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: The Nakedness of Their Greed
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The GOP bill would actually increase the average tax bill for 25 million households who earn less than $250,000 … The Republicans want to impose these new tax burdens on the struggling middle class while giving an average cut of $160,000 in income and estate tax cuts for households that earn a million dollars or more … the Republican 'Tax Hike Prevention Act' takes away the Tuition Tax Credit, marriage-penalty relief, and other badly needed breaks for working families and individuals … In their Craven New World, tax deductions selectively become 'increased spending' - or even more scabrously, 'increased stimulus spending.'"
Romney's European Vacation
Romney holds fundraisers in London with "donors in London's scandal-scarred banking and finance industry, the epicenter of the LIBOR interest rate fixing scandal." CBS: "One of the fundraisers was originally supposed to be hosted by Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays - until Diamond pulled out following his resignation from the company … one of the co-chairs of the fundraiser, Barclay's lobbyist Patrick Durkin, has helped raise more than $1 million for Romney …"
TNR's Timothy Noah explores why Romney is insulting London's handling of the Olympics: "…Romney would have you believe that he didn't just make the Salt Lake City games a success--he saved the Olympics themselves … It is, today, a significant part of Romney's argument for electing him president … It's also … a pretty weak case … The idea that it can be done reasonably well even by a past-its-prime power like Britain is too much for Romney to bear. And I'm afraid he let it show at a very inopportune moment."
Romney can't seem to find small business owner supporters who didn't get help from our government. W. Post's Greg Sargent: "One of the owners of A.D. Morgan, Rebecca Smith, was unsparing in her criticism of Obama. 'Our president seems to oppose the success of small business,' she said. But what’s particularly notable is how Ms. Smith squared that criticism with the above facts when asked about them by the reporter: 'We benefit from the need for quality construction funded by taxpayer dollars,' Smith said … Romney doesn’t believe in increasing this kind of spending to accomplish this end. He wants to cut this kind of spending. Yet somehow Romney is the one who is actually pulling for her success, while Obama is the one who is actively rooting for her to fail."
There Is No Debt Crisis
The debt crisis predicted three years ago didn't happen, says NYT's Paul Krugman: "…a funny thing happened on the way to the predicted fiscal crisis: instead of soaring, U.S. borrowing costs have fallen to their lowest level in the nation’s history … investors are all dressed up with nowhere to go, or rather no place to put their money. So they’re buying government debt, even at very low returns, for lack of alternatives … it’s simply crazy to be laying off schoolteachers and canceling infrastructure projects at a time when investors are offering zero- or negative-interest financing."
Sequester would hit Head Start. NYT: "The National Education Association said the cuts would eliminate 80,000 of the 962,000 slots for children and more than 30,000 jobs of teachers, aides and administrators in the program … The federal cuts would follow a decade of precipitous declines in supplementary financing of Head Start by some states …"
Dems Step Up Defense Of Health Care
Democrats more aggressively defending health care reform. Bloomberg: "Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democratic Senate candidate, has been buried by more than 2,000 Republican-sponsored television ads criticizing her for supporting President Barack Obama’s health-care law. Yet, Heitkamp, who is running in a Republican-leaning state, isn’t ducking; she’s punching back with an ad citing the law’s most popular provisions, including prohibiting insurance companies from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions … According to the latest polls, the race is tied…"
W. Post profiles woman who has used nearly every ObamaCare benefit: "Free preventive care? She got that with her annual well-care visit. The extension of family coverage for young adults? Her 22-year-old daughter, a recent college graduate, uses that to stay on her plan. Then there’s the small-business tax credit that two-thirds of businesses don’t even know about. McQueeney used that to net Palm Beach Groves, the company where she’s the general manager, $7,400 in savings. Another health law rebate, for just over $1,500, has brought her haul to $9,000."
Did Libor Hurt TARP?
Geithner tells Senate he doesn't know if Libor hurt TARP. Politico quotes: “In a series of specifics programs that the Fed and Treasury undertook in the financial crisis, we like many investors used Libor as a reference rate. In many ways we were in a position of investors around the world which was we had to make sure of the best available rate at the time. … We don’t know whether we were [disadvantaged] or not."
Top European banker reassures on euro. W. Post: "Europe’s most powerful banker made an extraordinary pledge Thursday to do 'whatever it takes' to defend the troubled euro currency, sparking a rally in world stock markets … Draghi has been reluctant to commit to sweeping action, telling European leaders in recent months that they could not rely on the bank to intervene in bond markets to push down borrowing costs … Draghi’s comments Thursday were notably short on specifics, and this is not the first time he has sparked markets with broadly reassuring comments."
Breakfast Sides
Pressure on Congress to respond to drought. Reuters: "The severe drought in the U.S. Midwest wreaked more havoc across the country on Thursday, forcing barges on the Mississippi River to lighten loads for fear of getting stuck and raising concerns about higher prices for food and gasoline. Damage to crops in the most extensive drought in five decades and the pressure of the November elections sparked some action in the U.S. Congress to bring relief to farmers and make progress on a generous farm bill."
American consumers break record for fuel efficiency. NYT: "…fuel economy [of new car purchases] reached 23.8 miles per gallon, up 1.1 mile from the first six months of 2011 … auto sales usually decline when fuel prices go up but that this year they had risen … 'We really shouldn’t be surprised by this,' [Analyst Alan] Baum said. 'Automakers have signed on to increases in fuel economy requirements not because they’re nice guys. It’s because they’re good for business.'"
