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: The GOP's Most Radical Move Yet
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The new Republican budget proposes to radically restructure the country's relationship with its citizens. They're using bogus economics to confuse people into thinking these extreme cuts will somehow leave them more money. But they're really offering less - much less ... The Republican proposal wouldn't just end Medicare as we know it - although it would certainly do that. It would also end Social Security as we know it ..."
GOP Budget, Smashing Medicare, Released Today
House Republican budget would end guaranteed affordable medical coverage for elderly and poor. CNN: "The current Medicare program would be dismantled, starting in 2022. The government would no longer directly pay bills for seniors in the program. Instead, recipients would choose a plan from a list of private providers, which would be subsidized by the federal government ... On Medicaid, Ryan's plan calls for deep cuts and another fundamental change: The federal share of the Medicaid system would become block grants to the states."
Seniors would pay more for health care. NYT: "... if, as many economists predict, health costs continue to rise at a rapid clip, beneficiaries of these programs would be at risk for more of the costs ... the Congressional Budget Office said, 'Federal payments would tend to grow more slowly under the proposal than projected costs per enrollee under current law ... enrollees’ spending for health care — and the uncertainty surrounding that spending — would increase.'"
GOP budget would slash $6 trillion over 10 years, may be rammed through House in a week. Politico: "The bill will likely get marked up in committee Wednesday, and the Rules Committee plans to outline the parameters for debate on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. At that point, the House is expected to pass the resolution and send it to the Senate."
Is Rep. Ryan "brave" for going after the elderly and poor, asks Dean Baker: "If Mr. Ryan could man up a little, maybe he would have the courage to tell the big Wall Street banks that they will have to compete in a free market without this subsidy from the government ... He's also scared of the pharmaceutical industry. As a result of government-enforced patent monopolies, we spend close to $300 billion a year on drugs that would cost us around $30 billion a year ... How about reducing military spending to the same share of GDP as it was in 2000?"
Debt limit will be reached May 16 says Treasury Sec. Geithner.
Speaker Recoils From Deal To Keep Government Open
Speaker Boehner renegs, won't back $33B in cuts. The Hill quotes: "Despite attempts by Democrats to lock in a number among themselves, I’ve made clear that their $33 billion is not enough and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors..."
Dems stress desire for compromise. The Hill quotes Sen. Schumer: "A compromise on the budget is right there for the taking, assuming the Speaker still wants one..."
GOP prepares one more stopgap bill, intended to shift blame for shutdown. TPMDC: "[The one-week measure includes] $12 billion in domestic discretionary cuts, and six month's worth of Pentagon funding ... If negotiations over a six-month spending package don't yield an agreement ... the House of Representatives will also pass a politically tough temporary funding package -- with cuts too deep for many Democrats to accept -- and leave the question of a shutdown in their hand. If the Senate can pass it, and the President signs it, it buys congressional leaders and the White House another week ... but at the cost of steep, steep cuts."
President invites congressional leaders for negotiations, while preparing government for shutdown. AP: "In a memo to agency officials, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jeffrey Zients, urged agency heads to refine and update contingency plans in the event negotiators don’t strike a deal by Friday’s deadline..."
David Dayen argues Democrats lost the budget fight when they accept the Bush tax cut deal, in The American Prospect: "Forced onto the defensive by the expansion of the deficit, they led with the acknowledgment that deficits had to be reduced, not just in the long-term but immediately. And yet they had brought about the signifying event that led to this defensiveness: the tax-cut deal."
Why do Republicans hate AmericaCorps, asks The New Republic's Tiffany Stanley: "The most recent continuing resolution passed by the House would cut all federal funding for the agency that oversees the program, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), effectively wiping out AmeriCorps. Ending the program would not only eliminate jobs for the 85,000 individuals who serve each year through AmeriCorps, it would also significantly burden organizations ... Rather than offering a government handout, AmeriCorps-backed programs like Habitat for Humanity require low-income recipients to work alongside volunteers ..."
Income Inequality Warping Society
Joseph Stiglitz explains the harm caused by massive income inequality, in Vanity Fair: "There is, for one thing, a well-documented lifestyle effect—people outside the top 1 percent increasingly live beyond their means ... Inequality massively distorts our foreign policy. The top 1 percent rarely serve in the military ... With the top 1 percent in charge, and paying no price, the notion of balance and restraint goes out the window ... The rules of economic globalization are likewise designed to benefit the rich: they encourage competition among countries for business ... Imagine what the world might look like if the rules were designed instead to encourage competition among countries for workers."
Robert Reich explains "why we must raise taxes on the rich.": "The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich. Even if we got rid of corporate welfare subsidies for big oil, big agriculture, and big Pharma – even if we cut back on our bloated defense budget – it wouldn’t be nearly enough."
NYT's Joe Nocera says don't blame G.E., blame the tax system: "...the villain is a political system that makes the corporate tax system so easy to game ... the active financing exception ... was first enacted in 1997. It allows companies to avoid paying U.S. taxes on overseas profits — if those profits were derived by 'actively financing' some activity or deal. [It] was never supposed to be a permanent part of the tax code. Indeed, it still isn’t. But every year or two — after the usual campaign contributions and arm-twisting — it winds up back in the tax code 'temporarily.' The Treasury now estimates that it costs the government $5 billion a year."
No BP Deal, Yet
Interior Sec. Salazar denies BP deal. The Hill: "Oil giant BP has submitted one permit application to the Interior Department since the agency lifted a moratorium on deepwater oil-and-gas drilling in October ... The permit for one well is under review ... Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday denied reports that BP had struck a deal with the administration to resume drilling numerous wells ..."
Enough congresspeople support keeping EPA authority on cutting carbon to uphold presidential veto. Blog for Clean Air: "Perhaps this will persuade the anti-EPA House Republicans to stand down. It may give the President leverage on the budget negotiations."
UAW opposes GOP attempt to handcuff EPA. The Hill: "Legislation to permanently block the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules could result in litigation over the Obama administration’s vehicle fuel economy standards, the United Auto Workers (UAW) said ... EPA worked with a wide cross-section of interests, including UAW, to develop the standards. President Obama has touted the standards as a model for working with industry to develop compromise regulations."
Banks Still Failed After Bailout
Fed lent money to 100 banks that ultimately failed in the financial crisis. NYT: "The central bank took little risk in making the loans, protecting itself by demanding large amounts of collateral. But propping up failing banks can increase the eventual cleanup costs for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation because it keeps struggling banks afloat, allowing them to get even deeper in debt. It also can clog the arteries of the financial system, tying up money in banks that are no longer making new loans."
Elizabeth Warren defends role in foreclosure fraud settlement talks in face of GOP criticism. WSJ: "In a letter Monday responding to the Republicans, Ms. Warren wrote: 'To the extent that we can be helpful in holding to account servicers that have violated the law and in repairing the damage they caused, we are proud to do so.' ... GOP lawmakers have said the agency, established under last year’s Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, is too powerful, and have pushed to slash its funding."
Breakfast Sides
Justice Department cracking down on antitrust violations that increase health care costs. W. Post: "Department officials are not talking, but a recent settlement the government reached with a Texas hospital system has antitrust experts buzzing. In the first case of its kind since 1999, the department sued United Regional Health System in Wichita Falls for allegedly giving health insurers strong incentives not to do business with rival hospitals ... The hospital disputes some of the findings of the case but agreed late last month to a settlement requiring it to change how it contracts with private insurers."
Wisconsin votes today in state Supreme Court race, a test of support for Gov. Walker. NYT: "The race has turned into a referendum on Wisconsin’s new Republican governor, Scott Walker, his collective bargaining bill, and, more broadly, the Republican politicians who now control the Capitol ... The battle is over the seat now held by David T. Prosser, a justice for 12 years who some consider to be part of a 4-to-3 conservative-leaning majority bloc on the court."
