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: Britain's Anti-Austerity Strike, Could It Happen Here?
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Millions of employees mounted Great Britain's first General Strike in many years today after the government threatened to impose more cuts in retirement benefits and pay for public workers. It was a smash success. As many as two million strikers proved that the public's patience with the unjust fiscal regime known as 'austerity economics' has its limits. It highlighted the important role unions can and must play in the fight for a more just and stable economy. And it raised an important question for the United States: Could it happen here?"
Heat On GOP Before Payroll Tax Cut Vote
President makes Scranton pitch for payroll tax cut, as initial Senate vote nears. LAT: "The Senate is expected to vote as soon as Thursday on the first of what Democratic leaders promise will be multiple runs at extending the payroll tax cut before year's end ... 'So let's just be clear: If they vote no, your taxes go up. Vote yes, you get a tax cut,' the president said. 'Which way do you think Congress should vote?'"
Senate GOP makes payroll tax cut counteroffer. CNN: "In an effort to offset the cost of extending the current payroll tax cut for one year, Senate Republicans on Wednesday proposed freezing federal salaries, reducing the federal work force and keeping millionaires from getting food stamps and unemployment benefits ... Democrats reacted warily to the GOP plan but did not reject it outright ... Democrats might be flexible on how the costs are offset if Republicans show similar flexibility in expanding the tax break."
House Maj. Leader Cantor proposes payroll tax cut deal linked to removing "trigger" threat to Pentagon. Politico: "Adding provisions overhauling the automatic cuts would be one of the more controversial ideas in a year-end package. And it could cause friction with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who is not in favor of touching the automatic cuts until next year. It’s far from clear whether Cantor’s approach will gain steam in the final month of the year, given Obama’s veto threat."
Dems still pushing for an expanded payroll tax cut. NYT: "Democrats said that [one] part of the Republican proposal was not serious, pointing out that high earners were already ineligible to receive food stamps ... Senate Democratic leaders want a deeper temporary reduction in Social Security payroll taxes. They would provide payroll tax relief to employers as well as employees. And they would offset the cost with a 3.25 percent surtax on modified adjusted gross income in excess of $1 million."
Week-long "Take Back The Capitol" civic action planned to influence final deal: "We can have a real impact as Congress deliberates the extension of unemployment insurance benefits for more than 2 million people and other important budget and tax measures ... For four days we’ll hold spirited but peaceful actions, speak-outs, and protests—from the halls of the Capitol to the offices on K Street—as well as spend time together learning and sharing stories, ideas, and inspiration."
NLRB Close To Strengthening Union Election Rules
NLRB gives preliminary approval for cleaner union elections. NYT: "The proposed rules, which face one more vote before they are final, are intended to reduce the average amount of time to hold unionization elections and campaigns to under 21 days, down from the current median of 38. They would, for example, require employers to postpone their legal challenges to elections until after the workers vote. Under current procedures, such challenges are often filed before votes are cast and can end up delaying the balloting for weeks or months ... the board’s two Democratic members voted in favor of the new rules, and its one Republican against them ... [GOPer Brian] Hayes acknowledged he had threatened to resign to deny the board the quorum needed to take any action. But Mr. Hayes said he decided against resigning..."
But unclear whether NLRB can finalize rule before GOP can prevent quorum. LAT: "The board has only three members, the minimum allowed under law. And one of them, Democrat Craig Becker, is serving under a recess appointment that is due to run out by the end of December ... Staff aides said it was unclear whether the board could draft and adopt a final rule before Becker was forced to leave."
NLRB scaled back initial proposal to speed passage. Politico: "Because of this impending deadline, the NLRB, ahead of Wednesday’s vote, stripped its proposed rule on union elections of the more controversial aspects that had previously been proposed. For example, providing employee email addresses and phone numbers in the voter list and the facilitation of online petition-filing had been in the original proposed rule but has since been removed for future consideration."
Boeing strikes deal with union in NLRB case, depriving GOP of hysterical talking point. HuffPost: "...union members will vote on a contract extension next week that would assure that Boeing builds its 737 MAX passenger jet in Washington State. Although details haven’t been released, the deal will probably clear the way for production of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner in the company's South Carolina plant..."
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham whines to Politico: "'If the NLRB is becoming an extension of negotiation, and they’ve become a tool or device to be used by unions to make business do what they would like, that’s a disastrous outcome,' he told POLITICO. 'It would be terrible if the NLRB has become a hammer in negotiating.'"
Secret Fed Loans A "Scandal"
Slate's Elliot Spitzer calls secret Fed loan to big bank a "scandal.": "This was perhaps the single most massive allocation of capital from public to private hands in our history, and nobody was told. This was not TARP: This was secret Fed lending. And although it has since been repaid, it is clear why the banks didn’t want us to know about it: They didn’t want to admit the magnitude of their financial distress ... Require the recipient banks to use this previously undisclosed gift—the profit they made by investing this almost interest-free money—to write down the value of mortgages of those who are underwater."
Foreclosure crisis nowhere near over, according to Center for Responsible Lending report. NYT: "...at least 2.7 million mortgages loaned from 2004 through 2008, or about 6 percent, have ended in foreclosure and that nearly 4 million more home loans (roughly 8 percent) from the same period remain at serious risk."
CFPB gets 5000 credit card complaints in three months. LAT: "'Many complaints show consumers struggling to understand the terms of credit cards and associated products like debt protection services,' the report said. 'These complaints show a mismatch between consumer expectations and the way the product functions.' ... The agency said it plans to expand its complaint system to cover mortgages and home equity loans by the end of the year."
"Occupy Our Homes" set for Dec. 6. Salon: "Occupy Wall Street is promising a 'big day of action' Dec. 6 that will focus on the foreclosure crisis and protest 'fraudulent lending practices,' 'corrupt securitization,' and illegal evictions by banks. The day will mark the beginning of an Occupy Our Homes campaign that organizers hope will energize the movement as it moves indoors as well as bring the injustices of the economic crisis into sharp relief."
GOP leveling under the radar attack on derivatives rules. Politico: "Leery of mounting a frontal assault on Wall Street reforms, House Republicans have opted for a guerrilla-style war on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ... the House Financial Services Committee approved the latest in a series of legislative efforts to challenge the CFTC’s rule making on trading in derivatives. Despite its new responsibilities, the agency’s budget has been effectively frozen at the insistence of the House GOP ... All this comes as political contributions from the securities and investment industry, with a major stake in the derivatives market, have tilted dramatically to the GOP."
