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.
MORNING MESSAGE: Who Makes 250K?
OurFuture.org's Sara Robinson, on the difficulty of selling higher taxes on the wealthy: "The Myth of the Self-Made American is being bolstered by a delusionally optimistic view of just how many people actually make it to the top 3% income level. It's a delusion that affects almost everyone, but particularly those who vote Republican. Ryan Enos at yougov.com explains the results of a YouGov/Polimetrix poll ... 'your typical survey respondent thinks that almost 1 in 5 families in America earn [$250,000 a year], when the answer is closer to 1 in 50!' ... Combine this with the common misunderstanding about how marginal tax rates work (hint: it's only the income over $250K that's taxed at the higher rate, not the whole year's take), and it's not hard to see why ... they think Obama is attacking them personally ... They've bought into a myth about their chances of moving up the economic ladder that's at vast odds with the actual facts."
Another poll shows support for ending Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. McClatchy: "...51 percent want to extend the tax cuts only for households making less than $250,000 a year, and 45 percent want to extend the tax cuts for all ... Those who want to extend all of the tax cuts, including for the wealthy, include Republicans, tea party supporters, conservatives, Southerners and Westerners, Independents were closely divided, with 49 percent for extending only the 'middle class' tax cuts, and 48 percent for extending all of them."
More Health Care Please
What mandate? Most Americans want to keep or expand the health reform law. McClatchy: "...51 percent of registered voters want to keep the law or change it to do more, while 44 percent want to change it to do less or repeal it altogether ... Voters by margins of 2-1 or greater want to keep some of its best-known benefits, such as barring insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. One thing they don't like: the mandate that everyone must buy insurance."
The end of health insurance profiteering. WH implements next phase of health care reform. NYT: "Starting next year ... insurers in the individual and small-group markets must spend at least 80 percent of their premium revenues on medical care and activities to improve the quality of care. Insurers in the large-group market must spend at least 85 percent of premium dollars for those purposes. Insurers that do not meet the standards next year will have to pay rebates to consumers, starting in 2012. Ms. Sebelius estimated that up to nine million people could get rebates worth up to $1.4 billion ... Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, said the rules showed the folly of efforts to repeal the health care law. 'If Republicans succeed,' Mr. Miller said, 'they will be taking money right out of the pockets of millions of average Americans.'"
Certain business with low-wage employees win temporary exemption to keep "mini-med" policies. WSJ: "... mini-med policies won a reprieve for 2011 that allows them to spend half as much of their premiums on medical care as most other insurers ... [HHS] predicts that by 2014, mini-med plans will effectively disappear when the new insurance exchanges open for business, and it says the looser rules are meant as a bridge between now and then."
Nine GOP senators refuse to join lawsuit challenging health reform constitutionality. HuffPost: "Explanations for the abstainers range from the obvious to the speculative. Among the list are three members who will not be in the body next year ... [Outgoing Sen. Bob Bennett] authored a bill in 2007 that was based around the individual mandate ... [and it] was co-sponsored by two other Republican senators who have, to date, declined to participate in the suit ... Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) ... That leaves four Republican senators without obvious explanations for abstaining from the health care suit..."
Conservative Dem Sen. Ben Nelson won't join repeal efforts. HuffPost quotes: "... when I want to make changes I have got alternatives. If other people wanted to make changes, I want to see their alternatives. This business of just coming in and throwing it all out just doesn't make sense."
Obama, Biden in Indiana Touting Auto Turnaround
NYT previews Kokomo visit: "On Tuesday, he will head to Kokomo, Indiana, where unemployment peaked at nearly 20 percent in 2009, but has steadily fallen since then, in part thanks to the recovery of the Chrysler auto plant in the town. White House officials said Mr. Obama will tour a Chrysler plant and highlight the $8.4 billion that Indiana received in Recovery Act funds."
AP assesses WH difficulty in touting auto record: "'You could talk to people in Michigan who would say, "Yes, I work at GM, my job was saved because the administration saved GM, but you know what, I'm voting Republican because I'm mad about the economy,"' said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, ... Unless the economy shows dramatic improvement, incremental gains such as a stabilizing the auto industry or recouping much of the money used to bail out giant financial firms are not big political winners."
Indiana's Brian Howey adds: "The jobless rates in Elkhart and Kokomo have fallen from the 18 percent range to around 12 percent. He finds the Hoosier state with 10 percent unemployment. His approval rating is under 40 percent. The Democratic Party here is in shambles. And he begins his defense of the auto restructuring and stimulus - three weeks after a shellacking election."
Obama Administration main purchaser of US-made hybrids. Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama’s administration has bought almost a fourth of the Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. hybrid vehicles sold since he took office, accelerating federal purchases as consumer demand wanes. ... The U.S. General Services Administration, which runs the government fleet, bought at least 14,584 hybrid vehicles in the past two fiscal years, or about 10 percent of 145,473 vehicles the agency purchased ... In fiscal 2008, hybrids accounted for less than 1 percent ... Government agencies and businesses have said they also will purchase all-electric models being introduced by automakers including GM ..."
Attacks On Fed May Harm Jobs Effort
Conservative attacks on Fed undercutting impact of attempt to spark job creation. NYT: "The attacks, coupled with criticism from foreign officials, have introduced enough uncertainty into global financial markets to potentially undercut the Fed’s plan to drive down interest rates ..."
Liberal Fed critics warn against joining conservative Fed critics. HuffPost: "On December 1st, the Fed as a result of the Fed audit provision, will be required to post reams of detail about whom it lent hundreds of billions of dollars to during the financial crisis. Progressives should be ready for Republicans to use the outrage generated by the disclosures to bend the Fed in a more pro-bank direction, said Sanders ... While the GOP and Wall Street is ready with its line of attack on the Fed -- that it is too busy dealing with this and that to worry about unemployment -- progressives haven't settled on a set of proactive reforms, but Sanders said that a good start would be to prevent bank executives from occupying key positions within the central bank."
Senate fails to restore program subsidizing private sector jobs for welfare recipients. Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo: "For months, Republicans in the Senate have blocked an extension of the currently expired Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Contingency Fund, a successful jobs program that has created more than 250,000 subsidized jobs for low-income workers through grants to states ... the Senate reauthorized TANF while leaving the Emergency Fund on the sidelines ..."
Mayor unhappy with attack on earmarks. NYT: "'I don’t really care what it’s called — I’m mostly concerned about what the money is going to be used for,' said Francis G. Slay, the mayor of St. Louis, whose deteriorating flood-control system along the banks of the Mississippi went unaddressed for years until Senator Christopher S. Bond, a Republican, accelerated the slow-moving project with help from an earmark ... supporters say these earmarks provide the shortest and most direct route to paying for road, water and sewer projects ..."
Sen. Mitch McConnell's earmarks helped turn around Louisville. W. Post: "He has driven $62.4 million in federal funding to this city in the past three years ... here on the ground, where federal money has helped a river city of 722,000 become more vibrant and livable, people live with their contradictory feelings about government and its challenges, and their own senior senator."
Social Security Zombie Lies
Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor perpetuates Social Security bankruptcy myth. Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo: "[Said Rep. Cantor,] 'So if we do not do something to extend retirement age, if we do not do something formulaically in terms of the top end or the top tier of income earners, you’re not going to have this program. You’re just not going to have it. That’s reality.' The 'reality' espoused by Cantor and the others actually has no basis in reality. If nothing — nothing! — is done to Social Security, it will pay full benefits until the year 2037. After that, the program is still projected to pay out 75 percent of benefits until 2084, which is close to full benefits once inflation is accounted for."
Leading austerity activist Pete Peterson can't hire anyone who can tell him about the Social Security trust fund. Dean Baker: "There are literally hundreds of readily available public documents, for example the Social Security Trustees Report, that show that the trust fund holds more than $2.6 trillion in government bonds ... This is not the only important piece of information that seems to have escaped Peterson, the people he has hired, the commissions that he has helped to fund, and others involved in their budget crusade. There seems to be almost no knowledge among this group of the fact that the economy is generating more wealth through time."
Wind Power Moves
Interior Dept. promises "major" wind power announcement today. The Hill: "Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other senior departmental officials are promising to 'announce a major new initiative to accelerate the responsible siting and development of wind energy projects along the Atlantic coast.'"
MA offshore wind project takes another step forward. NYT: "Massachusetts utility regulators on Monday approved a contract under which a utility will buy half the electricity produced by Cape Wind, the proposed wind farm to be built in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod, bringing the project substantially closer to construction ... It calls for an initial price of 18.7 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity produced by the wind farm, far above the wholesale prices that have prevailed recently ... [But] if the fiercely contested project qualified for a federal loan guarantee and interest rates were reduced, customers would get three-quarters of the savings through reduced rates ... The company hopes to secure financing in the first half of next year, and to begin construction by the end of 2011."
Obstruction on clean energy policy harming newly trained workers for green jobs. W. Post: "///Laurance Anton tried to assure his place in the new one by signing up for green jobs training earlier this year at his local community college ... The only problem is that his new skills have not resulted in a single job offer. Officials who run Ocala's green jobs training program say the same is true for three-quarters of their first 100 graduates ... The administration says that its stimulus investment has saved or created 225,000 jobs in the green energy industry, a pittance in an economy that has shed 7.5 million jobs since the recession took hold ... Both Obama administration officials and green energy executives say that the business needs not just government incentives, but also rules and regulations that force people and business to turn to renewable energy."
GOP may split over ethanol subsidies. W. Post's Greg Sargent: "Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, two leading conservative Senators who have pushed the GOP to be serious about its anti-spending rhetoric, told me they are calling on fellow Republicans to urge Congress to allow ethanol subsidies to expire ... some senators -- such as Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley -- have supported them in the past ... billions in ethanol subsidies [are] set to expire this year, including a 45-cent-a-gallon tax credit for ethanol blenders that heaped nearly $5 billion on to the deficit last year..."
CA begins preparing for climate change, and the loss of coastline. NYT: "The new report focuses on the potential impact of climate change on coastal counties, where more than two-thirds of California’s economic activity takes place. It envisions the potential relocation of some coastal roads and bridges and the construction of defenses around major airports."
Next Steps On Wall Street Reform
New financial reg body meets again today on implementing Wall St. reform, addressing foreclosure scandal. W. Post: "The council, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner ... sought public comment last month on two of the most contentious questions ... How should regulators go about designating non-bank firms that are 'systemically significant,' thus subjecting them to potentially more stringent oversight? And how should regulators implement the Volcker Rule ... The group will provide an update on what various agencies are doing to investigate widespread paperwork problems that have called into question millions of foreclosures across the country ..."
Paper Trail details how congressional Republicans may try to undermine Wall St. reform: "The new Republican-led House may not have enough political allies in the Senate to repeal the Dodd-Frank law in 2011, but it has lots of options to slow-walk or influence agencies that are writing new regulations required by the law. Among them: Hauling regulators to Capitol Hill for private meetings; Peppering agencies with letters and with oversight hearings, where senior regulators are plied with questions; Restricting specific kinds of spending or hiring by agencies; Calling attention to certain rules with a Congressional resolution of disapproval."
Breakfast Sides
Stateline explores rightward shift, and Republican schisms, in state legislatures: "Conservative insurgents are challenging establishment Republicans for Senate presidencies and House speakerships in state after state, trying to move legislative power to the right."
State battles over tuition for undocumented students expected if Congress fails to pass DREAM Act. Mother Jones' Suzy Khimm: "Despite Reid's pledge to put the bill on the lame-duck calendar, the Democrats don't have the votes yet ... State governments have stepped into the breach, debating whether undocumented students should receive in-state tuition, financial aid, or even admission to public universities. Meanwhile, the number of undocumented students has grown dramatically in states like California."
Business Roundtable broke with WH over minor reforms. Politico: "...one provision they wanted deleted from the Wall Street bill gives labor leaders and other minority shareholders a chance to change the way corporate boards are formed ... Another removed a tax incentive for providing retiree drug coverage ... a third curbed corporate trading of special purpose derivatives ... Now that the administration is drafting the regulations to implement the reform laws, White House officials said, tensions should ease as business leaders see that they are coordinating to ensure there are no unintended consequences."
