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: Super Committee of Doom
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: " Leading off on the Senate side is Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, chief architect of the GOP's 'jobs plan.' If that's a plan for creating jobs, the Black Plague was a public health initiative ... That's the bad news about Portman. Want the good news? He's the moderate Republican on the Committee ... The Democrats on the Committee are the nation's last line of defense. They must be outraged about these Social Security cuts, don't you think? ... Actually the best-known Democrat on the Committee, John Kerry, told Meet the Press that we need 'a mix of reductions and reforms in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.'"
Super Committee Picks Completed
Pelosi completes Super Committee appointments, as GOPer hints of revenue increases. NYT: "...three of her top lieutenants who have led opposition to cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid ... Representatives Xavier Becerra of California .... James E. Clyburn of South Carolina ... and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland .. [GOP Rep. Dave] Camp said Thursday that he would not rule out tax changes that generate additional revenue as a result of economic growth."
All GOP presidential candidates would reject deal with 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases reports ThinkProgress.
Dem Rep. Mike Quigley give Super Committee his plan to cut deficit $2T. The Hill: " The proposal specifies $700 billion in defense cuts over the next 10 years, for instance, including troop reductions in Europe, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of Asia. Tweaking the entitlements, Quigley would empower the government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare’s prescription drug program, and hike the income level subject to the payroll tax that funds Social Security."
Dem Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. criticizes Super Committee picks as unrepresentative: "The Great Recession has hit minorities and women the hardest ... [But] those who suffer the most under the present economic catastrophe are least represented on the new Super Congress committee."
President Blames "Political Brinkmanship" For Jobs Crisis
President assails "political brinkmanship" instead of "country before party" for inaction on the economy. McClatchy: "...he promised to put out 'more proposals, week by week, that will help business hire and put people back to work.' 'I want everybody to understand here the problem is not that we don't have answers,' he said. 'The problem is that folks are playing political games.'"
Credits both workers and government action for job created at Michigan manufacturing plant: "...what also made this possible are the actions that we took together, as a nation, through our government –- the fact that we were willing to invest in the research and the technology that holds so much promise for jobs and growth; the fact that we helped create together the conditions where businesses like this can prosper."
Urges voters to push Congress to pass transportation jobs bill. The Hill quotes: "Tell Congress to get past their differences and send me a road construction bill so that companies can put tens of thousands of people to work building our roads, our bridges, our seaports."
Highlights what he's done for green jobs, without Congress. The Hill: "The White House has positioned energy policy as a key component of the economic recovery, and in the run-up to the 2012 elections, Obama is highlighting steps his administration has taken at a time when Capitol Hill divisions create huge hurdles for energy bills. The fuel-economy standards represent just one of several instances in which the White House has touted energy policy actions it can take without Congress."
Republican Challengers Defend Corporate Tax Cuts, Lambaste New Deal
"Corporations are people" insists presidential candidate Mitt Romney: "'We have to make sure that the promises we make in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are promises we can keep, and there are various ways of doing that,' Mr. Romney said. 'One is, we can raise taxes on people.' 'Corporations!' the protesters shouted, suggesting that Mr. Romney, as president, should raise taxes on large businesses. 'Corporations are people, my friend,' Mr. Romney responded..."
Expected presidential candidate Rick Perry slams Social Security, Medicare, New Deal and direct election of Senators. Newsweek quotes: "Whether it’s Social Security, whether it’s Medicaid, whether it’s Medicare. You’ve got $115 trillion worth of unfunded liability in those three. They’re bankrupt. They’re a Ponzi scheme ... the Progressive movement was the beginning of the deterioration of our Constitution ... The New Deal was the launching pad for the Washington largesse as we know it today ... The 17th Amendment is when the states started getting out of balance with the federal government..."
S&P Suggests Tea Party Sparked Downgrade
S&P points finger at Tea Party. Politico: "A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans ... The statement seems likely to bolster one Democratic line of attack, that it was tea party intransigence ... that is to blame for the U.S. downgrade..."
NYT fact checks the GOP presidential debate on debt downgrade: "As they tried to blame President Obama for the nation’s lowered credit rating, the Republican presidential candidates who squared off Thursday night in Iowa made several misleading, incomplete or simply false claims ... But some of the factors [S&P] cited — from the 'political brinksmanship' that left the nation at the precipice of default to its concerns that the deficit-cutting deal 'falls short' of what is needed — can be attributed to Republicans in Congress as much as, or even more than, President Obama."
U.S. Treasury raking it in after downgrade, saving money for taxpayers. Bloomberg: "The U.S. auctioned $72 billion of notes and bonds this week at the lowest average yield for a refunding on record, saving taxpayers $647 million in interest payments during the life of the securities less than a week after Standard & Poor’s removed the nation’s AAA rating."
Breakfast Sides
Elizabeth Warren indicates she will run for Senate. HuffPost: "Former Obama adviser and longtime consumer protection advocate Elizabeth Warren is moving toward a Senate run, several Democratic sources tell the Huffington Post. The Massachusetts resident and Harvard Law School professor authored a post for an influential progressive state-based blog on Thursday afternoon pledging that she would not 'stop fighting for middle class families.' ... A final decision is expected after Labor Day."
House Oversight Cmte Chair Darrell Issa's crusade against the NLRB has "truly crossed" the line, argues Slate's Dahlia Lithwick: "...it differs only in kind, but not degree, from the U.S. attorneys scandal of 2006—the one where officials in the White House and Justice Department conspired to fire a clutch of U.S. attorneys who weren't finding evidence of the sorts of crimes the Bush White House wanted to see prosecuted ... a government agency that can be papered to death, defunded completely, or shut down by a handful of pro-business hecklers is not a government agency that can function."
