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: At CPAC, Inequality Dare Not Speak Its Name
OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath: "At today's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) I'm likely to hear an old favorite conservative talking point repeated over and over again: Marriage cures poverty, economic inequality, and just about any other economic complaint you can name — especially for black folks ... What I won't hear at CPAC, besides any specific plans for job creation, is how declining marriage rates are not to blame for economic decline, but economic decline is really to blame for declining marriage rates. I won't hear that the best way to increase marriage rates is improve Americans' economic prospects by growing the economy and putting people back to work. I probably also won't hear that marriage would actually improve the economic standings of one group of Americans: gay couples."
Cranky Conservatives Convene At CPAC
Conservatives are "worried" as they gather for 3-day CPAC conference. W. Times: "...Conservatives gathering for the conference are becoming more explicit than ever before about their disappointment with the movement’s progress in the years since Ronald Reagan ... Year after year at these meetings, CPAC attendees have grumbled about the failure of some of the elected Republican officials who profess conservative ideals to adhere to them once in power ..."
Romney expected to pander hard at CPAC tomorrow. Politico: "His speech, sources with ties to the Romney campaign said, will likely be a broad stroke that touches on the economy and fiscal discipline, but could feature nods to the social conservative planks of the GOP platform. It will not, sources said, be his standard stump speech."
White nationalist to be featured speaker at CPAC. MSNBC's Steve Benen: "Right Wing Watch [reports]: 'CPAC is hosting the panel "The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity" with Peter Brimelow, the founder and head of VDARE.com. VDARE is a White Nationalist website, run by Brimelow, which frequently publishes the works of anti-Semitic and racist writers...' ... Perhaps someone could ask Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and the entire congressional Republican leadership how comfortable they are with attending a conference with white nationalists and radical conspiracy theorists."
Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Expected Today
$26B foreclosure state settlement may be inked today, as state AGs reportedly end holdout. NYT: "Despite the billions earmarked in the accord, the aid will help a relatively small portion of the millions of borrowers who are delinquent and facing foreclosure ... Still, the agreement is the broadest effort yet to help borrowers owing more than their houses are worth, with roughly one million expected to have their mortgage debt reduced by lenders or able to refinance their homes at lower rates ... A recent estimate from the settlement negotiations put the average aid for homeowners at $20,000. 'I just don’t think it’s going to be a life-changing event for borrowers,' said Gus Altuzarra, whose company, the Vertical Capital Markets Group, buys loans from banks at a discount ... Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moodys Analytics, said that while the settlement looked small compared with the scope of the problem, it was not necessary to erase all, or even most, of the nation’s negative equity to turn the market around ... a lawsuit [NY AG Eric] Schneiderman filed Friday ... will [still] go forward."
Negotiations finalized after midnight. WSJ: "The Obama administration made a full-court press over the past four days to secure the support of key state attorneys general, including those from Florida, California and New York. All three states are expected to be part of the announcement..."
Some will get more help than others. HuffPost: "The deal would be the largest payout to date from banks in the wake of the financial crisis ... Those who already lost their home, however, would receive just the smallest fraction of the money: a one-time cash payment of about $1,800 as compensation ... Potentially more significant, the banks would agree to forgive some mortgage debt owed by struggling borrowers through what's called 'principal reduction.' ... 'This settlement could be a starting point for principal reduction,' said Ira Rheingold, president of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. '... If it is done well, maybe it will shame Fannie and Freddie into doing what it should have been doing all along.'"
Feds plan to sue banks for mortgage bond fraud. WSJ: "The move would mark a stepped-up regulatory effort to hold Wall Street accountable for its sale of bonds linked to subprime mortgages in 2007 and 2008. At issue is whether the banks misrepresented the poor quality of loan pools they bundled and sold to investors..."
House GOP introduces legislation to disempower CFPB. W. Post: "The House GOP is now moving forward with bills that would remove the CFPB director from overseeing the Federal Deposit Insurance Company and allow Congress to directly control its funding every year ... Under Dodd-Frank, which created the bureau, the CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve, which isn’t subject to congressional appropriations. There’s also a bill to ensure that information collected by the bureau is subject to attorney-client privilege."
GOP Moves Anti-Transit Transportation Bill
Dems slam GOP transportation bill for targeting transit users and federal workers for cuts. Politico: "The transportation bill primed for floor action would make federal employees — including members of Congress — pay a larger share of their pensions. The bill ... also ends dedicated transit funding from the Highway Trust Fund, meaning transit projects would need to compete with other general fund priorities while road projects would take the entire share of gas tax revenues ... Virginia Rep. Jim Moran said there was 'no question' Republicans had political motives in targeting two major Democratic demographics: federal employees and transit riders. 'They said these are not Republican demographics, so stick it to them,' Moran said. 'The more bashing of federal employees, the more likely you are to get Republican votes.'"
CBO says GOP transportation bill will starve transit. ThinkProgress: "...Republicans have imperiled the process by proposing to stop using revenue from the fuel tax to pay for mass transit ... [Instead,] the GOP wants to make a one-time $40 billion allotment for mass transit. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has proposed expanded oil drilling in areas currently off limits to the practice, including areas in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Virginia, and part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in order to raise the $40 billion. But today, the Congressional Budget Office found that Boehner’s proposal would raise just 5 percent of the funds needed..."
War On Contraception Targets Workers
NYT's Gail Collins notes that contraception rule does not apply to churches: "Catholic dogma holds that artificial contraception is against the law of God ... The problem here is that they’re trying to get the government to do their work for them ... The churches themselves don’t have to provide contraceptive coverage. Neither do organizations that are closely tied to a religion’s doctrinal mission. We are talking about places like hospitals and universities that rely heavily on government money and hire people from outside the faith."
TNR's Jonathan Cohn sympathizes with Catholic leaders, but sympathizes with employees more: "Freedom of religion means the freedom to observe the tenets of one's faith ... To dismiss that concern out of hand would be wrong ... The checks to your insurance plan may have the name of a religious institution on them. But, as a matter of economics and of principle, the money is (or should be) yours ... the debate is also about a low-income worker at a large institution that happens to be religious—say, a janitor or clerk at Catholic hospital or university—who is trying to support a family on less than $30,000 of household income. If this person wants contraception through an implant or pills, which are the most reliable methods of birth control, the cost may be prohibitive—easily into the hundreds of dollars a year and even into four figures."
Conservatives pushing for more than just a bigger exemption. TNR's Alex MacGillis: "[USA Today reported that] 'Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ... cited the problem that would create for "good Catholic business people who can't in good conscience cooperate with this." "If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I'd be covered by the mandate," Picarello said.' ... as the Church sees it, [this is] also about protecting the right of all employers -- including, apparently, fast food franchises -- to deny contraception coverage to their employees."
Breakfast Sides
Conservatives jump on CBO report to push for lower compensation for federal workers. W. Post's Joe Davidson: "But the CBO findings certainly are not universally accepted ... During the House session, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) said that 'the much better report is the Bureau of Labor Statistics report. They have more experience at this, and they show that federal employees were paid 26 percent less than private-sector employees.' ..."
President's economic advisers project improving economy, if stimulus measures are extended. NYT: "...advisers to President Obama have updated their forecasts in recent days and now project that the economy will create two million jobs this year if stimulus measures are extended, which could reduce the unemployment rate to about 8 percent by year’s end ... Private sector forecasters have said that ending the two percentage point reduction in payroll taxes and the emergency jobless aid could subtract about 1 percent from economic growth."
