Senate Student Loan Negotiations Stuck
Student loan deal "elusive" says National Journal: "By late last week, lawmakers had broken the gridlock, agreeing to work toward a deal that would be deficit-neutral, tie interest rates to the market, and place rate caps on individual loans. But senators have yet to settle several important details, such as whether or not to charge the same rate for all undergraduate loans and what those rates would be. The deal-making has been complicated by the climate in the Senate, where Republicans and Democrats are warring over President Obama's nominees ..."
CNN profiles student who risked his life in the military to pay off loans: "I was just being realistic. I'd be paying those loans off forever and I knew interest compounding would make (the total) go up."
Critical Day For Filibuster Reform
Bipartisan Senate caucus last step before filibuster showdown commences. AP: " All 100 senators have been invited to a closed-to-the-public meeting Monday evening to seek a compromise on how to approach those nominated to serve in senior positions in Obama's administration ... Reid was expected to address the issue during a morning speech at an advocacy organization linked to the Center for American Progress ..."
GOP obstruction has ground NLRB to a halt. TNR's Alec MacGillis: "...it has been brought to a complete standstill, leaving both workers and employers around the country in a confounding limbo with no end in sight ... So widespread and consequential is the dysfunction and uncertainty around the board now that it is upsetting even many on the employer side ... Among the major, precedent-setting rulings that have now been cast in limbo ... are two 2012 ones that established guidelines for when employers could and could not discipline or terminate employees for social-media postings ... The board is unable to enforce findings against Salem Hospital Corporation in New Jersey, which refused to bargain with newly organized nurses, against Oak Harbor Freight Lines, in Oregon, which cut off health and pension benefits after a strike, and against a Minnesota school bus company that fired five employees for talking about a union..."
Breakfast Sides
FT's John Authers makes the case for Glass-Steagall repeal: "...look at the Glass-Steagall era. Those seven decades look like an anomaly, a 'quiet period', as Yale University economist Gary Gorton puts it, when there were hardly any bank runs (and economic growth was steady). For decades leading up to the Great Crash, bank runs had been endemic in the US. Deposit insurance, and a requirement that banks that took deposits could not also play at investment banking, vanquished that problem ... the idea of separating deposit-takers from investment banks needs to return to the debate."
NYT's Paul Krugman shreds GOP food stamp claims: "Food stamp usage has indeed soared in recent years, with the percentage of the population receiving stamps rising from 8.7 in 2007 to 15.2 in the most recent data. There is, however, no mystery here ... usage tends to track broad measures of unemployment, like U6 ... And U6 more than doubled in the crisis .... What about the theory, common on the right ... we have so much unemployment thanks to government programs that, in effect, pay people not to work? ... you have to be kidding. Do you really believe that Americans are living lives of leisure on $134 a month, the average SNAP benefit?"
PA voter ID law heads to court. AP: "Nine days are set aside for the trial in Harrisburg in Commonwealth Court ... Judge Robert Simpson blocked enforcement in last year’s presidential election and again in this year’s municipal and judicial primary because of lingering concern that it could disenfranchise voters who lacked a valid photo ID ... Critics derided the law as a cynical GOP effort to discourage young adults, minorities, the elderly, the poor and the disabled from going to the polls."
