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: Washington Forgets About Jobs. Thursday, We'll Remember.
OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "Washington has forgotten that 25 million Americans remain in need of full-time work -- a human calamity and national emergency. When the Campaign for America's Future convenes its Jobs Summit on March 10 to address what to do about jobs, it will have to pierce through a bipartisan clamor about cutting spending."
Jobs Summit Convenes Tomorrow As Congress Votes On Job-Killing Cuts
Campaign for America's Future's Roger Hickey says tomorrow's Summit is the beginning of a "jobs movement," on MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Show: "We need a jobs movement that will take back some of that money from the very wealthy and invest it in job creation. Washington, DC, hasn’t got it yet. The number one priority of the American people, as you found on your tour around the country, is jobs. It’s not cutting the deficit. It’s not cutting education programs, which the republicans are trying to do now. It’s investing in short-term and long-term efforts to get our country fully employed. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about at this conference on Thursday."
Potential defections on both sides as Senate moves to vote on competing spending cut plans. W. Post: "Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) charged that GOP senators were afraid to vote on a House proposal to cut $61 billion from domestic agencies over the next six months, a bill Reid derided as the 'tea party plan.' ... Republicans accused Reid of trying to divert attention from divisions in his own party, highlighting a speech Tuesday by freshman Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) ... If [Maine GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe] votes for the House bill to appeal to conservatives, she risks alienating voters who depend on programs slated for deep cuts, such as home heating assistance. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is also trying to position himself for next year's general election in a liberal state..."
Sen. Reid sees upcoming vote as way to show GOP plan is "dead" reports NYT.
Politico suggests GOP defections would have more impact: "...a Republican defeat stands to have much more import, setting the stage for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to begin showing more flexibility in talks with Senate Democrats and the White House."
Facing Tea Party primary challenge, GOP Sen. Dick Lugar flip-flops on House cuts. The Hill: "Lugar said Tuesday afternoon that he made a mistake when he told reporters earlier in the day that he would oppose H.R. 1, the House GOP plan ... Lugar had previously raised concerns about the bill during a television appearance last month. When CNN host Candy Crowley asked Lugar if he could support the House-passed spending cuts, he said: 'No, I would not support the entirety of the House bill, but I think the basic problem presently is there’s very little time.'"
House Republicans planning more short-term measures that increasingly pile on cuts. The Hill: "...some GOP officials on Capitol Hill say they are content with cutting government spending two weeks at a time if necessary. Democrats are strongly pushing back against that idea ... Republicans have vowed to cut $2 billion per week ..."
Robert Reich doesn't like the direction this is going in: "That means they'll have to agree to split the difference - which will result in around $35 billion of additional cuts ... In effect, a third of non-defense discretionary spending is handed over to states and locales. Which means cities and states will be taking a huge hit ... The White House should never have started paying ransom. Once ransom starts, there's no end to it."
President pledges to protect education funding. NYT: "To revitalize the nation’s education system, Mr. Obama said the United States needed to treat teaching as an honored profession, noting that in South Korea, teachers are referred to as 'nation-builders.' ... he said he would fight Republican proposals that would cut back spending on education to reduce the deficit."
Future of food safety hinges on budget battle. Time: "Republicans have proposed reducing the FDA and USDA's combined budgets by $4.8 billion, 22% below what the President's 2011 budget requested ... Food safety advocates warn that if the FDA's funding were dialed back to 2008 levels, the consequences could be severe: Hundreds of FDA inspectors would be laid-off, they say, preventing the surveillance of some 7,000 food facilities ... The issue of how to fund food safety will take center stage on Friday, when the FDA's commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, is scheduled to testify before a House subcommittee."
Conservative rift over tax increases to cut deficit. Politico: "[Sen. Tom] Coburn and [Grover] Norquist, two of Washington’s most unfailing apostles of starving the government, are locked in a low-grade duel over whether ideological purity on taxes is a realistic position ... Norquist says it’s simple: No new taxes means no new taxes ... Coburn usually would agree. But when it comes to taming the $14 trillion debt — a challenge Coburn has called 'a matter of national survival' — he won’t rule it out ... His GOP partners in bipartisan deficit-reduction talks, Sens. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Mike Crapo of Idaho, are with him ..."
Walker Spins Crumbs As Compromise
Gov. Walker tries to show that he's negotiating by releasing private emails to Dems. NYT: "The e-mails show that as recently as Sunday evening Mr. Walker’s representatives appeared willing to agree to some changes [to his legislation]. Among them: removing the Consumer Price Index bargaining limit for wages, allowing bargaining over some economic issues like overtime (but only if both sides agreed to do so), permitting bargaining over workplace safety, and requiring votes on unions every three years ... Some among the state’s 14 Senate Democrats ... said Mr. Walker’s proposed concessions were a start, but didn’t go far enough."
But Walker seen as unlikely to relent, despite beating in the polls. Wisconsin State Journal: "... Walker released e-mails showing he is willing to tweak some elements of his bill ... But the governor remains committed to the bulk of the legislation, which sweeps away decades of collective bargaining rights ... Walker argued the protesters made up just a fraction of the state's population and said he doesn't pay attention to polls ... Resolve; many of those who have worked with, or against Walker, agree he has it."
WI GOPers who demand sacrifice from unions are raking in ag subsidies. HuffPost: "From 1995 through 2009, state Sens. Luther Olsen, Dale Schultz and Sheila Harsdorf all had stakes in farms that received between them more than $300,000 in taxpayer funds."
Walker is deeply polarizing, and Wisconsin is deeply polarized. Journal Sentinel: "...Walker had an approval rating of 86% among Republicans and 8% among Democrats, for a partisan approval gap of 78 points ... bigger than for any governor in 37 states ... Midwest states tend to be more divided on partisan lines than in the Northeast, where the Republican Party still has a moderate wing, or in the South, where the Democratic Party still has a conservative wing."
What crisis? Wisconsin pension fund is "one of the most solid in the country" reports Stateline: "[It] has enough funds to cover the promises made not only to current retirees but to those in the future. Wisconsin was hailed as a 'national leader' in managing its long-term liabilities for both pensions and retiree health care in ... a Pew Center on the States report last year ... Wisconsin has consistently contributed 100 percent of the amount of money that actuaries calculate is needed each year, and has a funded ratio well beyond the 80 percent benchmark that experts consider healthy."
Recall efforts gaining momentum. W. Post's Greg Sargent: "Graeme Zielinski, a spokesman for the [WI Democratic] party, tells me that activists working on the recall push already collected over the weekend 15 percent of the total necessary signatures needed to force recalls in all eight of the GOP districts Dems are targeting. He says that the party ... set itself a goal of 10,000 signatures for the weekend, and has already exceeded it by 35 percent."
NJ Gov. Chris Christie accuses police officers and firefighters with "greed." Tapped's Jamelle Bouie: "It's hard to make a direct public/private sector comparison with New Jersey's police officers and firefighters — since there aren't equivalent professions in the private sector — but you'd be hard-pressed to say that they're overpaid or 'greedy.' ... In Chris Christie's New Jersey, sacrifice is reserved for teachers, firefighters, police and other middle-class workers. Millionaires, by contrast, get an exemption ... [He] vetoed the millionaire tax as soon as it reached his desk."
GOP governors using flawed study to claim Medicaid expansion will bankrupt states. McClatchy: "Democrats and independent researchers challenged the GOP report, saying it didn't use a standard methodology to estimate each state's costs. It also failed to account for savings that the Medicaid expansion is likely to produce, such as a reduction in state payments for medical care for the uninsured ... The GOP study based Medicaid cost projections for 19 of the 50 states on these 'worst-case scenarios' from the Kaiser report ..."
Will High Energy Prices Hurt Recovery?
NYT suggests increased fuel-efficiency cushioning the blow of higher oil prices: "... Many drivers, for example, have given up their gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles. Automakers, which are selling more fuel-efficient cars than five years ago, reported higher sales in February even as gas prices rose ... Congress got hundreds of thousands of the worst gas guzzlers off the road with the cash-for-clunkers program. And automakers changed their product mix to emphasize more small cars and fewer sport utility vehicles, reflecting consumer demand and tougher fuel-efficiency mandates from the government ... Some [trucking companies] have begun giving drivers bonuses if they reach particular fuel efficiency targets, for example by driving slower."
But NYT's David Leonhardt sees higher energy costs, along with government cuts, imperiling recovery, offers course of action: "... the Fed could respond to any major new sign of weakness by suggesting that it was ready to extend its current bond-buying program beyond June ... The second step would be for the White House: developing a plan to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve if oil prices don’t fall soon ... Third, the Obama administration could do more to reduce home foreclosures. Previous attempts have had their problems, but officials do seem willing to learn from experience ... Finally, the administration could make clear that it is willing to play hardball on cuts to this year’s budget."
W. Post's Harold Meyerson notes it isn't much of a recovery to begin with: "...just 6 percent of productivity gains have gone to our newly more-productive workers. Where is the other 94 percent going? To profits, which have been increasing at a record clip for the past three quarters ... Why the difference between this recovery and its predecessors? For one thing, it's happening at a time when almost the entire private-sector workforce is nonunion - 93.1 percent..."
Bipartisan Senate group may form to push energy independence in response to high gas prices. The Hill: "Both [GOP Sen. Lindsey] Graham and [Dem Sen. Amy] Klobuchar said Tuesday a bipartisan energy bill could be built around a 'clean energy standard' (CES), in which a certain percentage of the country’s electricity comes from low-carbon sources like wind, solar, nuclear and natural gas ... It’s unclear what other provisions would be included in such a compromise. Graham specifically mentioned his support for a proposal to block Environmental Protection Agency climate rules and expand domestic oil and gas drilling [which] could be a tough sell for Democrats."
"More drilling won't help" notes Grist's Daniel Weiss: "We have only 2 percent of world oil reserves but use one-quarter of world oil production. Oil companies want more ocean drilling, yet it will take years to produce anything from the thousands of undeveloped Gulf of Mexico leases they already own. And nuclear plants are no solution because they are exorbitantly expensive and time consuming to build. We must shrink oil use by increasing vehicle efficiency, using cleaner fuels, and investing in public transit."
House To Vote On Ending Mortgage Aid
House to vote this week on ending foreclosure prevention altogether. McClatchy: "The House is scheduled to vote this week on getting rid of a refinance program for Federal Housing Administration loans and another program, scheduled to begin next month, that would help homeowners with delinquent payments ... The Treasury Department and many Democrats argue, though, that the programs — though flawed — are fixable, and consumer advocates say the measures offer the last, best hope for many struggling families."
W. Post looks at ramifications of taxpayers paying for legal defense of Fannie Mae: "When the government seized Fannie, it placed it in a conservatorship, a legal term roughly meaning rehabilitation for a badly damaged company ... But the arrangement also means that taxpayers are on the line for legal costs. Money Fannie spends defending itself is money it is not using to plug other losses at the company or repay taxpayers. But if Fannie settled the case, it might expose taxpayers to far greater expense if aggrieved investors are paid anything near the damages they are claiming."
Reuters' Felix Salmon debunks the banks whining about debit card fee limits: "...there’s no chance that banks will be 'unable to afford to issue debit cards to customers'. In most cases, your debit card is your ATM card, are they really suggesting they can’t afford to give out ATM cards? ... As for the costs of debit cards, they’re largely the banks’ own fault, for constantly exhorting people to use the insane abomination that is signature debit, and even implying that signature debit is safer than using a PIN. If you tell your customers to use an unsafe method of payment, it’s a bit rich to then turn around and complain of high fraud costs."
GOP senator still blocking Nobel laureate Peter Diamond from joining Fed. Reuters: "Opposition from Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama to a nomination that Republicans have already scuttled twice poses a challenge to President Obama, who must decide how much political capital he wants to spend to push for Mr. Diamond’s approval. 'It is clear to many of us that he does not possess the appropriate background, experience or policy preferences to serve,' on the Fed’s board, Mr. Shelby said..."
