration law. Politico: "A federal appeals court on Monday signaled that it might roll back some of a lower court’s order blocking key parts of the immigration crackdown measure ... the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit seemed skeptical about the Justice Department’s challenge to a portion of the Arizona law which requires local police to request federal background checks on suspected undocumented immigrants who are detained or arrested for other reasons ... But the panel seemed inclined to support other aspects of the government’s case against the tough new law, including the claim that it is unconstitutional for Arizona to try to impose state criminal penalties for foreigners not carrying immigration papers."
California campaign to "get over it" and start making health reform work. LAT: "As soon as the polls close, the [California Endowment] foundation will air a new ad on television stations around California featuring doctor and TV celebrity Mehmet Oz [who says] 'The new healthcare law has so much in it that could help Californians get better and more affordable healthcare, but it's up to the people of this state -- and its elected leaders -- to make sure that you get all that you can out of the new law.'"
