MORNING MESSAGE: 44 Senators Say Rich Pay Too Much, Poor Pay Too Little
OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "How many Senators voted to raise taxes on the poor and the middle class, while cutting them for the wealthy … and then refused to back the Democratic bill extending the Bush tax cuts to the middle class only? In other words, how many Senators believe the problem is the rich pay too much and the poor pay too little in taxes? 44 of 'em. Here they are…"
Senate Clears End Of Bush Tax Cuts For Wealthy
Senate tax cote frames November debate. LAT: "Democrats believe Wednesday’s action will shift the debate in a Congress that has been stalemated by partisan inaction, giving momentum to Obama’s proposal – and drawing a contrast with Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate – by sending it to the GOP-led House … Republicans say those [Obama] tax breaks for college costs and tax refunds for the working poor have not helped to stimulate the economy and should be discontinued."
Why didn't GOP filibuster? W. Post's Greg Sargent: "… Mitch McConnell agreed this morning to majority votes on both plans, apparently because he didn’t think Harry Reid had enough votes to pass his … Reid held on to even those vulnerable Dems in very tough races who held the line despite weeks of taunting from Republicans…"
House GOP promises to kill extending tax cuts to middle class. Politico: "Boehner made it clear in a statement after the votes that the House will reject the Democratic tax plan. 'The House will vote next week to stop that tax hike, and until the Senate does the same, the threat to our economy remains,' Boehner said."
Romney asked by NBC how he's different than Bush, can't answer. ThinkProgress: "Rather than detailing specific differences with the former Republican president — whose deregulatory policies and massive tax cuts have been blamed for the nation’s current economic recession — Romney described his economic approach with his standard to his four-part talking points."
Military Contractors Not So Scared Of Sequestration
Senate passes bill requiring to Obama to specify what gets cut under "sequestration" if no 2012 budget deal. WSJ: "Republicans, concerned that half of the automatic cuts will come from defense spending, have pushed the bill as a way to highlight what they say will be a devastating reduction to the military budget resulting from the so-called sequester. But Democrats also backed the proposal as a way to highlight what the cuts would mean, including the portion that will come from domestic programs. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill."
Military contractors surprisingly divided on sequestration. The Hill: "Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have begun to break ranks with other top-tier defense firms warning that $500 billion in automatic defense cuts would hurt national security and lead to devastating job losses. While these companies remain firmly against the cuts, they are not offering doomsday scenarios … The different messages reflect worries among some companies that they could see their stock values plunge if investors grow panicked over the possible cuts."
Top Banker: Break 'em Up
Citigroup founder says "break up the banks." Bloomberg: "'What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking,' [Sandy] Weill, 79, said yesterday in a CNBC interview. 'Have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not going to be too big to fail.' Weill helped engineer the 1998 merger of Travelers Group Inc. and Citicorp, a deal that required repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law …"
Former Sen. Phil Gramm, who wrote the law ending Glass-Steagall, says keep the banks big. Bloomberg quotes: "I don’t see any evidence that allowing them to affiliate through holding companies had anything to do with the financial crisis nor has anybody ever presented any evidence to suggest that it did."
Credit card industry grudgingly admits new regs helping them. Bloomberg: "Three years later, card issuers are sheepishly, if quietly, admitting that they’re seeing a surprising benefit from the conservative lending the law was designed to promote … 'If there is a silver lining to the CARD Act -- I’m not here to say the CARD Act was good for our business, so nobody misunderstand the comment -- but if there were a silver lining to it, it forced rationality,' Mark Graf, chief financial officer of Discover Financial Services (DFS) … Rationality means not giving credit cards to just anybody … as Graf put it, the industry was engaged in a 'silly race to the bottom.'"
Breakfast Sides
Geithner grilled on Libor in House. W. Post: "…Geithner stuck to a defense he expressed last week — that once he learned of the manipulation, he sounded alarms to British and U.S. regulators … But Republicans hammered Geithner about why he did not inform lawmakers during numerous congressional hearings or in the lengthy debate over Wall Street regulation … 'It’s ironic that Republicans are jumping on this,' White House press secretary Jay Carney said. 'They continue to fight alongside lobbyists for Wall Street to undo, repeal or water down Wall Street reforms.'"
Climate change crumbling infrastructure. NYT: "From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois, the concrete, steel and sophisticated engineering that undergird the nation’s infrastructure are being taxed to worrisome degrees by heat, drought and vicious storms … Leading climate models suggest that weather-sensitive parts of the infrastructure will be seeing many more extreme episodes, along with shifts in weather patterns and rising maximum (and minimum) temperatures."
Medicaid expansion will save lives. NYT: "Into the maelstrom of debate over whether Medicaid should cover more people comes a new study by Harvard researchers who found that when states expanded their Medicaid programs and gave more poor people health insurance, fewer people died. The study, published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, comes as states are deciding whether to expand Medicaid by 2014 under the Affordable Care Act…"
Republicans advance bill killing clean energy loans, despite concerns from some Republicans. Politico: "The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and Power Subcommittee approved the bill in a largely party-line 14-6 vote, with all Democrats and just one Republican, California Rep. Brian Bilbray, voting against the bill. The vote caps more than a week of behind-the-scenes tension, which was set off when Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) expressed reservations about a provision in the bill that blocks the DOE from approving loan guarantee applications submitted after Dec. 31, 2011 — language that essentially phases out the program. Barton, who helped write the 2005 energy bill that created the loan guarantee program, maintained that it should be reformed, not ended."
Euro economy worsens, thanks to British austerity. NYT: "The economies of Europe continue to weaken, with Britain reporting on Wednesday that its second recession in three years had deepened and several other reports showing business conditions were deteriorating in Germany … After roughly two years of austerity, Britain is being battered by the declining fortunes of the countries in the euro zone …"
