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: 3 Medicare Time Bombs In GOP Budget
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "When it comes to Medicare, there are three more ugly facts about this plan that have yet to attract widespread attention - mostly because the Republicans have done their best to keep them secret: 1. They're secretly planning to raise the Medicare age ... 2. Insurers will get to set their own rates ... 3. The GOP plan radically cuts per-person spending for Medicare."
House Cmte Passes Radical Budget With Little Debate
House Budget Committee rams through Ryan proposal, despite two GOP defectors. Politico: "...setting up a floor fight next week over of the future of Medicare and even more immediate cuts from domestic appropriations and transportation investments ... [the] narrow 19-18 majority ... could have tipped the other way but for the loyalty of the three Appropriations Committee Republicans on the panel — some of whom have serious doubts about the course taken."
Budget "taking fire" from all corners. NYT: "... the AARP’s chief executive, A. Barry Rand, said the budget would 'likely '"price out" traditional Medicare as a viable option' and harm Medicaid and food stamps ... On the right, the conservative political action committee Club for Growth said the budget 'falls short' by not balancing the budget in a decade ... the Republican staff director of the budget committee, Austin Smythe, said the budget was likely to cut transportation financing by $40 billion to $50 billion in the coming fiscal year alone. White House officials said steep domestic spending cuts would push 200,000 children from Head Start, while denying access to food assistance to 1.8 million infants, children and pregnant and post-partum women."
President Pushes "All Of The Above" Energy Plan
President to announce plan to fix oil pipeline "bottlenecks" during "all of the above" energy tour. The Hill: "The White House said Obama will issue a memo Thursday directing federal agencies to expedite the project and other pipelines that relieve bottlenecks. It’s part of a broader executive order he’ll issue demanding faster federal permitting for various energy- and transportation-related infrastructure projects ... Obama is touting his all-of-the-above approach, something underlined by the trip to the solar facility, but he is also emphasizing the increase in oil-and-gas drilling under his administration. "
President defends commitment to renewables at largest U.S. solar farm in NV. CNN quotes: "One member of Congress who shall remain unnamed called these jobs 'phony,' called them phony jobs. I mean, think about that mindset, that attitude that says because something is new, it must not be real. If these guys were around when Columbus set sail, they'd be charter members of the Flat Earth Society."
AP definitively concludes more drilling does not lower gas prices: "A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump."
As governor, Romney advocated for high gas tax and high gas prices. TNR's Alec MacGillis: "When lieutenant governor Kerry Healey, a fellow Republican, called for suspending the state’s 23.5 cent gas tax during a price spike in May 2006, Romney rejected the idea, saying it would only further drive up gasoline consumption. 'I don’t think that now is the time, and I’m not sure there will be the right time, for us to encourage the use of more gasoline,' Romney said, according to the Quincy Patriot Ledger’s report at the time. 'I’m very much in favor of people recognizing that these high gasoline prices are probably here to stay.'"
House Proposes Stopgap Transportation Bill
House GOP announces plan for a three-month transportation stopgap funding bill, shunning bipartisan Senate bill. The Hill: "The short-term bill would give House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) more time to rally his conference around a five-year, $260 billion measure that would use revenue from new domestic oil-and-gas drilling to pay for highway projects. ... it appears the Speaker has returned to square one, dispensing with plans to either pass or tweak the measure the Senate sent to the House."
Senate may not go along. CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada ... said Tuesday he was 'inclined not to' pass a temporary funding extension. Instead, Reid said House Republicans should accept a two-year, $109 billion bill that recently passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support."
"JOBS Act" May Get Senate Vote Today
"JOBS Act" dereg bill wins cloture vote, but may be amended. NYT: "The JOBS bill, which would make it easier for small companies to raise money from investors, is now scheduled for a vote on Thursday ... Adoption of either of the amendments would send the bill back to the House for further consideration, something that Senate Republicans said they wanted to avoid. The votes on the amendments and the final bill require only a majority vote to pass, however, enhancing their chance of approval. One amendment, offered by Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, and Senator Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican, would set stricter limits on how much small investors can invest in a so-called crowd-funding offering ... A second amendment, offered by Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, would tighten the definition of shareholders of record in a section of the bill that allows public companies to remove themselves from oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission if their number of shareholders falls below a certain level."
Mr. Etch-a-Sketch Hugs Bush
Romney insists he's not an Etch-a-Sketch. NYT: "The reference to a children’s drawing toy that erases the last image with a simple shake immediately fed attacks from Mr. Romney’s rivals that he was an untrustworthy standard-bearer for the conservative cause ... 'The issues I’m running on will be exactly the same,' Mr. Romney said. 'I’m running as a conservative Republican.'"
Romney credits Bush, TARP with averting economic depression. HuffPost quotes: "I keep hearing the president say he's responsible for keeping the country out of a Great Depression. No, no, no, that was President George W. Bush and Hank Paulson."
