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: Taking Back The Vote
OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath: "In dozens of states, Republicans are aiming to restrict or take away the voting rights of core constituencies of the Democratic party ... the conservative movement to restrict voting amounts to one chief concern: too many people are voting. More specifically, too many of the wrong people are voting ... The GOP war on the vote doesn't stop at the ballot box. In Pennsylvania, conservatives are toying with a scheme to change how the state rewards its electoral votes, portioning them out according to which candidates win each of its congressional districts instead of awarding them to the candidate who wins the most votes. GOP-dominated states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio may follow suit. It's not just a thinly-veiled ploy to keep Barack Obama from winning Pennsylvania again in 2008. As with conservative noise about repealing the 17th amendment, which would mean reverting to senators being elected by state legislators instead of by popular vote, it's another attempt divorce Americans from the political process."
Republicans Try To Stop Fed From Doing Something
Fed may take new action to boost economy. AP: "Most economists expect the Fed to announce a plan Wednesday to shift money in its $1.7 trillion portfolio out of short-term securities and into longer-term holdings. The plan could lower Treasury yields further. Ultimately, it could reduce rates on mortgages and other consumer and business loans, too."
Republicans tell Fed, don't try anything. AP: "In an unusual move, Republican leaders of the House and Senate are urging Federal Reserve policymakers against taking further steps to lower interest rates ... Former Fed official Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, called the letter 'outrageous. It's incredible.' Gagnon said it's been several decades since such high-level politicians tried so directly to influence the Fed."
Bloomberg questions if it would work: "Low interest rates, the traditional medicine for a flagging economy, aren’t helping housing, which since 1982 has aided every recovery except the current one ... Rising foreclosures, tighter lending standards and unemployment stuck near 9 percent for more than two years are all weighing on the market ..."
Senate In No Rush On Jobs Bill
No Senate vote scheduled for American Jobs Act. CNN: "Senate Democrats still have not decided when to take up the jobs bill President Barack Obama announced with great fanfare to a joint session of Congress almost two weeks ago. In addition, they are still working to determine if they will vote on the bill in its entirety or augment it with additional job growth ideas of their own."
Disaster relief dispute holding up bill to keep government open. W. Post: "Republicans in the House have included $774 million for the [FEMA] fund in their continuing resolution, money that would be made available immediately upon passage of the bill, as well as $226 million for flood relief efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers ... But Senate Democrats say the House is not spending nearly enough. The White House recently said the disaster relief fund needs $500 million immediately and will need $4.6 billion next year."
Several countries embrace higher taxes on wealthy to mitigate cuts to services. NYT: "Britain and France have imposed new taxes on their highest earners — and Italy, Spain, Greece and Japan are considering similar moves, despite some protests ..."
Leading deficit hysteric David Walker attacks President's deficit reduction plan. HuffPost: "... Walker told The Huffington Post. 'If you enacted all of their proposals, you would be significantly worse off in 2021 than if the Congress and the president just went on a 10-year vacation.' Walker said the problem is that rather than use the baseline for future spending determined by the Congressional Budget Office, the Obama administration used its own figures. Where the CBO bases its figures on current law -- which says the Bush tax cuts expire next year and Medicare will soon cut payments to doctors -- the White House estimates at least some of the tax cuts will be kept, and Congress will fix the doctor payments. A White House spokeswoman countered that the White House's benchmark is in fact more realistic, because Congress indeed is unlikely to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire or let Medicare payments to doctors be slashed."
Solar Power Investments Already Creating Jobs
Investment in solar power is working. Politico: "A report from the Solar Energy Industries Association finds that grid-connected photovoltaic installation in the U.S. grew 17 percent from the first to second quarter of 2011 and a whopping 69 percent from the second quarter of 2010. Furthermore, prices continued to plummet as completed module prices dropped 12 percent in the second quarter. And the initial findings of another report, from the nonprofit Solar Foundation, concludes that the solar industry added 6,735 U.S. jobs between August 2010 and August 2011 ... Solar now employs more than 100,000 workers domestically, the Solar Foundation census found, a 6.8 percent growth from the same time last year."
Solyndra execs will take the 5th at House hearing today reports LAT.
Senate appropriations subcmte eliminates high-speed rail funding. Bloomberg: "The high-speed rail program is 'a casualty of the cuts mandated in the debt-limit deal' Obama and congressional Republican leaders struck in August, Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat and a supporter of the president’s program, said ... Rachel Wall, a spokeswoman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority [said,] 'This was a subcommittee vote, and the full committee still needs to vote ... We’ll remain cautiously optimistic as the congressional process plays itself out.'"
