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: Deficit Hysterics Wage War On Young
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "It's one of modern political life's strange ironies that defending Social Security and Medicare is considered an 'old people's issue.' ... But young people will take the worst of these cuts, since their impact increases over time. That's no accident. Politicians know that seniors would rise up against any politician who cut these programs for them. And seniors vote. They're also aware that baby boomers are a large and powerful voting bloc, not to be trifled with. Young people, on the other hand, traditionally find it hard to imagine their own old age ... The country should be rallying behind this generation by creating jobs for them. Instead we're abandoning them to a lifetime of lowered earnings and lowered expectations, made even worse by record levels of student debt."
GOP Divided On Debt Limit
GOP leaders split over goal of short-term or long-term debt limit extension. Politico: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pushed back hard Tuesday against Senate Republican suggestions of a scaled-back, short-term debt deal, saying ... 'if we can’t make the tough decisions now, why … would [we] be making those tough decisions later.' ... It shows a real tactical split between the Senate and House GOP, which has much more to fear from multiple debt ceiling votes between now and the 2012 elections. But it’s also true that pressures from the right and tea party forces have left House Republicans far more divided over domestic spending issues than Cantor or Boehner readily admit."
Senate Budget Chair Kent Conrad threatens to reject long-tern debt limit extension if cuts aren't big enough. W. Post: "'In the context of our debt, which is nearly $15 trillion and is headed for $25 trillion, $2 trillion over 10 years does not do the job.' ... Conrad said he would agree to raise the debt limit for no longer than six months without a more serious effort to reduce future borrowing."
Bloomberg edit board debunks "$62 trillion in debt" stat: "... this brand of analysis counts future entitlement and pension payments as obligations of the government, and ultimately of private households, but not as assets for the people who benefit from these payments ... , these sorts of approaches assume that a dollar is a dollar, no matter when it comes in or goes out. But a dollar tomorrow is worth a lot more than a dollar 50 years from now ... The calculations of USA Today and others require peering decades into the future. Who is to say what medical breakthroughs may extend the average person’s life, or what new plagues may shorten it. Even small changes can have a large impact on the total cost of entitlement programs."
PIMCO's Bill Gross derides "both parties" for pushing "anti-Keynesian" policies: "...government must take a leading role in job creation. Conservative or even liberal agendas that cede responsibility for job creation to the private sector over the next few years are simply dazed or perhaps crazed. The private sector is the source of long-term job creation but in the short term, no rational observer can believe that global or even small businesses will invest here when the labor over there is so much cheaper. That is why trillions of dollars of corporate cash rest impotently on balance sheets awaiting global – non-U.S. – investment opportunities ... An infrastructure bank to fund badly needed reconstruction projects is a commonly accepted idea ... Clean/green energy investments also come to mind, most of which require government funding and a government thrust in order to create millions of jobs ... Who, from either side of the aisle is willing to discuss the use of trade measures in order to help balance our $500 billion trade deficit?"
Fed To End Stimulus
W.Post reports Fed expected to end quantitative easing stimulus program today...: "The economic environment may be changing, but the Fed’s policies probably won’t. While Fed officials are concerned about the ominous signs in the economy, they still expect growth to pick up in the second half of the year. And with their controversial effort to pump $600 billion into the economy expiring in mere days, they see little wisdom in expanding the program anew."
...despite falling short. NYT: "The pace of economic expansion has repeatedly fallen short of the Fed’s predictions, and the central bank is expected to lower its eyes once again ... a number of studies have concluded that the Fed’s efforts have had only a modest impact on the economy. Stock prices have climbed. Corporations have rarely been able to borrow money more cheaply. Mortgage loans have seldom been available at such low interest rates. But companies are hiring few new workers, and people are buying few new homes."
Dean Baker lists what else the Fed could be doing: "The Fed could do more quantitative easing, it could target a long-term interest rate, for example targeting a 2.5 percent 10-year government bond rate, or it could target a higher inflation rate (e.g. 3-4 percent). All of these measures would have some impact in boosting the economy."
Senate Republicans filibuster jobs bill they previously supported. HuffPost: "In a 49 to 51 vote, Senate Republicans blocked a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration, which provides grants to local projects ... 'This program too often has used federal dollars to fund pet projects that have little relation to the national interest,' [Sen. Jim] DeMint wrote in a June 15 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal ... [He] admits that he supported "certain EDA grants in the past." But he does not mention in the op-ed that his office held a workshop about year ago to 'highlight competitive funding opportunities available to community businesses and organizations,' including the Economic Development Administration ... Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who said in March 2010 that funds from an EDA grant 'would pave the way for the creation of new jobs and business opportunities, which will strengthen the region's economy,'..."
States Threaten Banks With Foreclosure Lawsuits
Two states prepared to take big banks to court if no foreclosure fraud settlement. Bloomberg: "Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper threatened litigation if settlement talks with the companies, including Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), break down ... The offer from banks to pay $5 billion to reach a settlement isn’t enough, Madigan said yesterday at a press conference."
SEC settles with JPMorgan Chase over role in financial crisis. Bloomberg: "'It’s the same general allegation of wrongdoing [as with Goldman Sachs],' Robert Khuzami, enforcement chief of the SEC, said yesterday ... 'The message in both cases is if you engage in this kind of wrongdoing, if you mislead investors, you’re going to pay a fine.' ... 'JPMorgan simply admitted that it "messed up’" the documentation,' said Brad Hintz, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. The bank 'pays a fine, announces a public mea culpa and has no more liability. This looks like a win for JPMorgan.'"
President Address Nation On Afghanistan Tonight
President to lay out Afghan strategy tonight, as fiscal pressures loom. NYT: "...behind his words will be an acute awareness of what $1.3 trillion in spending on two wars in the past decade has meant at home: a ballooning budget deficit and a soaring national debt at a time when the economy is still struggling to get back on its feet ... 'Do we really need to be spending $120 billion in a country with a G.D.P. that’s one-sixth that size?' asked Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress ... 'Most Americans would be shocked to know that we’re spending that kind of money for jobs programs for former Taliban, and would wonder where are our jobs programs for Detroit and Cleveland?'"
President address nation at 8 PM tonight. USA Today: "There was widespread speculation Tuesday about how Obama would fulfill his commitment to begin withdrawing some of the 100,000 troops next month and bring them all home by 2014. Some news reports said the president would cede to the military's wishes and start small, bringing home only 5,000 troops this year; others said the number would be 10,000 or more."
Breakfast Sides
NLRB proposes faster union elections to reduce interference. NYT: "The labor board wants to tighten the process by ensuring that employers, employees and unions receive needed information sooner and by delaying litigation over many voter-eligibility issues until after workers vote on whether to unionize ... The public will have 75 days to comment on the proposed rules, which may then be revised. ... The A.F.L.-C.I.O. applauded the proposed rules ... But the United States Chamber of Commerce criticized the move as a gift to organized labor."
Early retirees will have more access to Medicaid than previously understood under Affordable Care Act. AP: "Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That's because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility ... Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night ... [But Obama] administration officials and senior Democratic lawmakers say it's not a loophole but the result of a well-meaning effort to simplify rules ... A spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee, which wrote much of the health care law, said if the situation does become a problem there's plenty of time to fix it later ... But Republicans already see a problem."
NYT's Mark Bittman rips House for food safety and food aid cuts: "Cutting FDA funds is a direct attack on the health and welfare of every person in this country; cutting WIC by 10 percent — that’s the House’s idea of fairness — may at first seem to affect fewer people, but a closer look shows good reason for us all to be concerned. ... every dollar spent saves three in health care costs during the first two months of a child’s life. Not a bad return on investment. Take that away, and who pays those added health care costs? You. Me. Us."
