MORNING MESSAGE: Six Things You Can’t Talk About in Washington
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "The short version of the CBO’s report is: Spending’s going down, but we desperately need jobs. So how did the President and Congress respond? They kept arguing about who’s got the better plan for making spending go down some more. If you want to be taken seriously in Washington, you’re going to have to learn: There are some things you just don’t talk about..."
GOP Splits Over Sequester
Sequester exposes deep rift among Republicans. US News: "Republicans revealed Wednesday their party is divided over what is more important: protecting the Department of Defense or pushing spending cuts no matter the cost. Republican Sens. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona continue to speak out about how devastating across-the-board spending cuts would be to the Pentagon, while their GOP colleagues in the House say sequestration, no matter the cost, may be the only way to force spending cuts from the White House."
"Boehner Can’t Explain Why Revenue He Once Agreed To Is Now Off The Table" reports ThinkProgress: "But last year, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) reportedly agreed to a deal that included $1 trillion in revenue. When asked by a reporter during a press briefing today why that total is now off the table, Boehner had no answer other than blaming President Obama."
"Americans remain deeply pessimistic about the nation’s economic future," reports W. Post: "More than two in five believed workers will never feel as secure in their jobs as they did before the recession. Nearly half said the elderly will have to find part-time work after retiring. And 86 percent of Americans said the availability of good jobs at good pay will never return or will not return for many years."
Corporations haven't paid full corporate tax in 45 years reports ThinkProgress.
Austerity Hits Postal Service
"Postal Cuts Are Austerity on Steroids" argues The Nation's John Nichols: " if this austerity fight is lost, it will not be the last defeat for public services and public workers. The damage associated with the curtailing of Saturday delivery will be most severe in rural areas and inner cities, where small businesses and working families rely on local post offices that are already targeted for shuttering. It will, as well, be particularly harmful to the elderly, the disabled and others who rely on regular delivery and the human connection provided by letter carriers and rural delivery drivers."
"Congress — not email — destroyed the Postal Service" notes Salon's John Tierney: "...the Postal Service is quite well managed and operates as efficiently and effectively as we have any right to expect, given the constraints we have imposed on it. And the main constraint is political: We have allowed the U.S. Congress to control the agency, and for decades – centuries, really – Congress has dictated that the Postal Service operate in ways that are politically useful for members of Congress even though they make no economic sense."
GOP Plays Catch-Up On Immigration
House Majority Leader Cantor backs principles of DREAM Act. Dems yawn. The Hill: "[Rep. Xavier] Becerra said 'it’s great that our Republican colleagues are catching up,' but he insisted they go further ... 'If the playing field for them is, "DREAM Act is a good idea," that’s yesterday’s news.'"
Immigrant group pushes "direct" 7-year path to citizenship. NYT: "The network, which includes youth groups in 24 states, weighed in after President Obama and a bipartisan group of senators last week announced their blueprints ... The senators’ blueprint does not specify the length of time before those gaining legal status could become citizens, but it is likely to be considerably longer than seven years ... Under the network’s proposal, illegal immigrants would be eligible for a provisional status as soon as any overhaul legislation went into effect. After two years, they would be allowed to apply for permanent resident documents known as green cards."
Supreme Court Snubs Recess Appointment Ruling
Roll Call's Norman Ornstein slams federal court ruling nixing NLRB recess appointments: "The three Republican-appointed judges rejected a century or more of common presidential practice ... They said that unless vacancies occurred during the one period they defined — ignoring how Congress defines its own recesses — they could not be filled by recess appointments ... If the decision holds, it would, among other things, call into question every 5-4 decision made by the Supreme Court during the two years that Justice William J. Brennan Jr. served on a recess appointment."
Supreme Court not rushing to apply lower court ruling. Roll Call: "For the second time in three days, the high court rejected a request from a nursing home company that had asked the justices on Monday to block an NLRB order against it ... Justice Antonin Scalia received the company’s application for emergency action and passed it on to the full court, which rejected it. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had individually rejected the same request on Monday, but Supreme Court petitioners may apply to a different justice to seek relief."
Breakfast Sides
National Libor settlement keeps banks exposed to "massive" state claims. Bloomberg: "A multistate probe of alleged manipulation of interest rates threatens to leave banks liable for billions of dollars in estimated state and local losses from the scandal, even as they settle with national regulators ... By acting together, state attorneys general can amass potentially large claims against banks and gain leverage in any settlement negotiations ... Libor manipulation that kept the benchmark artificially low cost states and local governments about $6 billion on interest rate swaps...
Congress may try to reform job-training programs. Roll Call: "Republicans on the Education and the Workforce Committee are slated to introduce a bill to overhaul job-training programs in the coming weeks that will largely mirror the measure they pushed through the panel on a party-line vote last year. That bill proposed consolidating 27 job-training programs into one large block grant to the states ... Democrats argue that consolidating programs into a block grant would shift money away from underserved populations ... While such a partisan proposal stands little chance in the Senate, Murray and Isakson have renewed their efforts to write a bipartisan bill ... The earlier Senate proposal put in place a national job-training system and eliminated the piecemeal, state-by-state programs that currently exist. It also created an 'innovation fund' to spur states to form partnerships with business and education groups to train workers for the jobs in greatest demand."
