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: Obama Rejects Medicare Age Increase, Stresses Jobs and Fair Taxes
OurFuture.org's Roger Hickey: "The big news: the President will not propose raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the millions of older workers and unemployed people now desperately trying to hold on until they reach age 65 will not end up resenting Democrats for trying to make a difficult life even more difficult. And young people without pensions will enjoy a little more confidence that one party is on their side. After today, the policy choice will be even clearer: Almost all Republicans voted for the Ryan plan to dismantle Medicare. And now Democrats can clearly say they will fight any attempt to cut Medicare benefits or raise the Medicare eligibility age ... If reports are accurate ... the President has laid out a program that he can take to the American people - and if the Super Committee does not embrace it - there is now a much better chance that it will make sense to the voters in 2012."
President Will Announce Deficit Reduction Plan at 10:30 AM ET
President will make veto threat if Congress' passes plan without shared sacrifice. LAT: "Obama also will warn congressional Republicans during a Rose Garden speech Monday that if they pass legislation that cuts programs for poor and elderly Americans without asking profitable corporations and others to sacrifice, he will veto the measure."
WSJ reports President's proposed Medicare reforms will not include raising the retirement age: "The president will also propose changes to Medicare and Medicaid that would reduce the deficit by about $300 billion over 10 years. He isn't expected to propose increasing the Medicare eligibility age, people familiar with the plan said, and won't include changes to Social Security ... His proposed changes to Medicare are expected to focus on cutting payments to providers of medical services..."
Details sketchy on what Medicare reforms will be. Bloomberg: "...administration officials declined to specify what Medicare-benefit cuts Obama will propose, though one said the administration has previously supported a sliding scale of premiums based on income level. Obama will seek $248 billion in Medicare cuts, including reductions in payments to health-care providers and $72 billion in savings from the Medicaid state-federal health program for the poor, the officials said."
Half of $3T plan comes from increased tax revenue, not counting "Buffet rule" millionaires tax. NYT: "Administration officials said Sunday night that they were not including any revenue from the Buffett Rule in Mr. Obama’s overall $3 trillion proposal, adding that it was more of a guiding principle the president will adopt as budget negotiations with Congress advance ... $800 billion of the $1.5 trillion in tax increases would come from allowing the Bush-era tax cuts [on the wealthy] to expire. The other $700 billion, aides said, would come from a combination of closing loopholes and limiting deductions among individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000."
GOP cries "class warfare" at plan to ensure millionaires pay same rate as middle-class. LAT: "'Class warfare … may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics,' House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said ... The White House said the Buffet rule would apply to the top 0.3% of wage earners, and noted that 22,000 people making more than $1 million a year in 2009 paid less than 15% of their income in taxes ..."
Military retiree benefits may be cut under any deal. NYT: "... the debt ceiling agreement approved this summer by Congress, under which the Pentagon must find $400 billion in reductions over the next 12 years, may force cuts once considered unthinkable. And if Congress does not adopt the recommendations of the bipartisan committee studying deficit reduction, the mandated reductions in Pentagon spending would more than double, to about $900 billion, and fall on just about every category of defense spending."
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson lists the "Five Super-Congress Debt-Cutting Myths": "1. America is 'broke.' ... 2. Entitlements are out of control ... 3. The deficit has to be cut now ... 4. Cutting spending will grow the economy and create jobs ... 5. Taxes this, taxes that..."
WH, GOP Dig In Over Clean Energy
WH, GOP prepare to battle over additional renewable energy loans. The Hill: "The Obama administration is doubling down on its support for renewable energy, stressing that it will move forward on more loans like the one to Solyndra, the California-based company that announced its bankruptcy late last month. In fact, as many as 14 new loan guarantees from the Energy Department — nine of which are for solar projects — could be finalized by the end of the month. But congressional Republicans have signaled they’re prepared to start a huge political fight with the White House over the investments."
"Solyndra Hypocrisy: David Vitter Sought Energy Loans He Now Seeks to Scrutinize," reports Time's Michael Grunwald: "'We can’t afford any more crony capitalism,' Vitter said in Wednesday. Vitter should know. He’s written a bunch of letters to the Energy Department’s loan program seeking loans for renewable energy firms. For example, on July 1, 2009, Vitter and Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu to support a loan application by the V Vehicle Company, a clean-car start-up (backed by T. Boone Pickens and the venture capital leviathan Kleiner Perkins) ... Alas, the Energy Department rejected the loan, citing concerns about the company’s financial viability ... No wonder Vitter’s angry: His cronies are losing!"
Congressional GOP eager to try to overturn any new regulations. USA Today: "...some congressional Republicans are looking to revive the often-ignored law known as the Congressional Review Act ... Just 30 senators can force a vote and send regulations back to the president ... Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. ... acknowledges there's a good chance President Obama will simply veto attempts to overturn his administration's rules, but he says Republicans can still use the tool to shape the debate."
Republicans haven't figured out how to keep the government's doors open after this month, may need Dem help. Politico: "House Republicans have backed themselves into a corner: How do they keep the government open and pass year-end spending bills without wrapping them all into a monstrous omnibus bill — just the kind that conservatives despise and Speaker John Boehner himself slammed when Democrats ran the House? But that’s exactly where Republicans are headed as the Sept. 30 end to the fiscal year looms, and Boehner may now have to rely on Democrats and the White House to pass an all-inclusive spending bill."
Texas Leads ... In Poverty
"Poverty grows in Rick Perry's Texas" finds CNN: "While it's true that Texas is responsible for 40% of the jobs added in the U.S. over the past two years, its poverty rate also grew faster than the national average in 2010 ... Some 18.4% of Texans were impoverished in 2010, up from 17.3% a year earlier ... It doesn't provide a lot of support services to those in need: Relatively few collect food stamps and qualifying for cash assistance is particularly tough ... many families, particularly in the southern swath, live in ramshackle housing with no utilities or indoor plumbing."
Some GOPers worry trying to jerry-rig PA electoral college vote will backfire. NYT: "G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said that Democrats would probably not bother spending time and money trying to increase turnout in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia. Instead, he said, they would focus on trying to unseat the moderate Republicans who represent the swing suburban districts ... Representative Jim Gerlach, a Republican from Chester County in suburban Philadelphia, said he and his colleagues were still evaluating the bill. They want to try to meet its 'goals,' he said, but without 'unduly risking the future of our hard-fought and hard-won Congressional districts.'"
Breakfast Sides
Markets assuming Fed is going to act again, risking disappointment. NYT: "Some close watchers of the central bank say investors’ behavior could let the Fed offer a token gesture now, postponing any larger move at least until its next meeting in November. After all, the Fed is reaping the benefits of action without the costs ... The move markets are anticipating is a new effort to reduce long-term interest rates, which would allow businesses and consumers to borrow more cheaply."
Labor leaders not calmed on trade deal by push for worker aid. The Hill: "The AFL-CIO’s view is that Trade Adjustment Assistance should stand on its own merits and not be linked to the trade deals ... Citing figures from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, he argued that the largest of the three trade pacts, with South Korea, will cost the United States 159,000 jobs. The deal with Colombia will cost 54,000 jobs, he said."
