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: The Wall St. Empire Strikes Back
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission released its report today, and it's already under attack by the Four Horsemen of the Economic Apocalypse: the Ideologue, the Lobbyist, the Think-Tanker, and the Politician. We've already seen the Maestro transformed into Edith Piaf, Phil Angelides cast as the info-terrorist from Australia, and two dissenting reports that do a great job of debunking ... each other. And this is just the first day."
Crisis Report Released
"Wall Street Appears To Have Violated Federal Securities Law" reports HuffPost: "Wall Street firms that sold mortgage-backed securities appear to have violated federal securities laws by misleading investors on the quality of the underlying mortgages, a bipartisan panel created by Congress to investigate the root causes of the financial crisis concluded."
FireDogLake's David Dayen chides crisis report for not deeming more activity as criminal: "What that conclusion doesn’t come out and state is the evidence shows clear criminal fraud on the part of major banks and loan servicers. They have little problem agreeing to the incidences of mortgage fraud – which became such a large industry that losses on fraudulent mortgages reached $112 billion between 2005 and 2007. But that’s a well-known problem which does not take in the accounting fraud of major banks which many, like Bill Black, say drove the crisis."
Social Security Caucus Formed
Senate Dems form Social Security caucus. The Hill: "Schumer and other Democratic strategists see Medicare and Social Security as winning political issues that can help them regain the momentum they lost over the last two years ... 'They want to privatize Social Security,' Schumer said of Republicans. 'Privatize equals end, no more.' ... Democratic pollsters warned that if Obama called for raising the retirement age, it would create a schism in the party ... [Sen. Bernie] Sanders said he would like to hear a stronger pledge from Obama."
House may vote to privatize Social Security soon. CQ: "House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said Wednesday that a privatization plan could come to the House floor as early as next month as part of the GOP budget and that he expects Republicans to support it."
Senate Budget Cmte may "pick up where a presidential commission left off." Politico: "...it may go beyond its typical five-year spending resolution this spring [which] could become a vehicle to bring President Barack Obama and the new House Republican majority to the table ... [Chairman Kent Conrad] and several Republicans on the panel are clearly attracted to the idea of using the annual budget debate to force consideration of the more far-reaching changes recommended by the debt commission ...
IMF pressuring US to slash retirement security. W. Post: "U.S. officials must act quickly to control government deficits or face slower growth and even more difficult choices in the future, the International Monetary Fund said ... President Obama called for a freeze on discretionary spending during this week's State of the Union address. IMF officials have welcomed the step but said that spending cuts in pension and health entitlement programs are also needed."
NYT's Paul Krugman debunks the conservative story on European deficits: "It’s a good story: Europeans dithered on deficits, and that led to crisis. Unfortunately, while that’s more or less true for Greece, it isn’t at all what happened either in Ireland or in Britain ... On the eve of the financial crisis, conservatives had nothing but praise for Ireland, a low-tax, low-spending country by European standards ... [The lesson] says that balanced budgets won’t protect you from crisis if you don’t effectively regulate your banks ... the [British] claim that slashing government spending in the face of a depressed economy will actually help growth rather than hurt it ... But there’s certainly no sign of the surging private-sector confidence that was supposed to offset the direct effects of eliminating half-a-million government jobs."
Mother Jones' Andrew Bacevich sees four barriers preventing any serious effort to cut military spending: "Any cuts exacted will at most reduce the rate of growth ... The Pentagon presently spends more in constant dollars than it did at any time during the Cold War – this despite the absence of anything remotely approximating what national security experts like to call a 'peer competitor.' ... four factors – institutional self-interest, strategic inertia, cultural dissonance, and misremembered history – insulate the military budget from serious scrutiny."
President To Defend Health Reform Today
President to address health care conference, tout projected cut in insurance premiums. Politico: "Obama will address the annual conference for Families USA today armed with a new HHS report that shows health insurance premiums will be 14-20 percent lower in 2014 than they would have been without the law ... the president will focus on 'why we can’t go back to the days when insurance companies could deny, cap or limit your coverage.'"
Reid will block any amendment to repeal health reform. The Hill: "...Reid made clear an earlier agreement to allow more votes on Republican amendments would not extend to legislation repealing healthcare reform. 'I’m not going to be part of moving a bill to the floor that really whacks senior citizens,' Reid told reporters Thursday evening."
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief suggests state requests to restrict Medicaid eligibility will be denied. Wonk Room's quotes: "I’ll say the real answer here has got to be a little longer run than what the states are thinking right now. If I were a governor of a state, I’d think short term also. But you know, we’ve got to work our way out of it."
Any Jobs In This House?
First up in Senate, jobs. Politico: "...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday the next items on his chamber’s agenda will be bills targeting job creation. Reid told reporters that he would try that evening to get the ball rolling on a Federal Aviation Administration bill or a 'small business innovation bill that would also create jobs."
Never up in the House, jobs. Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "...when, exactly, might we see Republicans work on creating jobs? After tackling health care, abortion, gay marriage, and school vouchers, maybe then the GOP might care about unemployment? ... Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) wrote an op-ed last week on 'economic policy,' and literally didn't mention jobs at all. There were two Republican responses to the State of the Union address, and neither one presented specific ideas about job creation."
GM no longer needs loan to pursue clean energy cars. NYT: " General Motors said on Thursday that it was withdrawing its application to borrow $14.4 billion from a pool of federal money intended to help automakers build more fuel-efficient vehicles ... based on improved cash reserves and a desire to avoid more debt ... it had [already] invested $3.4 billion in its American plants since emerging from bankruptcy, creating or retaining 11,000 jobs."
Breakfast Sides
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham will propose "clean energy standard." The Hill: "Graham said Thursday that he intends to float a 'clean energy standard' – the same concept that President Obama promoted in the State of the Union speech – while also pushing for expanded U.S. oil-and-gas development ... Asked whether a 'clean' electricity standard should be separate from measures to stymie EPA [on greenhouse gas rules, he said,] 'I don’t know what the political market will bear, so I hadn’t really come to a conclusion on whether you link the two or not ... Let’s say you preempt the EPA: That’s a good thing, but it’s a bad thing if you don’t have a national energy policy that allows you to become energy independent..."
GOP Sens. Vitter and Paul seek to end birthright citizenship. HuffPost: "Passing an amendment to the Constitution is near-impossible, so the senators are instead introducing a 'resolution that would amend the Constitution,' according to a statement from the senators ... They're walking a fine line between their broad ideology of strict adherence to the Constitution ... and their animus for undocumented immigration."
