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: Two Solutions To Fix The Economy
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The stimulus worked, but it wasn't big enough. Far too much of the package was devoted to nonproductive tax cuts for the wealthy, and far too little on direct spending that creates jobs. So we need more direct spending on infrastructure. The CBO estimates that the last round of direct stimulus spending of $300 billion created 1.4 million jobs. We need to spend at least that much again, and we need to restore Federal support for state and local budgets. Another way to get the economy moving is to get financial relief to people who have been financially struggling and have put off needed spending. Homeowners owe $800 billion in 'negative equity' to banks for non-existent real estate value. That's an 'invisible bailout' funded by the struggling middle class, and delivered by borrowers who were frequently hoodwinked into taking out a mortgage at inflated prices. Principal relief of $300 billion or thereabouts would be just, fair -- and would create a lot of jobs."
Help For Jobs "Drying Up"
Federal funds for job centers are "drying up" reports NYT: "...with 12.7 million people still searching for jobs, the country is actually spending less on work force training than it did in good times ... Political fights have focused primarily on extensions of unemployment insurance, while the cuts in funds for training have passed with little debate and little notice ... Employers who want to hire often complain that the jobless do not have the necessary skills. In such an environment, advocates for workers say that cutting funds for training and other services makes little sense."
Bipartisanship looks like the "JOBS Act" laments Robert Kuttner: "All Democrats have to do is embrace Republican ideology and -- voila! -- bipartisanship. In this case, Silicon Valley Democrats helped, too ... Seeing a way both to ingratiate the White House with the business elite and to cheer Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors, Obama jumped on board. Once the White House signaled that Obama would sign it, most Democrats got out of the way. This is what bipartisanship looks like. No serious person thinks waivers from disclosure and accounting rules will generate many jobs. Mainly, they will further deregulate Wall Street and help inflate the next financial market bubble."
Kids suffering from Texas education cuts. NYT: "... superintendents have been cutting back on everything from paper to nurses ... scaling back summer school, charging parents if their children take part in athletics or cheerleading ... One Central Texas district, Dripping Springs, reduced its custodial staff and has relied on teachers to pick up the slack ... the Northwest district in the Fort Worth area also stopped busing students who live within a two-mile walk of their school. 'It’s buses or teachers, and we’re choosing teachers,' said the superintendent..."
Economists debate whether March jobs report is trend or aberration. Bloomberg: "Growing sales and profits may give business leaders the confidence to take on staff at a faster clip than last month’s 120,000 gain in payrolls, according to analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc ... economists at Bank of America Corp. [are] among those projecting employment will slump in the second half of the year as the government prepares to put the brakes on spending to tame the budget deficit. Joseph LaVorgna and Carl Riccadonna at Deutsche Bank counter that income gains will unleash increases in household spending and hiring that will boost job creation by an average of at least 200,000 a month for all of 2012."
Senate Dems Won't Deal With House GOP on Budget
No budget deal expected before election. The Hill: "...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he has no intention of bringing a budget resolution to the floor, arguing that there is no reason to consider a plan because the discretionary spending limit of $1.047 trillion for next year is already set out in the debt-limit law passed last summer. Conrad ... said Reid has made the judgment 'quite correctly' because there is very little chance of the two sides — Republicans and Democrats — getting together before the election."
NYT's Paul Krugman explains why self-proclaimed "centrist" pundits still defend the right-wing Rep. Paul Ryan: " To admit that the president’s critique is right would be to admit that they were snookered by Mr. Ryan, who is the same as he ever was. More than that, it would call into question their whole centrist shtick — for the moral of my story is that Mr. Ryan isn’t the only emperor who turns out, on closer examination, to be naked."
Tea Party legislators more interested in restricting rights than cutting spending, notes W. Monthly's Matthew Zeitlin: "Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert, in a paper published by the Roosevelt Institute and an article in the Nation, have a more comprehensive look at the Republicans who were swept into statehouses in 2010 on a wave of Tea Party discontent. One of their more telling findings is that the Republicans pursuing the core Tea Party priority of reducing their state’s public workforce were also passing legislation anti-abortion legislation and laws restricting voter registration."
Romney Shakes Up The Etch-a-Sketch
Romney begins Etch-a-Sketch move toward the middle. NYT's Tom Edsall: "...on April 3 [he said,] 'And the most vulnerable have been hurt the most — over 30 percent of single moms are struggling in poverty.' ... . It was only two months ago, after all, that Romney told CNN: 'I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.' ... [He has] abandoned his attack on President Obama’s 'entitlement society,' faulting Obama’s 'government-centered society' instead [because] Romney will have to carry a strong majority of voters over 65 if he is to win ... Even on immigration – the issue he used to great effect to blunt last winter’s challenge from the governor of Texas, Rick Perry – Romney is now modulating his stance in hopes of muting Hispanic antagonism."
Rove Super PAC American Crossroads prepares spring offensive against Obama while Romney replenishes coffers. NYT: "...Crossroads research suggests that Mr. Obama’s campaign has started to gain traction among critical swing voters by arguing that Republicans, including Mr. Romney, favor an 'economic plutocracy' in which middle-class voters can no longer count on financial security, even though they work hard and play by the rules ... [But] interviews with independent voters, as well as uncommitted Democrats and Republicans who supported Mr. Obama in 2008, have revealed an alternate 'emerging view' that Crossroads will seek to solidify, 'that Obama just may not be up to the job, he can’t seem to fix things he promised he would fix.'"
FCC expected to approve rule forcing disclosure of political TV ad donors. NYT: "By law, stations are required to keep so-called public files at their offices for inspection by members of the public. The files typically include information about programming, staffing and spending on political ads. But few people know the files exist, and even fewer go to stations to view them. The F.C.C. wants to change that by having the stations upload the files to an F.C.C. Web site."
Bernard Rapoport: Progressive Champion 1917-2012
OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage offers a tribute: "They were generous supporters of the University of Texas, where B eventually served as Chair of the Board of Regents. They were leading donors to promising liberal Democrats – from Paul Wellstone to the young Bill Clinton. They were major supporters to a range of liberal institutions and initiatives – from the Texas Observer to the Institute for Policy Studies and the Campaign for America’s Future where I first encountered them ... In his last years, B only wished he had more money to give away, to counter conservative and centrist money flooding into politics. He was looking for the populist movement or leaders who would help turn America around. Had he been younger, there is no doubt he would have helped to seed that movement. B always considered himself blessed, but he was our blessing."
