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: Deconstructing Paul Ryan
OurFuture.org's Sam Pizzigati: "'We do tax the top,' Ryan earnestly responded. 'Let’s remember, most of our jobs come from successful small businesses ... So when you raise their tax rates to 44.8 percent, which is what the President is proposing, I would just fundamentally disagree. That is going to hurt job creation.' ... Ryan’s budget plan, to be sure, has no chance of passing the Senate, at least not as is. But Ryan’s 'wonky' sound bites have distorted the federal budget debate. They’ve helped shove what we need — substantially higher taxes on the rich — off the political table."
Speaker Boehner Faces Wall Street
Speaker Boehner to hold public Q&A in NYC, in front of Wall Steeters demanding increase in debt limit. Politico: "...the Ohio Republican is set to reiterate to leading financial executives that he believes that reforming Medicare should be part of negotiations ... Boehner’s public insistence that reforming Medicare stay a part of debt ceiling negotiations could reaffirm a concern among Wall Street types that Republicans are driving a hard bargain on the limit and will take the negotiations up to the last minute ... "
Wall Street wants a debt limit deal by July to avoid market panic reports Bloomberg.
TNR's Jonathan Chait debunks W. Post editorial defending House GOP Medicare privatization plan from Dem attacks: "...the Post doesn't say that Ryan's plan must be done. it acknowledges some flaws. Yet in nonetheless deems opposition unacceptable. He is doing something! The need to do something is deemed so overwhelmingly vital that it's immoral to criticize any plan that does something, however harmful or poorly designed that something may be. The editorial argues that 'simply preserving Medicare as we know it is not an option.' Of course it's an option. We could raise taxes to the levels that other advanced democracies employ."
NYT edit board greets Boehner with a stern admonition: "Negotiations on the debt limit are not the time or place to force a deficit deal. As ever, the Republicans’ positions have little to do with economic reality. Really tackling the deficit will require specific, thoughtful changes centered on raising taxes and controlling health care costs, neither of which Republicans support."
Will successful Bin Laden mission strengthen Obama's hand in deficit talks? NYT's John Harwood: " On the biggest issue dividing the parties — how to close budget deficits — even a strengthened president cannot compel ways to resolve deep substantive and political differences on taxes and spending ... Yet his enhanced stature may nevertheless ripple through domestic debates. His rising approval numbers certainly raise the cost of Republican resistance to his priorities."
Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky urges focus on ending tax expenditures: "They cost $1.1 trillion a year, and given that we’re not going to increase income taxes much if at all, putting the squeeze on the deductions is the only way to generate revenue and prevent asphyxiating cuts to the domestic budget. And it’s why I fear that when all is said and done, we’re going to come out of this with lower tax rates and very few loopholes closed."
Salon's Jonathan Easley praises Obama plan to shave deficit by selling unneeded government real estate: "It's an indication that under Democratic leadership the U.S. government is beginning to behave as an entity that is concerned with such fiscal trivialities as ledgers and balance sheets. It's the opposite of state socialism and nationalization -- goals that Obama's critics on the right have relentlessly claimed that he's pursuing."
"Key vote" this week on military spending cuts. W. Post: "...the House Armed Services Committee is expected to vote this week on the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill ... [But the Pentagon] decision to stop funding General Electric’s alternative engine for the F-35, which would save as much as $3 billion, has been challenged by new language in a subcommittee-approved bill ..."
Senate to move on ending Big OIl subsidies this week. NYT: "With high gas prices and rising federal deficits in the political spotlight, senior Democrats believe that tying the two together will put pressure on Senate Republicans to support the measure or face a difficult time explaining their opposition to voters whose family budgets are being strained by fuel prices."
Two-Day US-China Talks Begin
President begins two-day series of talks with China today reports AP.
US to push again on currency reform, reports Bloomberg: "The Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers say China’s currency policy gives the nation’s exporters an unfair competitive advantage, costing American jobs. Geithner is trying to convince Chinese officials that a stronger yuan has benefits for their economy ... The U.S. has delayed its semi-annual foreign-exchange report, which had been due on April 15, until after this week’s meetings."
A New Race To The Bottom For Insurance Regs
NYT sees race to the bottom in state insurance regulation: "Vermont, and a handful of other states including Utah, South Carolina, Delaware and Hawaii, are aggressively remaking themselves as destinations of choice for the kind of complex private insurance transactions once done almost exclusively offshore ... This has given rise to concern that a shadow insurance industry is emerging, with less regulation and more potential debt than policyholders know, raising the possibility that some companies will find themselves without enough money to pay future claims. Critics say this is much like the shadow banking system that contributed to the financial crisis."
Naked Capitalism laments direction of the foreclosure fraud settlement talks with the state AGs: "...what is the latest episode in this sorry fiasco? Shahien Nasiripour of Huffington Post reported that the AGs are putting forward another proposal next week, one watered down to reflect bank 'concerns' ... [Iowa AG Tom] Miller has no business refusing [other AG] queries over such a critical negotiating issue [as legal liability.]"
"U.S. ‘Underwater’ Homeowners Increase to 28 Percent" reports Bloomberg.
The Polarized Economy
NYT's Paul Krugman accuses the political elite class of trying to shift blame to the public for global economic mess: "What happened to the budget surplus the federal government had in 2000? First, there were the Bush tax cuts ... Second, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ... And third was the Great Recession ... it was the bad judgment of the elite, not the greediness of the common man, that caused America’s deficit. And much the same is true of the European crisis ... We need to place the blame where it belongs, to chasten our policy elites."
It's not just politics that's polarized, it's the economy, argues TomDispatch's Andy Kroll: "More and more, we're seeing labor growth largely at opposite ends of the skills-and-wages spectrum -- among, that is, the best and the worst kinds of jobs ... the shape of the workforce now hinders America’s once vaunted upward mobility. It’s the downhill slope that’s largely available these days ... There's a significant political component to the hollowing out of the American labor force and the impoverishment of the middle class: the slow fade of organized labor."
Breakfast Sides
This AM, Transportation Dept. announces $2B in high-speed rail funds for Northeast and Midwest: "The money originally was awarded to Florida for high-speed service between Orlando and Tampa, but newly elected Gov. Rick Scott canceled the project ... $800 million will go to upgrade train speed from 135 mph to 160 on critical portions of the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington. Another $404 million will go to a project for a high-speed service between Detroit and Chicago..."
Fierce lobbying battle over possible executive order to expose political spending by federal contractors. LAT: "If Obama issued the draft executive order, he would effectively discourage previously undisclosed donations to groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ... business interests are trying to quash the measure. The chamber is pressing top White House officials [and] corralled its allies on Capitol Hill ... More than 138,000 companies are prime federal contractors and could fall under the measure ... Advocates [for the order] are cautiously optimistic."
Health reform legal battle enters "five-week flurry of federal appellate hearings." NYT: "At Tuesday’s hearing, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will consider a pair of contradictory rulings sent up from the lower courts ... If the appellate courts act quickly, the question of the health law’s constitutionality could land before the Supreme Court as soon as the next term, which opens in October ... On June 1, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati is scheduled to hear the appeal of a ruling in favor of the law. On June 8, the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta will review a Florida judge’s ruling that invalidated the entire act."
