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: "Grow Jobs Before Cutting Spending," Says ... Everyone
OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "This week, yet another poll showed the public puts creating jobs ahead of deficit reduction for the 'top priority of the federal government.' Are the masses simply pining for the candy of American politics? Should we instead follow the hard-headed advice from our elite economists and budget experts? Fortunately, they are saying the same thing ... There may differences of opinion regarding how to eventually reduce our budget deficits, but no one argues that we should embrace austerity now and risk a double-dip recession which would only deepen the debt. Here's just a sampling ..."
192K New Jobs, But Cuts Could Kill Recovery
Job creation picks up in February. NYT: "The nation’s employers added 192,000 jobs on net in February, after having added just 63,000 jobs the previous month ... The unemployment rate ticked down to 8.9 percent ... partly the result of a bounce back from unusually depressed hiring in January, when snowstorms shuttered offices and factories ... A broader measure of unemployment, which includes people working part-time because they could not find full-time jobs ... was 15.9 percent in February, down from 16.1 percent in January."
"Treading water" says OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "We aren’t sinking, but we’re still treading water. Over the past year, we’ve gained 1.3 million jobs, or an average of 106,000 a month. As Fed Chair Ben Bernanke testified, this is not sufficient to employ the new people coming into the labor market, much less begin to recover the 8.5 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."
NYT's Paul Krugman warns against premature cuts: "The clear and present danger to recovery, however, comes from politics — specifically, the demand from House Republicans that the government immediately slash spending on infant nutrition, disease control, clean water and more. Quite aside from their negative long-run consequences, these cuts would lead, directly and indirectly, to the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs — and this could short-circuit the virtuous circle of rising incomes and improving finances."
Dems offer spending cut concession, GOP dismisses. NYT: "... the White House and Congressional Democrats on Thursday offered to trim an additional $6.5 billion from current spending, a figure far short of the Republican goal of cutting agency budgets by $61 billion ... Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, planned to allow debate and votes on the proposals next week to demonstrate that both parties would need to make concessions ... before the negotiating session began, Republicans said the new figure ... was inadequate, particularly given the pressure Republican leaders are under from their rank and file to not give ground from the $61 billion in cuts."
"...senior administration officials characterized it as an opening bid in a process that is likely to stretch on for days...," reports W. Post.
Dems not unified, reports Politico: "Perhaps most worrisome for Obama and his party is that they’ve shown no ability to rally behind a long-term budget proposal — even though the White House pitched its first offer Thursday evening ... Democrats are still wary about whether the White House will sell them out to avoid a government shutdown ... Democrats still hope they can pick at divisions on the Republican side..."
Top House GOP suggests anti-EPA provisions could be dropped. The Hill: "The House Republican in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget said Thursday he would be willing to drop a rider blocking funding for the agency’s climate regulations if the provision gets in the way of a compromise on a government-spending bill."
18 senators form "Moderate Dems" to push for spending cuts. HuffPost: "The 18-member committee will meet once a week before Democratic lunches to discuss strategies for moving various spending-cut bills through the Senate. Their main priorities will be paying down financial obligations, along with education and energy reform.
GOP budget will include Social Security and Medicare cuts, Speaker Boehner tells WSJ: "...Boehner said House Republicans would offer a budget for the next fiscal year that sets goals for bringing the programs' costs under control. But he acknowledged that Americans aren't yet ready to embrace far-reaching changes to Social Security and Medicare because they aren't aware of the magnitude of the financial problems ... Mr. Boehner also spoke forcefully in favor of raising the government's debt limit ... Mr. Boehner made it clear the Republicans are not themselves offering a detailed plan anytime soon. Rather, the budget is likely to contain cost containment goals, but no specific ideas on how to achieve them."
Speaker Boehner reportedly offering to withhold attacks if President proposes Social Security and Medicare cuts. The Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has privately assured President Obama that House Republicans will not attack him if he makes a proposal to reform entitlement spending [and] will stand side-by-side with him to weather the strong political backlash ... So far, Obama has not taken Boehner up on the deal..."
Gov. Walker Begins Layoffs
Gov. Walker plans layoff notices today. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Gov. Scott Walker said he will start sending layoff notices to state workers Friday if the standoff over his budget-repair bill isn't resolved."
TPM adds: "...one thing that could hurt his political position in the state is the fact that he also spoke of layoffs in a different context: His phone call with blogger Ian Murphy, who was posing as Republican financier David Koch, in which Walker spoke of using layoff threats as political leverage..."
AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka challenges Walker on PBS' Newshour: "You heard him say that laying off was something we shouldn't do in today's economy, and yet, he's putting this choice to those workers in Wisconsin: Either give up your rights, or get laid off. Give up your job."
Mother Jones' Andy Kroll goes "Inside Labor's Epic Battle In Wisconsin": "...what heartened labor officials wasn't just the turnout but the coalition of unions—public and private—they cobbled together on such short notice. They scored a major victory when the unions exempted from Walker's proposed bargaining ban—the firefighters and police officers—decided to join the cause anyway. When the firefighters arrived on the streets of Madison that first week with their signs and fire helmets, one official with AFSCME compared it to the second Lord of the Rings, when the riders of Rohan come to the rescue of the good guys at the climactic Battle of Helm's Deep. "
President sides with Chamber of Commerce over Teamsters in Mexican trucking dispute. LAT: "President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced Thursday that they had resolved a long-running dispute over the passage of trucks across the U.S.-Mexican frontier ... The Teamsters union said that in its earlier policy, the Obama administration had rightly barred Mexican truckers from driving in the U.S. because their vehicles are what the union called unsafe. ... 'This deal puts Americans at risk,' Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa said ... But the end of the trucking ban won praise from one of Obama's most vocal critics in the business community, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."
Foreclosure Settlement Close
Settlement near on foreclosure fraud. W. Post: "Senior Obama administration officials, newly joined by state attorneys general, were on the brink Thursday of finalizing major elements of a possible settlement ... absent from this otherwise united government front, which is preparing to submit a proposed settlement to financial firms within days, is the regulator of the nation's largest banks, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency [which] has raised concerns that the firms might be required to pay too large a fine - $20 billion or more - and adopt mortgage procedures that the agency doesn't think make financial sense ... The OCC and other bank regulators have been accused of coddling the firms..."
Pressure from left to toughen the deal. HuffPost's Art Levine: "...advocacy and policy groups, including BanksterUSA and the National People's Action network, are stepping up pressure for a settlement that imposes stiff sanctions, criminal penalties and forces banks to renegotiate mortgages—and helps financially those who were alreadly illegally forced from their homes."
Naked Capitalism fears weak deal: "How can you possibly settle when you don’t know the extent of the abuses? ... The fact that the AGs and the Federal regulators have joined forces is another sign that no one has the guts to administer anything more than a slap on the wrist..."
Abolishing Fannie & Freddie may take the affordable 30-year fixed mortgage with it. NYT: "The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan, the steady favorite of American borrowers since the 1950s, could become a luxury product ... Interest rates would rise for most borrowers, but urban and rural residents could see sharper increases than the coveted customers in the suburbs."
New mortgage lending rules considered. W. Post: " Legislation enacted last year required lenders who sell certain loans to have 'skin in the game' - specifically, by retaining at least a 5 percent stake in loans deemed to be risky. But the legislation left it up to regulators to determine which types of loans should be exempt from this risk-retention rule ... One option would exempt loans with at least a 10 percent down payment. The other option - supported by the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Curency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - would exempt loans with a 20 percent down payment."
Progressive senators demand improving foreclosure relief, not ending it. Politico: "The [18] senators, led by Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the only Republican to sign on, urged swift streamlining of federal loan modification programs ... The letter is in sharp contrast to activity in the House this week, where Republicans have considered four bills that would terminate Obama-initiated measures designed to assist struggling home owners in modifying their underwater loans. Republicans haven’t offered alternative programs."
Elizabeth Warren is on a "GOP Charm Offensive" reports The Daily Beast: "...Warren is methodically working her way through the GOP’s 87 new members ... 'If I can reduce the hostility they feel towards the agency I'm building, that's why I'm there.' ... Whether she could win Senate confirmation is another matter ... [But] whoever Obama names may fail to win Senate approval and could languish in limbo as the president’s term winds down ... The alternative is a recess appointment, which would last through 2012."
Breakfast Sides
House passes repeal of business tax compliance provision by hiking tax penalties to some middle-class recipients of health care assistance. NYT: "... no immediate relief for small business is in sight because the House and the Senate disagree on how to pay for the expected loss of revenue, more than $20 billion over 10 years ... People with modest incomes will be eligible for subsidies, or tax credits, to help them afford the premiums [under the new health reform law]. The amount of the subsidy is based on a person’s income, estimated from tax returns for prior years. People may be required to repay some or all of the tax credit if their actual incomes prove to be higher than estimated. The House bill increases the amount that people may have to repay. Democrats denounced this as a tax increase on the middle class and said that honest taxpayers might find themselves owing large sums to the I.R.S."
The Daily Beast's Ben Adler deems the new US Uncut movement the "Tea Party of the Left": "...the structure of US Uncut is virtually identical to that of the Tea Party Patriots: a loose network of local groups that coordinate nationally through the Internet. They also share the Tea Party movement's affection for street theater, albeit with a more urbane, ironic sensibility: US Uncut members entered Bank of America branches on Saturday to present fake checks to bank tellers for $1.5 billion—the amount the bank would have handed the government if it had paid the 35 percent corporate income tax on earnings of $4.4 billion..."
Senate GOP only attracts one Dem to its anti-EPA bill. The Hill: "Republicans managed to get one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), to sign on to broad new legislation that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Staffers for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a lead author of the bill, will be pounding the pavement during the coming weeks to lure more Democrats to support the legislation..."
Republicans like the EPA, when it cleans up their districts. Politico: "...Republicans have a dirty little secret: They actually like many of the agency’s efforts, particularly bread-and-butter programs aimed at cleaning up drinking water and air pollution in their districts. It’s in those areas where Obama has suggested the most budget pain, putting Republicans in the position of defending EPA and accusing the White House of playing politics."
Conservative senators announce new obstruction tactic. McClatchy: "A bloc of Senate conservatives, led by South Carolina's Jim DeMint, flexed their muscles Thursday, pledging to block any bill they alone deem wasteful or unconstitutional."
Conservative judge temporarily pulls back on health care ruling, with eye towards accelerating Supreme Court decision. Politico: "U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson put the health care reform law on a fast track to the Supreme Court on Thursday — giving the Obama administration just seven days to file an appeal ... Vinson called his order a stay, but the real message was clear: Hurry up. ... In one sense, the ruling was a victory for the Obama administration: It ended waves of confusion over whether states should continue working to implement the law ... some of the law’s strongest opponents, including Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, said that they had no choice but to go along ... "
