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 Fix Deficits
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "Stimulus winding down, state and local governments cutting back, trade deficit increasing again... Which brings us to to this week's economic news ... Private sector job growth slumps in May ... Manufacturing growth slowest since September 2009 ... Double Dip in Housing; Could Double Dip Recession Be Next? ... But DC is not only not talking about jobs, they are talking about austerity -- cutting the very things that create jobs ... The solution to the huge post-collapse jump in deficits is to restore the jobs. Restoring good-paying jobs starts to restore the tax base and stops the emergency spending on the unemployed. The increased demand as people find work and paychecks revives retail and manufacturing. Housing recovery [also] depends on more jobs ... Just cutting people out of the economy doesn't fix the problem..."
New Economic Numbers Spark Concern About Recovery
Weak data on jobs and manufacturing prompts NYT to question whether President Obama can be re-elected with unemployment above 7%: "... the grim reality of widespread unemployment is drawing little response from Washington. The Federal Reserve says it is all but tapped out. There is even less reason to expect Congressional action. Both Democrats and Republicans see clear steps to create jobs, but they are trying to walk in opposite directions ... Ronald Reagan won, despite 7.2 percent unemployment in November 1984, because the rate was falling and voters decided he was fixing the problem. The Obama administration hopes to tell a similar story."
W. Post says that "Washington is running out of ways" to help the economy: " ... prospects for another round of government help are slim. The Fed had undertaken its massive bond-buying program last year in large part because leaders of the central bank were worried about the risk of deflation, or falling prices. By contrast, prices today are edging up ... Fed officials believe that further efforts could have less bang for the buck than previous ones. The administration and Congress, meanwhile, are now more concerned with cutting the federal budget deficit than with supporting the recovery through government spending and tax breaks."
Fed may delay any tightening of monetary policy. Bloomberg: "A wave of surprisingly weak data on the U.S. economy may spur Federal Reserve policy makers to support growth by making it clear they’re in no hurry to shrink the central bank’s record balance sheet. There’s a 'strong possibility' that the Federal Open Market Committee will say following the June 21-22 meeting that it will keep reinvesting proceeds from maturing debt for a while, said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. ..."
OH GOPers look to cut minimum wage. ThinkProgress' Travis Waldron: "Ohio is one of 17 states that require workers to be paid above the minimum wage mandated by federal law. But Ohio Senate Republicans are working to limit the number of people eligible to earn that wage, attaching an amendment to an omnibus budget bill that would circumvent the law and prevent an untold number of workers from collecting the state-mandated minimum wage."
Jared Bernstein collects the job ideas that could succeed in spite of GOP obstruction: "From the department of stuff that could really help and doesn’t have budget costs, both Paul [Krugman] and Brad DeLong mentioned recess appointments to the Fed ... Brad and Rortybomb also had some ideas to get Fannie and Freddie doing more ... their reluctance to get deeper into the modification biz is not helping ... this would be a very bad time to let up on countries who subsidize their exports by suppressing their currency values in foreign exchange markets, most notably China. I’d push the Levin bill ..."
Speaker Aims For Debt Limit Deal This Month
Speaker Boehner calls for debt limit debate to be dealt with before the last minute. The Hill: "Boehner’s comments could change the timetable for a bipartisan agreement, which many lawmakers and Wall Street analysts had previously assumed would not be ironed out until right before the August congressional recess. His statements could also be an attempt to shield the GOP from blame if the stock market plunges next month in the absence of a deal. "
Joseph Califano recalls how LBJ outfoxed Congress to raise the debt limit raised and pass a tax hike to cut the deficit, in NYT oped: "The White House and Congress fought over the tax bill for the rest of the year and into 1968 ... Eventually Johnson reluctantly agreed to a $6 billion reduction in domestic spending as the price for passage of his tax surcharge. It was a clever move: rather than compromise on the tax bill itself, he simply let Congress make its own budget cuts — betting that it wouldn’t agree on what and how much to slash. He was right: Congress cut less than $4 billion from the 1969 budget. He even got the last laugh, as the year ended with a $3.2 billion surplus..."
President meets with House Dem caucus today, following yesterday's GOP session, reports The Hill.
Sen. Bernie Sanders calls for "shared sacrifice" to tackle long-term deficit reduction: "Instead of ending Medicare as we know it and making savage cuts to community health centers and children's health care programs, we must ask the top 2 percent of income earners, who currently pay the lowest upper-income tax rate on record, to start paying their fair share of taxes. Instead of making it harder for working families to send their kids to college, we must end the foreign tax shelters that enable the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying tens of billions in U.S. taxes."
Republican Demagogues Whine About Demagoguery
Republicans hilariously accuse President and other Dems of lying about health care ABC: "[House Budget Chair Paul] Ryan told the president that he is making a sincere attempt to address a problem, and he challenged the president: 'Mr. President, the demagoguery only stops if the Leaders stop it.' ... The president [said] that he is all for a reduction of demagoguery, an issue he understands since he is the ‘job killing, death panel, probably-wasn't-born-here president.’"
W. Post's E. J. Dionne incredulous over GOP complaints of demagoguery: "...Republicans who invented 'death panels' out of whole cloth and insisted, falsely, that Obama’s health proposal was nothing but a 'government takeover' have a lot of nerve complaining about the 'demagoguery' against Ryan ... One of the central purposes of the Affordable Care Act was to contain those costs. The reform cut Medicare spending by a half a trillion dollars over a decade — spending reductions that Republicans freely demagogued in last year’s election campaign."
"When Will DC Pundits Acknowledge That The Affordable Care Act Contains Cost Control Efforts?" asks ThinkProgress' Matthew Yglesias: "When oh when will Democrats acknowledge the need for some changes to the Medicare status quo? This is a great question to ask of the tiny minority of House Democrats who voted no on the Affordable Care Act back during the 111th Congress. But it’s a terrible question to ask the vast majority of House Democrats who voted 'yes' and also a terrible question to ask the Senate Democrats who all voted for it."
New CNN poll shows even Republicans hate House Republican plan. TPM: "Among conservatives, 54% are opposed. Among current seniors -- who would not be affected by the changes in the Ryan Medicare plan -- a full 74% are opposed, even after they're told that Ryan's plan affects Americans 55 years of age and younger. Even Republicans break against Ryan's plan, though only slightly. Fifty percent oppose the plan, while 48% support it."
TNR's Jonathan Chait explains how Rep. Ryan snookers Washington pundits: "If you want to understand why Ryan garners such astonishingly good press, one reason is that he speaks in coded terms that convey to Washington centrists that he shares their values, without any substantive acts to back this up ... Ryan is smart enough to couch his views in the language of the fiscal scold. And so he manages to maintain the loyalty of conservatives who theologically oppose any tax increase while also garnering the sympathy of fiscal scolds who believe that tax increases are necessary. It is quite a trick."
US blocks Indiana law denying Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, Indiana to implement it anyway. NYT: "Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the state law imposed impermissible restrictions on the freedom of Medicaid beneficiaries to choose health care providers ... But state officials said Wednesday that they intended to continue enforcing the state law ...
GOP Wants Another Round With Warren
GOP Rep. Darrell Issa wants a chance to have Elizabeth Warren make him look bad too. Reuters: "...Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent Warren a letter asking her to testify again ... 'In light of the inability of all Members of the Subcommittee to have an opportunity to ask you questions, and your unwillingness to provide direct and responsive answers to a number of important questions, the Committee would like to further discuss your plans for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ...' ... Warren looks forward to appearing before the committee, said her spokeswoman, Jen Howard."
