Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: Jobs Crisis In Real World, Not DC
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "The Washington Post has a front-page story, 'Why does Fresno have thousands of job openings - and high unemployment?' that says the problem is really 'structural,' a skills gap, and there is little we can do ... The Fresno Bee has a different story to tell, 'EDITORIAL: President should come see impact of joblessness in Valley' ... The Fresno Bee help-wanted ads tell the story. There are 963 'Sales' jobs listed, but the first 519 of those are at the same 'company,' called 'Work At Home Jobs, Inc.' and are mostly the same 'job,' if you can call it that. ... in the real world the real problem is not 'structural,' it is that there just are not enough jobs ... and the government is not doing its job of picking up the slack..."
Clean Energy Investment Vs. Handcuffing EPA
President meets with Senate energy cmte chair on clean energy standard legislation. The Hill: "...the reluctance of [Sen. Jeff] Bingaman and the administration to talk specifics – his office and the White House issued only broad statements about the meeting – speaks to the sensitivity of trying to shepherd an energy bill through the closely divided Senate ... 'Senator Bingaman is working hard to come up with something we can get through the Senate,' Reid told reporters in the Capitol. Asked about timing, Reid said he wants to move 'soon,'..."
President to offer additional energy policy specifics today. Politico: "Obama Thursday will propose a suite of incentives intended to cut energy consumption from existing U.S. commercial buildings by 20 percent by 2020 ... Rather than mandates or regulations, the policies ... include new tax credits, loan guarantees, worker training initiatives and a competitive grant program dubbed 'race to green,' ... it would not include a net increase in spending ... [It would] offset the efficiency investments by cutting subsidies for fossil fuels..."
Teryn Norris of Americans for Energy Leadership praises President's approach, emphasizing jobs over climate: "Although climate change remains extremely divisive, Gallup and Pew polling continues to indicate that federal investment in clean energy technology remains one of the most popular forms of energy policy ... The question is not whether climate change is an important reason for action on clean energy [but] what type of political and policy strategy can successfully expand the national clean energy consensus..."
GOP leaders introduce bill banning EPA from acting on greenhouse gases. The Hill: "Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), who chairs the House Energy panel's energy subcommittee, will hold a hearing on the draft Feb. 9 ... the Obama administration has suggested it will veto any bill that limits EPA’s climate authority ... House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office [cited] a new poll commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council that says 77 percent of Americans think 'Congress (should) let the EPA do its job.'"
GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe suggests Dems will support bill, but can't name 'em. The Hill: "'I could name several -- I won't -- but I could name several Democrats that would like to be in support of my bill,' Inhofe said ... [The GOP] plan would overturn EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries, factories and other facilities. But Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has already attracted several centrist Democrats ... to his competing bill to suspend EPA's rules for two years without nullifying the agency's authority."
Northern California to support electric car charging stations. Grist: "The Bay Area Air Management District on Wednesday granted $3.9 million to four companies as part of an effort to roll out electric car charging stations in 2,750 homes, as well as 30 fast-chargers along highways..."
Health Care Repeal Fails
Senate Dems unanimously defeat health care repeal. LAT: "Even Democrats from conservative states who face reelection in 2012 staunchly rejected a repeal, though many have said they are interested in modifying the law. 'Who wants to go backwards and tell 220,000 Nebraskans they can't have health insurance?' Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson told reporters in his home state Wednesday. 'Who wants to deny children health insurance because they have preexisting medical conditions? Who wants to see Nebraskans forced into bankruptcy, or have to choose between selling their home, or paying for medical care?'"
Senate approves tweak to health care law, scrubbing unrelated business tax compliance measure. Time: "In the end, they agreed to pay for [the loss of $19B in taxes collected] with already appropriated but not-yet-spent funds. But not before spelling out which sacred cows (Defense, Social Security, etc.) would be exempt from getting shorted in the deal."
Health reform may lead to free birth control. NYT: " The Obama administration is examining whether the new health care law can be used to require insurance plans to offer contraceptives and other family planning services to women free of charge ... The law says insurers must cover 'preventive health services' and cannot charge for them. The administration has asked a panel of outside experts to help identify the specific preventive services... Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution who has studied unintended pregnancy for three decades, said: 'It’s absolutely critical that family planning be considered a preventive service. It could prevent all kinds of health problems, and it would actually save taxpayers money.'"
Top House GOPers attacks law for funding research on effective treatments. Politico: "Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) wants details about how the department of Health and Human Services is spending $400 million in stimulus money for comparative effectiveness research and $1 billion to implement the health law. Upton characterized the money as a 'slush fund' in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. He will be calling Sebelius to testify..."
More Than Innovation Needed
W. Post's Harold Meyerson challenges theory that job crisis caused by lack of "innovation": "The share of income going to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, which was less than 10 percent in the early '70s, reached 23.5 percent in 2007 - the highest level on record save for 1928. Lagging innovation may explain many things, but it doesn't explain the rise of the rich over everybody else."
Key subcmte chair Sen. Daniel Akaka rejects GOP plans to gut federal workforce. W. Post quotes: "When we talk about cutting federal employees, I think [the GOP proposal] was done in a general way and not specific. For example, if we cut 15 percent of [Internal Revenue Service funding], you can't collect the revenues that we could [otherwise]. As a matter of fact, we need to increase the number of federal employees there ... before just cutting willy-nilly 15 percent, I think we need to analyze and study and evaluate the employees."
Public investment from the stimulus in innovation paying off. NYT: "In late 2009, the federal government gave $151 million in grants to advance 37 clean energy ideas deemed too radical or too preliminary to attract much private financing ... Since then, six of the projects have made enough progress to attract $108 million in private venture capital financing — about four private dollars for every dollar that the taxpayers spent to get them rolling ..."
Senate Finance Cmte Chair Max Baucus standing in way of Korea trade deal. W. Post: "... Baucus, whose committee oversees trade issues, is siding with cattle ranchers from his home state who were shut out of the deal. He has pledged opposition until South Korea reconsiders restrictions on the many U.S. beef exports it has barred ... Baucus has not said whether he will merely vote against the agreement or will use the full force of his authority as finance chairman to block it indefinitely."
TNR's William Galston urges WH to strongly back infrastructure bank: "...get beyond what Hollywood calls the elevator speech, and send Congress a framework for actual legislation ... include the infrastructure bank in the president’s forthcoming FY2012 budget proposal. You know as well as anyone that if it’s not in the budget, it’s not real ... consider redirecting the necessary amounts from existing infrastructure projects, which neither leverage private capital nor endure the rigors of a market test ... make it clear that the bank would be a public-private partnership, not a government-run enterprise, and would enjoy neither explicit nor implicit public guarantees."
President may give details on corporate tax reform when speaker to Chamber of Commerce Monday. Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama and congressional leaders haven’t determined a clear path to an overhaul of the U.S. tax code, in part because no one wants to be the first to propose taking away popular tax breaks ... Details may emerge in Obama’s speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 7, or in his fiscal 2012 budget submission on Feb. 14. Administration officials haven’t tipped their hand."
Preparing For Shutdown
Dems prepare to fight possible government shutdown. NYT: "Democrats have interpreted ... direct statements from House leaders to mean that Republicans will insist on steep spending cuts as the price for keeping the government operating. They say their goal now is to keep the focus on the Republican strategy ... [Today, Sen. Chuck Schumer] and other Senate Democratic leaders are scheduled to appear with the economist Mark Zandi to discuss the potential consequences of a government shutdown or default."
GOP Sen. Pat Toomey faces criticism for bill dictating Treasury payments if debt ceiling is not lifted. Politico: "In the Senate, he has filed the bill as an amendment to an unrelated aviation measure ... there is some alarm as well among House GOP leaders, worried that their very large freshman class will be lulled into a sense of false security about the pending crisis ... 'Senator, you’re playing with fire in this scenario,' said Simon Johnson of the MIT Sloan School of Management. '...There’s nothing that says that the dollar has to be the No. 1 reserve asset forever. And the British pound lost this position earlier in the 20th century, exactly through fiscal irresponsibility and global overreach.'"
Tension between House conservatives and GOP leadership over spending. Politico: "Some conservatives are seething that GOP leaders may be stacking the deck against them by forcing conservatives to achieve their [spending cut] goal through amendments on the House floor."
Fannie/Freddie Reform In The Works
Administration misses deadline on Fannie/Freddie reform proposal, but better to get it right argues W. Post's Michelle Singletary: "No question, Fannie and Freddie had major issues. But it's also true that the companies helped many Americans create wealth for their families. Not the instant wealth of inflated home prices, but the kind of net worth where people bought homes, stayed in them for years and built up real equity ... If we dismantle Fannie and Freddie and entrust their missions to make homeownership affordable solely or largely to the private sector, will modest-income families still be able to afford a home?"
Naked Capitalism knocks Center for American Progress' Fannie/Freddie reform plan: "It would create an FDIC-like insurance fund for the securitization market, and create entirely private Fannie/Freddie like entities that can offer insurance wrappers on mortgage-backed securities, only these entities will carry explicit government guarantees. These entities can also be controlled by banks ... this is just one more bank-friendly proposal designed to suppress debate on the Democratic side ... Effectively all this proposal does is move Fannie’s and Freddie’s activities to new private entities that will have bigger loss cushions and and an explicit government guarantee..."
Foreclosure fraud victims can't find lawyers. NYT: "Lawyers are scarce and free legal assistance is overwhelmed in New Mexico, so a community center here is offering an hourlong class in how to download the correct forms, decipher the lingo and mount a defense, however tentative and primitive, against a multibillion-dollar bank."
