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: GOP -- The Nihilist Party
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Whatever Democrats propose, Republicans oppose. Republicans passed and signed a $286 billion infrastructure spending bill under George W. Bush. ... Today they oppose all such spending. Why? Because it's proposed by Democrats. The GOP abandoned states rights when it began overriding states on social issues, and then when it pushed to strip the states of the ability to regulate businesses. It abandoned free-market principles when it pushed for bank bailouts and other corporate subsidies. And balance-sheet executives like Mitt Romney and Herman Cain are even willing to abandon the inexorable logic of numbers when it suits their purposes ... these Republicans don't have a greater goal. Their actions are simply reflections of a baser nature, red in tooth and claw and shrieking against any creed that seeks the just and the humane. They live only to serve their wealthy and powerful sponsors. They believe in nothing."
Occupy Wall Street Goes Global
Occupy movement goes global. W. Post: "...hundreds in New Zealand are camping for the next six weeks in Auckland’s Aotea Square, while Toronto’s St. James park is now known as 'tent city central.' In London, the cobblestone courtyard of St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the city’s most iconic buildings, was filled with about 70 colorful tents and demonstrators who vowed to protest indefinitely."
Occupy Wall Street forms Demands Working Committee. NYT: "The team will continue to meet twice a week to develop a list of specific proposals, which it will then discuss with protesters and eventually take to the General Assembly, a nightly gathering of the hundreds of protesters in the park. A two-thirds majority would have to approve each proposal, and any passionate opponent could call for the entire vote to be delayed. The General Assembly has already adopted a 'Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,' which includes a list of grievances against corporations and a call for others to join the group in peaceful assembly. To many protesters, that general statement is enough, and the open democracy of Zuccotti Park is the point of the movement."
NYT's Paul Krugman slaps Wall Streeters for whining in the face of growing protest: "The modern lords of finance look at the protesters and ask, Don’t they understand what we’ve done for the U.S. economy? The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting ... Wall Street pay has rebounded even as ordinary workers continue to suffer from high unemployment and falling real wages. Yet it’s harder than ever to see what, if anything, financiers are doing to earn that money."
Robert Kuttner argues Volcker Rule insufficient to rein in Wall Street: "There will never be enough regulations and regulators to police all of the gray areas in a system this complicated. The best remedy is drastic simplification. We need a simpler banking system, and clearer and more straightforward laws like the Glass-Steagall Act. The Obama administration proposed an ambiguous 'Volcker Rule' rather than a clean return to Glass-Steagall because the so called rule would be easy to evade and would not interfere in any fundamental way with Wall Street's current business model."
Robert Reich sees threat of right-wing regressive policies fueling progressive backlash: "Yet the great arc of American history reveals an unmistakable pattern. Whenever privilege and power conspire to pull us backward, the nation eventually rallies and moves forward. Sometimes it takes an economic shock like the bursting of a giant speculative bubble; sometimes we just reach a tipping point where the frustrations of average Americans turn into action."
Mother Jones scoops "How Occupy Wall Street Really Got Started": "Months before the first occupiers descended ... a group of artists, activists, writers, students, and organizers gathered on the fourth floor of 16 Beaver Street, an artists' space near Wall Street, to talk about changing the world. There were New Yorkers in the room, but also Egyptians, Spaniards, Japanese, Greeks. Some had played a part in the Arab Spring uprising; others had been involved in the protests catching fire across Europe ... [A Spanish couple] suggested replicating a core part of the movement in the US: the general assembly..."
President Pushes Parts Of Jobs Act
President begins push for individual pieces of American Jobs Act. The Hill: "President Obama is returning to the road this week to press Congress to start passing the American Jobs Act, beginning with $35 billion for states to put teachers and first-responders to work ... Obama will not be sending a separate piece of legislation to Congress, referring questions about the process [to congressional leaders.] ..." Bus tour starts in VA and NC reports McClatchy.
Unemployment among veterans above national average. W. Post: "Veterans who left military service in the past decade have an unemployment rate of 11.7 percent, well above the overall jobless rate of 9.1 percent ... The latest to attempt it is the White House. In the jobs package President Obama has been promoting across the country is a tax credit of up to $9,600 for each unemployed veteran a company hires ... More important than financial incentives for hiring returning veterans is making the skills and experience they earned in the military more understandable for civilian employers, experts say."
Cain Concedes He'd Raise Taxes On "Some"
Presidential primary frontrunner Herman Cain admits that "some" will pay more in taxes under his plan. NYT: "Mr. Cain also found himself on the defensive on his tax plan when he addressed a Washington Post report that his 9-9-9 proposal would hurt many poor and middle-class families ... 'Some people will pay more,' he said on 'Meet the Press,' acknowledging that some people could face combined state and national sales taxes as high as 17 percent. 'But most people will pay less, is my argument.'"
"...the 9-9-9 seems about the most unfair tax plan proposed since I have began covering the economy," concludes Time's Stephen Gandel.
Super Committee May Propose Partial Deal
Some suggest professional working relationship between Super Committee co-chairs raises chances of deal. Politico: "... for all the pessimism about dealmaking, lawmakers and staff working on the supercommittee express wonderment at how Murray and Hensarling are getting along, saying it makes their chance at getting a deal more likely. But the history of fast friends with admirable compromises that failed to pass congressional muster — like McCain-Kennedy or Simpson-Bowles — still lingers in the hive mind of Capitol Hill, making the Murray-Hensarling bond that much more important in the coming weeks."
Many expect partial deal. Politico: "...prevailing wisdom in both Republican and Democratic circles is that the special committee will produce several hundreds of billions of dollars in savings, falling short of the $1.2 trillion — because of differences on revenue and entitlements ... Boehner, according to sources, is pushing hard for a deal. He told reporters in the Capitol last week that reaching $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in spending cuts in lieu of mandated cuts is essential. After months of pushing for a large-scale deal, he’s beginning to sound squeamish about a larger compromise."
Some States Push For Bigger Health Care Reform
Dem governors look to use waiver provisions in Affordable Care Act to make bolder health care reform. W. Post: "This year, Oregon passed its own plan, which starts with changing how it pays doctors and eventually ends with allowing public employees to enroll in Medicaid ... Because most of the law takes effect in 2014, they worry about setting up a system only to dismantle it a few years later, to implement the policies they really want. In February, President Obama endorsed legislation that would allow the waivers to start in 2014. But it has been languishing in the Senate for months, never seeing a committee hearing ... Montana [and Vermont have] also started exploring single-payer options ..."
TNR's Jonathan Cohn explains why HHS' decision to terminate the long-term care provisions in the Affordable Care Act will strengthen the law: "... making long-term care insurance a mandatory part of the Affordable Care Act would have made the health care reform bill even more complicated and, potentially, controversial. So the law's sponsors decided to make the program voluntary ... The sustainability of CLASS would not have been in such question if everybody had to sign up for it. In other words, if long-term care insurance were subject to an individual mandate, old and sick people would not have been the only people enrolling. Of course, the rest of the Affordable Care Act has such a requirement..."
