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: Obama's Budget: the Good, the Meager and the Ugly
OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "President Obama’s budget, dismissed as “dead on arrival,” by Republicans in Washington, is widely described as a political document, designed to highlight the choices facing Americans this fall in dry budgetary numbers. The president presents Americans with a series of common sense propositions – all of which Republicans reject. Yet if the president captures high ground along the way, he leaves us, in the end, near the same uninhabitable place that conservatives would take us."
Obama's Budget
Obama Aims $1.4 Trillion Tax Increase at Highest Earners [Bloomberg]: "President Barack Obama called for $1.4 trillion in fresh revenue from Americans at the top of the income scale, proposing higher taxes on wages and investments and limiting breaks for retirement savings and health insurance. The tax proposals in the administration’s fiscal 2013 budget plan, released yesterday, were immediately rejected by business groups and congressional Republicans, who said the ideas are part of Obama’s re-election strategy and gave them little chance of advancing into law in 2012. ...In what he billed a bid for tax fairness and deficit reduction, Obama reversed his previous policy of taxing dividends more lightly than wage income. The budget plan would raise $206.4 billion over 10 years by treating dividends as ordinary income for married couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000."
Jeff Madrick, at New Deal 2.0, says Obama's budget finally gets the poltics right: "President Obama's budget for 2013 is a sharp improvement over his 2012 budget. What a difference a year makes. Back then, the emphasis was all deficit all the time. ...Last September, Obama changed his tune. He at last conceded that jobs were America's biggest problem, not the federal deficit. Fortunately, he has kept talking that line. The new budget reflects that wisdom. Was it the Occupy Wall Street effect? I think to some degree it was. But the relentlessness of high unemployment numbers until recently could not be ignored."
Rising Economy Lifts Obama
Obama Gets Bounce as Economic Advances Lift Poll Standing [Bloomberg]: A brightening economic picture is improving President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects even as the pace of the nation’s recovery from financial crisis remains a vulnerability for his campaign. Public approval of Obama’s performance in office in the Gallup Organization’s daily tracking poll climbed to its highest level since last June just days after the unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest in almost three years."
It's Not Just National, Obama Improving In Swing States Too [Talking Points Memo]: "President Obama's improving national approval numbers are certainly helpful to his re-election efforts — they drive a positive narrative after years of disappointing news on the economy. But while nationwide numbers provide a snapshot of the country's mood, the battle for the presidency will be fought state by state. So are Obama's numbers also looking up in the all important swing states? It sure looks that way. Here is our TPM Poll Average of national approval numbers for President Obama, which now show the President back in positive territory."
Adam Sorenson explains why Obama's re-election prospects are looking up: "Voters might not feel like he’s doing a much better job, but they are beginning to feel better about the direction of the country economically, a dynamic which favors the incumbent. Three-quarters of Americans still believe the economy is in bad shape, according to the NYT/CBS poll, but the remaining 23% who say things are good is the highest level since last spring. More importantly, the number of Americans who think the economy is improving—absolutes are less important in politics than a feeling of positive movement—has grown even faster: 34% in the same survey, up six percentage points in a month. Gallup data also show the highest economic confidence level in a year, and the crucial outlook number overtook appraisals of current conditions in December, a trendline that holds promise for the current occupants of the White House."
Payroll Tax Cut Deal Reached
Tentative payroll tax cut deal reached, GOP legislators say [CNN]: "Congressional negotiators reached a tentative deal Tuesday to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits while avoiding a fee cut for Medicare doctors, according to Republican legislators and aides. The framework deal followed a key Republican concession Monday and could receive the endorsement of a House-Senate conference committee on Wednesday. Reps. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina and Fred Upton of Michigan, both Republicans who were part of the conference committee negotiations, called it a tentative agreement, while a top House Democratic aide said Democratic leaders would discuss the proposal with their members on Wednesday morning."
Republican Leaders Selling Members on U.S. Payroll Tax Cut Plan [Bloomberg]: "U.S. House Republican leaders began selling members on a tentative agreement to extend a payroll tax cut through 2012 as they seek to avoid the brinkmanship that hurt the party late last year. Republicans met privately for more than an hour last night as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan described what he told reporters was a “framework” for a deal. The plan would extend the two- percentage-point payroll tax break for workers through Dec. 31 without covering the $94 billion cost, said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas and other lawmakers who attended the meeting. It also would continue expanded unemployment benefits while gradually reducing the maximum number of weeks people can collect payments and avert a 27 percent cut in doctors’ Medicare reimbursements through the rest of this year, Brady and the other lawmakers said. Those would be paid for with reductions elsewhere in the budget."
The Xi Factor
China's heir apparent to meet with congressional leaders: "China's presumptive next leader, Xi Jinping, is expected to meet with U.S. congressional leaders Wednesday on the third day of a visit that could influence relations between the two world powers for years to come. Xi, who currently holds the position of Chinese vice president, is also due to deliver a major policy address to public and private sector leaders at a hotel in Washington before he travels on to Iowa, a state he first visited as an agricultural official in 1985. President Barack Obama welcomed Xi at the White House on Tuesday but also set a firm tone for future ties between the countries. ...At the Oval Office meeting Tuesday, Obama said that with China's meteoric rise as an economic powerhouse came a responsibility to ensure balanced trade flows, referring to China's trade surpluses. The president also raised the delicate issue of human rights as a critical area of concern for the United States."
US President asks China to follow 'same rules' in trade [BBC News]: "Beijing has been accused of keeping the value of its currency artificially low in a bid to help its exporters. US lawmakers have argued that such practices have hurt US growth and resulted in job losses. Mr Obama raised the issue as he welcomed China's Vice-President Xi Jinping to the White House. 'We want to work with China to make sure that everybody is working by the same rules of the road when it comes to the world economic system,' Mr Obama said . 'That includes ensuring that there is a balanced trading flow, not only between the United States and China, but around the world.'"
China Vice-President Xi Jinping in US visit [BBC News]: "China's leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, has defended his country's human rights record, during a visit to Washington. At a State Department lunch, the Chinese vice-president admitted that there was "room for improvement" on human rights. ...Mr Xi, who is in the US all week, said he had had a "candid exchange" regarding human rights with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "I stressed that China has made tremendous and well-recognized achievements in the field of human rights over the past 30-plus years, since reform and opening up," he said. "Of course, there is always room for improvement when it comes to human rights," he added."
Super PAC Kryptonite?
Obama: I won't 'unilaterally disarm' on Super PACs: "President Obama says he doesn't like the idea of Super PACs, but won't oppose Democrats using them in his re-election campaign to fight off the spending of the Republicans. 'We've got some of these (Republican) Super PACs that have pledged to spend up to half a billion dollars to try to buy this election,' Obama said yesterday in an interview with WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. 'And what I've said consistently is, we're not going to just unilaterally disarm.'"
Russell Simmons has some advice for the president regarding Super PACS — "Take the money!": "We see every day how money is determining who ultimately will be the Republican nominee. The primary distinguishing characteristic between Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul is the amount of money that they are acquiring. Therefore, President Obama made the right decision several days ago that he was not going to let those who want to take the nation backward outspend him for the attention and public mindset of millions of people who will be influenced by super PACs. I am very clear. President Obama should not surrender. The president should take the super PAC money, win the election and then lead the charge as president to take money out of politics through his active support and leadership to pass the Constitutional Amendment. Let's get to work. Let's make this happen.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, at WaPo, calls Obama's Super PAC decision "a make-or-break moment for democracy": "President Obama’s decision to endorse super-PAC money as part of his reelection effort exposed the enduring divisions within the progressive community between pragmatism and idealism. ...And yet, I understand his decision. I even reluctantly agree with it. ...There are times when you cannot win with one hand tied behind your back, when you cannot fight fire only with a philosophical opposition to fire. This is surely one of those times. There are baseball fans who despise the designated-hitter rule in the American League, but would any of them fault the Yankees for abiding by it? ...I don’t mean to suggest that the ends justify the means. But I don’t think that it’s hypocritical to play by a set of rules you want to change. Still, the president shouldn’t assume that those accepting his decision are embracing it. And those accepting the decision shouldn’t let him off the hook. If he is going to endorse the use of super PACs, then he should endorse, as a central plank of his campaign, the fight to end them forever. If he doesn’t, the alternative to unilateral disarmament won’t be mutual disarmament; it will be mutually assured destruction."
New Mexico state Sen. Eric Griego says his state is taking a stand against Citizens United: "Over the weekend, the New Mexico Senate joined the House in passing a resolution opposing Citizens United and calling for the U.S. Congress to send the states a constitutional amendment to overturn it. I'm proud to have co-sponsored the Senate solution (SM3) and cast the vote to allow our state to begin re-establishing our right to regulate elections. I strongly urge citizens across the country to keep pushing their states to do the same. The Citizens United decision was more than just a blow to democracy. It was a blow to states' rights. Now states are scrambling to overturn the ruling and put their own campaign finance laws back in place."
Romney's Auto Bailout Spin-Out
Romney Says Obama Bailout Harmed, Not Helped, Auto Industry [Bloomberg]: "President Barack Obama used the bailout of U.S. automakers to enrich union supporters, marring the industry’s recovery, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said today in an op-ed column in the Detroit News. As part of Obama’s plan to save Chrysler Group LLC, the United Auto Workers’ trust fund received a 55 percent stake in the Auburn Hills, Michigan-based company while Chrysler’s secured creditors got 'short shrift,' he wrote. ...In his article, Romney described Steven Rattner, who headed the government’s auto task force, as a 'politically connected and ethically challenged Obama-campaign contributor' whose role in managing the bailout was part of 'crony capitalism on a grand scale.' Rattner, in an interview, called the column 'one of the most remarkable pieces of retroactive hallucination that I’ve seen in a while.' He said that without the action Romney decried, the car companies would have died."
Laura Clawson breaks down Romney's objections to the auto-bailout — it didn't hurt workers enough: "Much of the message is that President Obama's way did not hurt unionized auto workers enough. If longtime workers had only had their contracts broken, lost their pensions, and had their wages and benefits cut, things would have been so much better. To Romney, the fact that auto workers and their union made concessions including a years-long pay freeze and more for longtime workers and accepted a much lower wage for new hires is not enough. To take Romney's point of view, you're going to have to ignore the current strength of the American auto industry, and the fact that Romney's desired approach was not viable in 2008, and that what Romney wanted was to bankrupt a generation of auto workers and leave a low-wage industry in place of the one that helped create the American middle class. But if Mitt Romney keeps saying the words 'union boss,' maybe you'll see things his way."
Romney's Hard Line On U.S. Auto Industry Good For Primary But Trouble Beyond [NPR]: " In a state so auto-industry dependent, it would seem a dubious proposition to call for the industry to go through the regular bankruptcy process with all the uncertainties and pain that would have entailed. ... A potentially major problem for Romney is that, if he does go on to eventually win his party's presidential nomination, it may prove very difficult for him to make more palatable for a general-election audience his "let them go bankrupt' message of the primaries. His current position will be an especially hard sell to the many Michigan workers who supported the auto bailouts that actually started under President Bush and continued under Obama. And that's not to mention the chilling effect his position will have on auto workers and union members in other states, as well as workers in related industries."
Breakfast Sides
WaPo's Harold Meyerson sees the GOP mired in some intra-party class warfare: "Republicans have reached their 1984. I don’t mean this in the Orwellian sense, though Republicans have more than their share of Orwellian impulses. Rather, I mean that the kind of divisions that have characterized Democratic presidential primaries since the 1984 contest between Walter Mondale and Gary Hart have now popped up in GOP primaries as well: This year, Republicans are dividing along lines of class. According to data compiled by the Wall Street Journal, in all the states that have voted thus far, Mitt Romney has won 46 percent of the counties with incomes higher than the statewide median, and just 15 percent of those with incomes beneath the statewide median. Rick Santorum, by contrast, has won 39 percent of the counties with higher income, and 46 percent of those with lower income."
It was a very gay (marriage) wedding day, writes WaPo's Elizabeth Flock: "On Tuesday, Washington became the seventh state in the United States to sign gay marriage into law, while the New Jersey Senate passed a gay marriage bill in spite of Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) promise to veto it. The same day in Australia, two bills to lift a ban against same-sex marriage were introduced in Parliament. But the support was not just legal. Last week, Washington Rep. Maureen Walsh (R.) surprised her fellow Republicans by taking to the floor and arguing about the importance of giving the opportunity to 'individuals who truly were committed to one another in life to be able to. . . to show that by way of a marriage.' Walsh also said her daughter was a lesbian and that, yes, she was someday going to throw her a wedding."
Patrick Caldwell, at the American Prospect write that Republicans risk their future by opposing gay marriage: "The Republican Party might oppose legalized unions at the moment, but for the first time in 2011, a majority of the country disagreed. Support for same-sex marriage is growing each year across all age brackets, most significantly among younger Americans. When Gallup conducted a poll on the issue last year, 70 percent of people between the ages of 18-34 wanted to see the law changed. It's only a matter of time before it becomes the prevailing view. Opposition to same-sex marriage will remain a plank of the GOP platform for some time, but it will become increasingly difficult for individual politicians seeking higher office to outright oppose LGBT rights."
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