Obama Delivers Major Economic Speech Today
Halting economic recovery provides backdrop for Obama economic speech. McClatchy: " The speech comes as some economic indicators continue to show only modest rebounds and months before Obama and Republican lawmakers face a renewed clash over spending and the federal budget. But Obama and his aides said the speech comes as the economy is stabilizing after a deep descent, offering the president an opportunity to rise above the daily chatter..."
"Middle-out" economics should be rooted in higher wages, argues EPI's Larry Mishel: "To generate wage growth, we will need to rapidly lower unemployment, which can only be accomplished by large scale public investments and the reestablishment of state and local public services that were cut in the Great Recession and its aftermath ... This means an aggressive increase in the minimum wage that eventually grows to half of the average workers’ wage. It means reestablishing the right to collective bargaining for higher wages..."
House GOP going after Obama priorities in spending bills. NYT: "Republicans are open about their intentions to target the president’s priorities. The House transportation and housing bill for fiscal 2014 cuts from $3.3 billion to $1.7 billion the financing for Community Development Block Grants, which go mainly to large cities and urban counties for housing and social programs, largely for the poor. That level is below the number secured by President Gerald R. Ford when he created the program — without adjusting for inflation ... Under other House legislation, the budget for the Internal Revenue Service would be cut by 24 percent, Amtrak would lose a third of its financing, and clean water grants from the Environmental Protection Agency would be slashed by 83 percent."
While Senate passes spending bill with big bipartisan vote, challenging sequestration caps. Politico: "A $54 billion transportation and housing bill cleared its first Senate hurdle Tuesday, riding a wave of bipartisan support that defies demands for deeper domestic spending cuts to meet the 2014 caps ... The Senate measure is based on a Democratic topline number of $1.058 trillion for the coming fiscal year, more than $90 billion higher than what can be sustained under the Budget Control Act ... 19 Republicans joined Democrats to cut off debate on the motion to take up the bill ..."
Boehner threatens debt limit hostage taking. Bloomberg: "'We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending,' Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters inWashington today. President Barack Obama and Senate leaders have said they wouldn’t accept anything short of a clean debt-limit increase."
Summers Rumored For Fed Chief
W. Post's Ezra Klein speculates that Larry Summers may be the next Fed chair: "...after conversations with plugged-in sources both inside and outside the process, here’s what’s behind the changing odds ... President Obama really likes Summers. And he’s surrounded by Summers’s longtime colleagues and friends. Conversely, Obama doesn’t really know [Vice-Chair Janet] Yellen, and nor do any of the White House’s economic principals."
"WTF" says Mark Thoma: "The politics of it still doesn't make any sense, and Yellen is more qualified for the job ... Summers is as likely to create problems as solve them; plus, his record on financial regulation is anything but stellar."
Jared Bernstein downplays: "No one knows who it will be ... I would very heavily discount anything you read that says anything much more than what I’ve just told you."
Senate investigates bank ownership of physical commodities. NYT: "The hearing, convened by the Senate Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection subcommittee, came as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and others face growing scrutiny over their role in the commodities markets ... The ability of those bank subsidiaries to gather nonpublic information on commodities stores and shipping also could give the banks an unfair advantage in the markets and cost consumers billions of dollars ... "
Wavering Dems Face WH Pressure on Student Loan Deal
Dems begin to revolt from student loan deal, WH lobbies fiercely. HuffPost: "The White House is scrambling to keep a preliminary deal on student loan interest rates from imploding, people familiar with the efforts said Tuesday, pressuring reluctant lawmakers and student advocates to support the proposal while publicly downplaying projections that borrowing costs will rise in as little as two years. Administration officials have told some Senate Democrats that if they don’t support the deal, and it collapses, President Barack Obama would publicly blame them for allowing borrowing costs to rise for some students, congressional aides said."
But Roll Call says the votes are there: "With an extra push from the White House, however, the bill seemed on track for passage."
NY edit board slams deal: "The government should not be making money off the backs of struggling student borrowers. In the long term, the loan program needs to be restructured so that the loans are closely linked to the government’s actual cost of borrowing, which could reduce rates for students. A Senate compromise bill that is supposed to address the harmful rate increase falls well short."
Senate vote expected today reports Fox News.
GOP Immigration Moves Dismissed By Dems
Dems reject partial immigration solutions from House GOP. AP: "...Democrats dismissed Goodlatte and Cantor's not-yet-released legislation, saying that any solution that doesn't offer citizenship to all 11 million immigrants here illegally falls short ... Cantor and Goodlatte have not released details of their legislation, but it is likely to be narrower in scope than the DREAM Act, which would have offered legal status to people under age 35 who arrived in the U.S. before age 16 and had lived here for five years and obtained a high school diploma. Slightly more than 2.1 million immigrants could have qualified ..."
LA Times reminds GOP flip-flopping on DREAM stance: "Two years ago, House Republicans would not hear of the Dream Act, rejecting as a 'nightmare' the legislation to provide a path to citizenship for immigrants who were brought to the country as children and were here illegally as young adults. Now, they're taking a second look."
Speaker Boehner criticizes GOP Rep. Steve King for accusing most undocumented children of being drug dealers. Roll Call: "Rep. Steve King is defending his comments that children who were brought to the U.S. illegally don’t deserve 'amnesty' because they’re not 'all valedictorians' ... Speaker John A. Boehner called the comments 'wrong' and his language 'hateful.' Majority Leader Eric Cantor called them “'nexcusable.' [King had said,] 'For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.'"
