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: Speaker Misquotes Our Quote
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Dear Mr. Speaker, In a post entitled 'Dem Unrest on Jobs Looms Over "Recovery Summer" Anniversary,' your website reads: '"If the president won't do something about jobs, who will?,"' the Campaign for America's Future, a leading progressive activist group, asked last week, adding: "it seems as if the White House is from Mars and the middle class is from Venus."' While it's always gratifying to be noticed, Mr. Speaker, that wasn't actually an official statement by the Campaign for America's Future, where I have a fellowship. It's the opening sentence to a piece in the Huffington Post and OurFuture.org. And I would like to respectfully point out, Sir, that it skips the following sentence: 'And Republicans act like they're from the Death Star, patrolling the economy in their Imperial Cruisers directing laser blasts at every job initiative they can find.'"
No New Jobs Ideas At GOP Debate
Lots of criticism, no solutions at GOP presidential debate, finds Salon's Joan Walsh: "...Romney's description of our nation's economic problems was spot on, but there was no prescription to show he'd do a better job than Obama has in solving them ... [Pawlenty] flicked at concerns about the fairness of trade deals, concerns that some union leaders share. But when push came to shove, Pawlenty showed he misunderstands the problem, because he made labor unions the scapegoat ..."
Debate shows how far to the right GOP has been pulled, argues TNR's Ed Kilgore: "Like myna birds, the candidates emphatically agreed the economy is the main issue, that radically reducing the power of government to do good or ill is the only thing a president can do to help the economy, and that there is scarcely a problem where the federal government can make a single positive contribution to national life, other than by deploying National Guard troops to the border."
Daily Beast's Michelle Goldberg asks "Has The GOP Lost Its Mind?": "Here are things that Republicans suggested eliminating or privatizing in last night’s debate: FEMA, NASA, the EPA, the Federal Labor Relations Board, Medicaid and food stamps ... In this crowd, Mitt Romney seemed almost statesmanlike, even though he says he’s willing to blow up the world economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. At least he admitted that Sharia law will not soon be coming to America..."
Romney still can't explain his stance against the auto bailout, notes TNR's Jonathan Chait: "Mitt Romney was incoherent on the auto bailout in ways that merit further exploration. He began by lambasting the Obama administration's auto bailout as just handing out money. But then, pressed about his prediction that a bailout would destroy the industry, he insisted he was saying this would only happen if the government handed out money to the automakers wantonly. The implication, then, is that Obama avoided the mistake that Romney had just accused him of committing
NYT tries to keep up with the lies: "Mitt Romney ... said that while President Obama didn’t start the recession, “he made it worse, and longer.” Newt Gingrich ... called the Obama administration 'anti-jobs.' While it is true that unemployment is far worse today than Mr. Obama’s advisers initially predicted, it would be even worse without the stimulus bill ... Mr. Romney said at the debate that Massachusetts, unlike Washington, did not finance its [health care] plan with a tax increase. But since Mr. Romney left office in 2007, the state has had to raise taxes to keep the program afloat ..."
Presidential Pushback On Jobs
President rejects charge he is complacent about jobs, on NBC: "'I think ordinary folks understand I spend all my time thinking about this stuff, because I’m talking to these folks every single day,’' he said. 'When I see them at meetings, and they start crying, the notion, somehow, that I’m calm about that, is nonsense.' ... The success of investments in clean energy, better job training at the college level, tax cuts for small businesses and the elimination of outdated regulations are all programs that will go toward determining whether the administration is successful in combating the economic crisis, he said."
President backs extension of temporary payroll tax cut. Politico: "...his comments Monday were his most direct statement yet that the tax cut should be part of any deal between the White House and Congress to raise the country’s debt limit ... The reductions in government spending would go into effect over the next two decades, Obama said, so 'that gives us a little bit of room to continue to do some smart things like the payroll tax cut that we initiated in December while still keeping our eye on the ball in terms of the long term.'"
And pushes program to create high-tech jobs. NYT: "President Obama convened a session of his new jobs council on Monday, offering a proposal to train 10,000 American engineering students a year in a program focused on filling high-tech jobs ... 'Right now, there are more than four job seekers for every job opening in America,' Mr. Obama said ... 'But when it comes to science and high-tech fields, the opposite is true: businesses like this tell me they’re having a hard time finding workers to fill their job openings.'"
Expect more emphasis on small-scale jobs ideas. LAT: "With traditional tools to jolt the economy largely exhausted or unavailable to him, President Obama is turning to more modest measures in an effort to persuade voters that he is continuing to fight for the millions who are out of work. ... he has been using two approaches ... put forward smaller-scale ideas that may not generate huge numbers of jobs in the short term, but which at least show he is working on the issue ... The other approach is to emphasize how much worse the recession could have been."
Bipartisan Debt Limit Talks Renew
Biden, Republican $1 trillion apart. Politico: " But even after concessions by President Barack Obama, the two sides remain more than $1.1 trillion apart over the next 10 years, and Senate Republicans have yet to step forward to help broker a deal between the administration and the House GOP."
Signs of Dem shakiness on Medicaid. Politico: "The filibuster-proof 41 signatures prove that a large-scale Medicaid overhaul is not likely to pass. But a close look at the letters shows the program is vulnerable to other changes. The letter doesn’t mention Republican attempts to repeal Medicaid’s maintenance of effort provisions, which bar states from paring back Medicaid eligibility standards ..."
Bipartisan duo Sens. Mark Udall and Mark Kirk try to rally other Senators behind "Gang of Six" cuts: "With recent reports that the Senate Gang of Six has been working on a long-term deficit reduction plan of $4.7 trillion in cuts over 10 years, it is essential that the nation rally behind it. Only a bipartisan, all-of-the-above plan, with shared sacrifices from both parties, will show the public that Congress recognizes the serious nature of the nation’s current economic crisis and is willing to fix it. The gang’s plan is our best hope, and we would like to see all senators encourage its momentum."
Bank Of America Accused Of Obstruction
Feds accuse Bank of America of hindering investigation. HuffPost: "The bank withheld key documents and data, prevented investigators from interviewing bank employees or asking certain questions, and was slow to provide information, according to a June 1 declaration by William W. Nixon, a fraud examiner and assistant regional inspector general for audit for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ... raising the specter of additional legal headaches for the nation's largest bank."
NYT's Joe Nocera asks why do some banksters get to keep the money: "...isn’t insider trading also a form of stealing? After all, Rajaratnam was convicted of stealing information that gave him an unfair advantage over other investors. The gains he made from those unfair trades robbed the people who, lacking the information he had obtained, sold the shares that Galleon bought. In insider-trading cases, prosecutors try to find those people so that appropriate restitution can be made. But only Rajaratnam will have to make that restitution. His investors get to keep the profits that resulted from his illegal trades."
NLRB v. Boeing Faces Judge
N:RB case against Boeing goes before judge today, but settlement still possible. NYT: "Many legal specialists say the N.L.R.B. and the machinists’ union have a good chance of winning before the administrative law judge in Seattle and in the next stage of the legal process, an appeal to the Democrat-dominated, five-seat labor board ... Boeing and some legal specialists say the company is likely to win in the federal circuit court that would hear appeals after that. But no one wants the case to drag on for years. The machinists’ union has hinted that it might drop the case if Boeing pledged to locate some future production in Washington State..."
Supreme Court 5-4 ruling protects individual Wall Streeters who make false statements about financial products. NYT: "The question in the case was whether the [investment] adviser could be said to have made misleading statements addressed by the S.E.C. rule. Relying in large part on dictionary definitions of the word 'make,' Justice Thomas answered no. The adviser may have written the words in question, he said, but it was the [mutual] fund that issued them ... its logic applies to bankers, lawyers, accountants and others who help prepare disclosure documents."
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham threatens to block Commerce nominee over NLRB case. The Hill: "'I’m not going to let this Secretary of Commerce nomination go forward until the Obama administration speaks out on behalf of Boeing,' Graham said ... The White House has thus far declined to comment on the NLRB case, arguing that the panel is an 'independent agency.'"
Will Senate End Ethanol Subsidy?
Vote to end ethanol subsidies hits Senate floor today. The Hill: "The Senate is slated to vote on Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) plan to eliminate a major ethanol industry tax break and the ethanol import tariff ... Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) are floating [competing] legislation that would phase out the credit while maintaining other incentives ... drawing support from ethanol industry trade groups ..."
Some conservatives attack bill as a tax increase. The Hill: "The money saved would go toward deficit reduction, flying in the face of the Americans for Tax Reform’s (ATR) Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which calls for the elimination of tax breaks to be offset with other tax cuts ... If a majority of Republicans vote for Coburn’s amendment, it would start to erode the nearly airtight opposition that ATR has been able to maintain against any tax increases that aren’t offset by other cuts. Democratic strategists see ATR’s pledge as a major obstacle to eliminating special corporate tax breaks in deficit-reduction talks."
EPA temporarily delays greenhouse gas rule for power plants. NYT: "The delay is a tacit admission that the regulations pose difficult political, economic and technical challenges that cannot be addressed on the aggressive timetable the agency set for itself early in the Obama administration. The agency said it was pushing back the new greenhouse gas proposal to the end of September to allow more time to consider input from power companies, environmental advocates and others. Officials said they still expected to have a final rule in place by May 2012."
