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: Will The U.S. House Side With China On Currency?
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "The Senate votes today on a bill to push back against China's (and a few other countries') currency manipulation, and the bill is expected to pass ... Even as the bill likely passes the Senate today, Speaker of the House Boehner is siding with China and is refusing to allow it to come before the House for a vote ... The bill can be forced onto the House floor using a 'discharge petition.' You can take action to help get Republicans to sign the discharge petition so it comes to the floor."
Jobs Bill Faces Senate Filibuster Today
Senate to take procedural vote on advancing American Jobs Act. W. Post: "Democrats hold 53 seats in the Senate, not enough to overcome unified GOP opposition and muster the 60 votes necessary to break a filibuster [and] several Democratic senators from swing states have shied away from embracing it ... Democratic leaders will spend Tuesday urging wavering senators that it is in their interest to vote 'yes,' ... Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told a newspaper in his home state that he fears cutting the payroll tax could hurt Social Security ..."
Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod pens polling memo to pressure Senate to pass bill. The Hill quotes: "The more people know about the American Jobs Act; the more they hear the president talking about it; the more they want Congress to pass the plan ... The fundamental question in advance of tomorrow’s vote is this: will Republicans put country ahead of party and pass this bill? Or will they oppose a bill that would create jobs now and that the American people support while standing by their proposals to extend tax cuts for large corporations, millionaires and billionaires while allowing Wall Street to write its own rules?"
McClatchy adds: "Axelrod also cites several public polls finding a majority of Americans supporting the proposed jobs plan as well as individual sections, such federal spending on roads projects and extending a one-year cut in the payroll tax."
The Hill whip count lists wavering senators, includes: Baucus, Webb, Scott Brown, Manchin, Ben Nelson, Collins, Snowe, Lieberman, Tester.
President takes jobs push to Pittsburgh today reports W. Post.
NYT's Joe Nocera previews major report calling for massive infrastructure program to spark robust global recovery: "... the bursting of the debt bubble three years ago was not just a severe example of the ups and downs that are an inevitable part of American capitalism. Rather, it was the ultimate consequence of the modern global economy ... they believe that this is perhaps the best time in recent history for the government to take on a sustained infrastructure program, lasting from five to seven years ... Their second solution involves restructuring the mortgage debt that is crushing so many Americans ... Finally, they call for a 'global rebalancing,' which includes a radical change in the current dysfunctional relationship between creditor and debtor nations..."
Senate Dems may break up jobs bill into smaller pieces, propose concessions, after filibuster. Politico: "...New York Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been quietly courting some Senate Republicans and Democrats to see whether there is any appetite for merging a GOP-backed idea — a tax holiday for corporations to bring home their overseas profits — with a Democratic-supported plan of creating a national infrastructure bank. At the same time, Democrats are weighing whether to push ahead with other individual pieces of the president’s jobs plan, like its extension of the payroll tax cut."
Senate Dem report slams multinational corporate push for a tax holiday. WSJ: "The 15 companies that benefited the most from a 2004 tax break for the return of their overseas profits cut more than 20,000 net jobs and decreased the pace of their research spending ... The report warned against repeating the tax break, calling the 2004 effort 'a failed tax policy'..."
Occupy Wall St. Spreads
Occupy Wall St. inspires "Millionaires March" today. NY Mag: "Tuesday's planned 'Millionaires March' is expected to bring protesters to the homes (or at least the lobbies) of five of New York City's wealthiest residents: Rupert Murdoch, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, David Koch, financier Howard Milstein, and hedge-funder John Paulson ..."
Dems defend protesters from Republican attacks. The Hill: "...Republicans have lobbed charges that the protesters are inherently un-American, and Democrats have countered that GOP leaders are hypocrites for supporting the Tea Party movement but not the critics of Big Finance ... Borosage predicted the media’s focus on the events will draw even cleaner lines of distinction between the two parties’ very different notions about the appropriate size and role of the federal government. 'People will have to decide whose side they’re on,' he said."
Dean Baker rips David Brooks for maligning the occupiers: "Not only does Brooks want to tell the 99 percent that the 1 Percent are not going to allow anything to happen that will help them, he tells readers that they better not blame the 1 Percent for this situation ... the 99 percent-1 Percent divide has almost everything to do with current situation. But, David Brooks' 1 Percent status depends on him telling people the opposite twice a week in the NYT."
WI Gov. May Face Recall
Plans to recall WI Gov. Scott Walker take shape. TPM: "The petitions will begin being gathered November 15 ... petitions cannot be turned in until early January 2012 ... polling data has shown the state closely divided on Walker's approval and whether to recall him."
"...an election could be held as early as next spring," reports AP.
Volcker Rule Takes Shape
Mixed reviews of initial Volcker Rule draft. NYT: "People on both sides of the issue have found things to like and dislike. 'There are some encouraging signs in the draft,' Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate for Public Citizen, a pro-consumer group, said in an interview. But, he added, 'it doesn’t completely eliminate some of the mischief we saw' ... Randy Snook, executive vice president for business policies and practices at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Wall Street trade group, says that while the draft contains some common-sense restrictions on trading by banks, 'our concern is that the list of permitted activities might be too narrow.'"
Iowa AG argues foreclosure fraud settlement would not cut off all lawsuits against banks. Bloomberg: "Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in an interview yesterday that any settlement wouldn’t prevent a growing number of municipalities from suing banks for allegedly cheating them out of millions of dollars in filing fees, or individual states from pursuing securities claims against banks."
Breakfast Sides
Sen. Maj. Leader Reid defends overruling parliamentarian with majority vote to cut off obstructionist tactics, in W. Post oped: "...rather than a nuclear option that would have forever altered the character of the Senate by limiting the minority’s ability to challenge legislation, the change we made Thursday was a return to order ... Republicans used a new stall tactic last week, one that is used infrequently in the history of the Senate. It was an attempt to make cloture meaningless — to say that the road to passage must include a vote-a-rama of unrelated, purely political votes. This is the practice we voted to change."
GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions backs China currency crackdown bill, lambastes fellow Republicans. Politico: "Sessions has branded the head of the Club for Growth a hypocrite for sponsoring a similar China bill when he served in the House. He said he was 'offended' by Republican colleagues who have dismissed the bill ... And he helped deal an embarrassing blow to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whipping just enough GOP support for the bill to defeat a McConnell-led filibuster..."
Both parties criticize Super Committee for secrecy. NYT: "[Critics] say, the secrecy could make it more difficult for the 12-member panel to win acceptance for its recommendations from the public and from other members of Congress. Far from apologizing for their secrecy, members of the committee say it shows they are making progress toward a possible agreement..."
