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: 'New' Bank Fraud Deal Still Unjust
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The Financial Times reported on new details of the proposed settlement, whose stated purpose is to punish banks and reduce the amount of money owed by underwater homeowners. But it's increasingly clear that the deal wouldn't help homeowners very much and wouldn't punish bankers at all. Banks could lower those loan balances by reducing the amount owed on mortgages owned by investors and not by the bank itself. That's what Bank of America is accused of doing as part of an $8 billion settlement it reached in 2008. This deal would set the stage for a repeat performance. This proposed deal is still unfair, unjust, and very unbalanced. And it has the Administration's fingerprints all over it."
Romney Wobbles Out Of NH
Romney team uneasy about explaining Bain. NYT: "While his campaign advisers generally agree that Mr. Romney must explain his work at Bain, they are wary of engaging in an exhaustive public examination of the nearly 100 deals he was involved in, anxious that it could bog him down in the inevitably messy details of fixing troubled companies, whether they are job cuts or big financial payouts."
Politico asks "Can Romney address the Bain issue better than this? "Until he gives a stronger, more detailed and definitive account of what he accomplished in the private sector — and why his critics are wrong — Romney will remain grievously vulnerable to the very same attacks that his opponents are leveling. They could be all the more damaging in a general election. And Romney’s 'I like being able to fire people' line — while clearly and obviously taken out of context — only buttresses the caricature of him as a Mr. Potter-type."
"Romney wants more tax cuts than Bush did" finds W. Post's Ezra Klein: "Romney intends to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. So he’s taking the tax cuts George W. Bush proposed as a way to pay down a surplus and making them permanent in a time of deficits ... on top of that, Romney layers on another set of tax cuts tilted towards high earners. The Tax Policy Center estimates that Romney’s tax plan will save earners in the top 1 percent $82,000 a year, but do very little for workers in the bottom half of the income distribution ... Romney is promising at least $6 trillion [over 10 years] in tax cuts."
As do they all. ThinkProgress: "...according to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, the average tax cuts received by the richest 1 percent of Americans under the Republican plans would be 270 times as large as the cut received by the middle class."
NY Launches New Bank Investigation
NY State investigating banks about possible fraud selling home insurance. NYT: "JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are among the major companies involved in the inquiry ... [The investigation] has already turned up instances where mortgage servicing units at large banks steered distressed homeowners into insurance policies up to 10 times as costly as the homeowners’ original plans. In some cases, those policies were offered by affiliates of the banks themselves, raising questions about conflicts of interest; in other cases, there may have been kickbacks between unrelated companies..."
Fed to "double down" on fixing housing crisis. Bloomberg: "Even as Bernanke and fellow U.S. central bankers consider expanding their efforts, they are acknowledging their inability to turn around the housing market without help from the rest of the government ... While the Fed has helped push mortgage rates to record lows of less than 4 percent, home-loan borrowing in 2012 is forecast to decline to the least in 15 years. Americans who might refinance and buy properties are getting shut out by stricter lending standards or avoiding transactions as values tumble amid mounting foreclosures, according to the Fed study."
Geithner Leans On China
Geithner in China, plans push on currency reform. AP: "U.S. officials said Geithner would press Beijing to ease controls that Washington and other governments say keep its yuan undervalued and give its exporters an unfair price advantage ... Beijing has allowed the yuan to rise in recent years in tightly controlled trading but some American lawmakers are calling for punitive tariffs on Chinese goods if the communist government doesn’t move faster."
No changes expected from China. NYT: "Mr. Geithner’s arrival coincided with a report that Mr. Obama was creating an interagency task force to search for unfair trade and business practices by the Chinese ... Yet Mr. Geithner seems unlikely to gain many concessions ... the valuation of the renminbi ..."
Breakfast Sides
Justice Dept. legal brief defending health care reform cites Scalia. TPM: "In its amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court Friday, the Justice Department cited no fewer than 10 times the 2005 Gonzalez v. Raich case, in which Scalia (and Justice Anthony Kennedy) broke with the court’s conservative wing to hand down what scholars viewed as one of the broadest declarations of federal power under the Commerce Clause: a 6-3 ruling decreeing that Congress may ban a medical-marijuana patient from growing cannabis for personal use in California where it’s legal. Raich was bound to come up either way as it’s seen as the most relevant precedent to the Affordable Care Act case, but the Obama administration is deploying it to box in Scalia specifically and conservatives broadly."
President touts environmental record in address to EPA. NYT: "Mr. Obama ... said he was proud of his administration’s actions to improve car and truck efficiency, reduce toxic emissions from power plants and clean up rivers and streams. He said the nation did not have to choose between jobs and a clean environment ... Mr. Obama did not mention the two most controversial environmental actions he has undertaken — halting the E.P.A.’s efforts to tighten its smog standard and to take steps to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to the warming of the planet. His decision in September to reject the proposed smog rule stunned E.P.A. officials and infuriated environmental advocates. The greenhouse gas rules, which have not yet been issued, are widely opposed by business and utilities and are likely to provoke a major backlash when they are proposed later this year."
Republican Party asks federal court to allow corporations to directly fund campaigns, reports Politico: "Whatever its constitutional merits, the Republican argument could be a political liability for the party as Democrats are likely to portray it as further evidence that the GOP is beholden to corporate America. On the other hand, the near-complete breakdown of campaign finance limits during the current presidential race gives something of a boost to those contending that the few remaining restraints are pointless."
