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: Republicans On Another Planet
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The Republican presidential candidates last night seemed to be speaking from another planet. They certainly weren't on this one, where tax breaks have produced no jobs and deregulation has destroyed both the economy and the Gulf of Mexico ... Perry was talking bunk on Social Security ... A Ponzi scheme is conducted by criminals who tell investors they’ve found a surefire way to make money. But they’re really moving money around in secret ... If there’s a Ponzi scheme out there that’s been as thoroughly vetted by actuaries as Social Security has been, then sign me up ... Perry also said that President Obama has “proven for once and for all that government spending will not create one job. Keynesian policy and Keynesian theory is now done.' ... What’s really been disproven is not Keynesian economics. It’s the Republican platform of deregulation and tax cuts ... Deregulation created the financial crisis and cost us millions of jobs. The stimulus created more than three million jobs..."
Perry Faces Fire Over Anti-Social Security Stance
Romney team argues Perry can't win with with anti-Social Security stance. Politico: "Romney adviser Stuart Stevens emails: 'He has lost. No federal candidate has ever won on the Perry program to kill Social Security. Never has. never will.'"
NYT's Nate Silver argues primary voters may punish Perry over Social Security stance: "What was more noteworthy was Mr. Perry’s response to a question about Social Security, where he doubled-down on rhetoric from his book and characterized the program as a 'Ponzi scheme./ This particular remark is not likely to sit exceptionally well even with Republicans, conservative though they may be. A CNN poll published last month found 57 percent of Republicans opposed to major changes in Social Security and Medicare ... if perceptions about electability fade, so will his overall numbers ... Unless he develops a stronger defense of his positions on Social Security, he will make Mr. Romney’s job much easier."
Romney and Perry are both "extreme" and "dishonest," argues TNR's Jonathan Cohn: "...both are advocating platforms that, by any reasonable standard, qualify as extreme. And both are making dishonest arguments in their defense."
NYT fact checks the GOP debate: "[Romney asserted] asserting that Mr. Obama had halted offshore drilling, blocked construction of new coal plants, slowed development of nuclear plants and failed to develop natural gas trapped in shale formations. But those claims are largely untrue ... Gov. Rick Perry of Texas repeated his [false] claim that '[climate] science is not settled.' ... Mr. Perry laid into Social Security, saying, 'You cannot keep the status quo in place and call it anything other than a Ponzi scheme.' But that metaphor is misleading. Government projections have Social Security exhausting its reserves by 2037, absent any changes, but show that the payroll tax revenues coming in would cover more than three-quarters of benefits to recipients then."
President To Unveil "American Jobs Act" Tonight
WH Press Sec Jay Carney previews "American Jobs Act" on CNN: "There will be some new ideas that you haven't heard from us before that are part of the baskets, part of the areas, in terms of tax relief and infrastructure spending, assistance to communities to help rebuild their schools, assistance to states to help retain teachers so teachers aren't laid off."
President will "travel the country" stumping for jobs plan after speech reports USA Today.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor softens tone, claims, "We believe in infrastructure spending." NYT quotes: "We know that our roads and bridges and highway networks are in need of repair and we know that there are certain areas of the country that need additional roads."
Economist Joseph Stiglitz makes the case for big bold public investment, in Politico oped: "No analyst would ever look at just a firm’s debt — he would examine both sides of the balance sheet, assets and liabilities. What I am urging is that we do the same for the U.S. government — and get over deficit fetishism. If we can’t, there is another, not as powerful but still very effective, way of creating jobs. Economists have long seen that simultaneously increasing expenditures and taxes in a balanced way increases GDP ... With well-designed tax increases — focused on upper-income Americans, corporations that aren’t investing in America or closing tax loopholes — and smart expenditure programs that are focused on investments, the multiplier is between 2 and 3."
NYT edit board back legislation to expand Super Committee's mandate to cover jobs: "Representative John Larson of Connecticut, the Democratic caucus chairman, has introduced legislation that would require the committee to produce a job creation plan alongside its deficit blueprint ... Adding jobs to the committee’s mandate has already been rejected by the Republicans who run the House. They refuse to veer from their single-minded goal of cutting spending, blind to any plan that might improve the economy, because that might improve President Obama’s re-election chances."
Super Committee Meets For First Time Today
As Super Committee meets today, TPM's Brian Beutler asks if Republicans will accept facts from CBO about cause of deficit: "...it will also pose the panel with its first and most basic test: whether its six Democrats and six Republicans can accept a single history of the country's large public debt as a starting point for reining it in ... it argues strongly for policies that ultimately reverse the revenue losses from Bush tax cuts, and then a debate over the best ways to make health care costs sustainable..."
Lobbyist converge on Super Committee. Politico: "The Defense and State departments — and their allies in Congress and on K Street — are warning that steep cuts could endanger national security. Powerful players in the health sector are calculating that they face less exposure if the supercommittee fails and automatic cuts to Medicare — limited to about 2 percent by the new debt-limit law — are imposed. Even Washington’s cottage industry of 'good government' groups are leaning on lawmakers to conduct the kind of public deliberations that some insiders think would make it impossible for the supercommittee to make a deal."
Super Committee members suggest tax reform will be handled under regular committees. The Hill: "...budget analysts are increasingly calling on the supercommittee to implement a two-step process for tax reform — perhaps accelerating the process and setting parameters themselves before placing a deadline for Finance and Ways and Means to hash out the details. "
Another Super Committee hire increases chances of a deal, suggests W. Post's Ezra Klein: "...the lead Republican staffer knows taxes and the lead Democratic staffer knows entitlements. It’s a sign that the two sides are at least thinking about the relevant compromises they’re going to need to make if the committee is going to succeed."
Uninsured Population Rises, As Health Reform Implementation Awaits
Uninsured population rises as nation awaits implementation of Affordable Care Act. LAT: "Fifty-two million adults ages 19 to 64 did not have insurance at some point in 2010, up from 46 million in 2003 ... 44% of U.S. adults were either uninsured or underinsured last year, according to the Commonwealth Fund ... The Rand and Commonwealth Fund researchers said the new healthcare law that President Obama signed last year could bring some relief ... That could reduce the number of underinsured adults as much as 70%..."
"Doctor Fees Major Factor in Health Costs, Study Says" reports NYT: "Doctors have generally been excluded from recent cost-cutting proposals because under existing law, Medicare, the federal insurance program for older people, will reduce their fees by 29.5 percent on Jan. 1. In addition, many states have frozen or reduced fees paid to doctors treating poor people under Medicaid."
Breakfast Sides
Partisan division surface on appropriations bills needed to keep government open next month. The Hill: "... it is likely House appropriators will push for deeper State cuts and more Defense spending this fall. In addition to the difference in amounts, the House bills contain dozens of policy riders that would limit regulations from the Obama administration. Senate Democrats are expected to reject them. The differences between the chambers mean that there is no way to complete the appropriations process before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1."
VP Biden tries to calm fears about China in NYT oped: "The Chinese leaders I met with know their country must shift from an economy driven by exports, investment and heavy industry to one driven more by consumption and services. This includes continued steps to revalue their currency and to provide fair access to their markets. As Americans save more and Chinese buy more, this transition will accelerate, opening opportunities for us."
Cantor appears to back down on blocking disaster relief. The Hill quotes: "I have never, never said that I am holding anything hostage or would be for playing politics with this.”
White House steps up financing of clean energy companies. NYT: "The [energy] department will announce Thursday that it has completed a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies, a company with a new way to make the silicon wafers used in solar cells. The company, based in Lexington, Mass., is the star pupil of the department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy ... The company casts the wafers from molten silicon, cutting costs in half ... On Wednesday, the department announced a guarantee for 80 percent of a $344 million private loan to be taken out by SolarCity, which installs and owns rooftop solar systems and sells the electricity generated by them. The company plans to operate up to 160,000 rooftop installations at military bases around the country, mostly on apartment buildings and houses."
New evidence 2008 gas price spike was caused by Wall Street. Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard: "...someone leaked confidential documents detailing the positions of Wall Street speculators—including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays—from a single day that fateful summer, June 30, 2008. More than 200 companies held investments in millions of barrels of oil that day, many of them companies that neither produce nor use oil. The documents laid bare the extent to which big banks' speculating has begun to affect oil prices..."
