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: Devastating, Job-Killing, Socialist Regulations
OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson:"Conservatives, their movement funded by big oil and king coal, constantly complain about 'job-killing regulations.' They say that the Environmental Protection Agency is pushing 'socialism' because it wants to lower the amount of pollution that energy companies pump into the air. And here is a story that makes their point. From the AP: "Russia oil spills wreak devastation" ... Oh, darn, sorry. My bad. Big mistake. Oops. That's a story about what happens if we don't strictly regulate the energy companies."
House GOP Undermines Payroll Tax Cut Compromise
Temporary payroll tax cut compromise, passed by wide margin in Senate, expected to fail in House tonight. NYT: "... the deal slid off the rails abruptly on Saturday, just hours after the Senate vote, when House Republicans balked after being briefed about the terms by their leaders. Even a sweetener provision to speed the decision process for construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast could not mollify them. Mr. Boehner had called the provision a 'victory.' ..."
Politico adds: "...the failure of Congress to enact an extension to Obama’s tax cut plays into his hands politically. For months, the president has been running against a dysfunctional Congress."
Republicans trying to turn jobless into "welfare queens," argues TNR's Mark Schmitt: "The legislation to extend the payroll tax cuts that passed the Republican-controlled House on Wednesday brings the full arsenal of welfare reform gimmicks to the UI program: Time limits; drug tests; requirements to seek work or enter an education program ... these moves are intended to break down public support for extending UI benefits by casting the program in the same terms as Aid to Families with Dependent Children ... But Unemployment Insurance is a totally different kind of program [and] many of the victims of this move are likely to be the GOP’s core constituency—UI beneficiaries are overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and older."
Light bulb industry slams Republicans for insisting on undercutting new efficiency standards in payroll tax compromise. Politico: "Big companies like General Electric, Philips and Osram Sylvania spent big bucks preparing for the standards, and the industry is fuming over the GOP bid to undercut them. After spending four years and millions of dollars prepping for the new rules, businesses say pulling the plug now could cost them. The National Electrical Manufacturers Association has waged a lobbying campaign for more than a year to persuade the GOP to abandon the effort."
Senate GOP obstruction knows no bounds, block nominee to head Government Printing Office. The Hill: "According to [nominee William] Boarman, Reid’s staff “worked hard to clear the objections of Hatch and Isakson and they thought it was a done deal, and then they just said no, and they wouldn’t give them a reason."
Two professors propose taxing inequality, instead of income, in NYT oped: "...we propose an automatic extra tax on the income of the top 1 percent of earners — a tax that would limit the after-tax incomes of this club to 36 times the median household income ... Billionaires could double their current income without the tax kicking in — as long as the median income also doubles. The sky is the limit for the rich as long as the 'rising tide lifts all boats.' Indeed, the tax gives job creators an extra reason to make sure that corporate wealth does in fact trickle down."
Countdown to Iowa
Gingrich degrades Constitution by backing plan to overrule entire judiciary, writes The Atlantic's Andrew Cohen: "...he told Bob Schieffer of CBS News' Face The Nation that the Capitol police, or federal marshals, could and should come and arrest those judges if they refuse to respond in person to a subpoena seeking to publicly shame them for making unpopular decisions. He also delivered this shuddering version of the Constitution, an unfamiliar Rock-Paper-Scissors version, in which the promise of separation of powers is akin to a playground game: 'Here's the key -- it's always two out of three.' ... the Bill of Rights would no longer be used to protect individual rights because the judges who help ensure those (often unpopular) rights can be outvoted by the White House and the Congress."
Romney still getting paid from Bain Capital's layoffs, but won't say at what tax rate. NYT: "...he negotiated a retirement agreement with his former partners that has paid him a share of Bain’s profits ever since ... In the process, Bain continued to buy and restructure companies, potentially leaving Mr. Romney exposed to further criticism that he has grown wealthier over the last decade partly as a result of layoffs. Moreover, much of his income from the arrangement has probably qualified for a lower tax rate than ordinary income under a tax provision favorable to hedge fund and private equity managers, which has become a point of contention in the battle over economic inequality ... He has declined to release his tax returns, and his campaign last week refused to say what tax rate he paid on his Bain earnings."
Is Ron Paul the new frontrunner? Public Policy Polling: "He's at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich [in Iowa.] ... He's really going to need that younger than normal electorate because with seniors Romney's blowing him out 31-15 ..."
Breakfast Sides
Federal housing Inspector General forges pact with NY AG on mortgage fraud investigations. FT: "The collaboration escalates Mr Schneiderman’s probe of about a dozen banks and mortgage insurers as part of a broad investigation into whether banks properly bundled hundreds of billions of dollars worth of home loans into now-soured securities sold to investors ...
Market ignores S&P's downgrade of US debt. Bloomberg: "Four months after Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating and said the world’s biggest economy was no longer the safest of borrowers, dollar- denominated financial assets are doing nothing but appreciating. Government bonds have returned 4.4 percent, the dollar has gained 8.7 percent relative to a basket of currencies, and the S&P 500 Index of stocks has rallied 1.7 percent..."
Bloomberg's John Rosenthal pushes back against high-speed rail naysayers: "...rejecting the massive investments required as wasteful spending would be easy if America’s transportation needs were stagnant. But they aren’t. The Census Bureau estimates that the population will grow by 100 million over the next 40 years. And most of those people will reside in urban areas where airports and highways are already bursting at the seams. Compared with the cost of building new airports, widening interstates, relocating highway sound barriers, and erecting millions of parking lots, high-speed rail is a bargain."
