No Movement Toward Grand Bargain
Senate Minority Leader McConnell calls Obama's insistence on tax revenue for Social Security changes "$1 trillion ransom." Politico quotes: "Unfortunately, every discussion we've had about this in the past has had what I would call a ransom attached to it: $1 trillion in new tax revenues ... We don't have this problem because we don't tax enough in this country, we have this problem because we spend too much."
Senate Majority Whip Durbin rejects grand bargain without revenue increases, on Fox News Sunday: "I just can't understand this basic premise that this tax code is sacred. That there aren't loopholes in there that should be closed and the savings be dedicated to reducing the deficit. Why is that such a radical idea to most Republicans?"
Pentagon braces for second round of sequester. Politico: "The continuing resolution passed Wednesday and signed by President Barack Obama funds the government through Jan. 15, the same day the second round of spending cuts from sequestration is set to hit. Those cuts would set the Pentagon’s base budget at about $475 billion, which is roughly $20 billion less than the level in the CR and $50 billion less than DOD asked for in its fiscal year 2014 budget request. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale warned on Thursday that the second round of sequestration would mean DOD needs to get smaller — certainly meaning fewer civilian workers and probably fewer uniformed military members."
Pelosi pushes for televised budget negotiations. National Journal: "The conferees are due to issue a report on or around Dec. 13 ... This week, as the Senate is out, staffs are preparing for next week's not-yet-scheduled first official meetings, and conferees are talking by phone, if not in person. For now, questions abound over relatively simple matters like whether their deliberations will be public—or even perhaps televised. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is among those already calling for live coverage."
TNR's Jonathan Cohn proposes possible "little bargain": "Democrats once hoped to reach an agreement that would replace all of the sequestration cuts, which are supposed to last for ten years. But that would require the kind of grand bargain Republicans have rejected. That's why the best hope is probably for a much narrower deal—one that replaces a year or two of sequester cuts, while putting some money into Democratic priorities like transportation infrastructure and maybe a token investment in the president’s pre-kindergarten proposal. Such a deal might also include new revenue, but only a small amount, perhaps as a byproduct of tax reform or some kind of clearly dedicated user fee ... Republicans should be interested in this kind of arrangement. They may not be eager to restore sequestration’s cuts to domestic programs, but they should be eager to restore sequestration's cuts to defense spending."
Obama To Address Obamacare Website Glitches
President to take on Obamacare website problems. AP: "Obama was scheduled to speak Monday from the Rose Garden, his first health care-focused event since the cascade of computer problems became apparent ... the president will discuss steps the administration is taking to address the glitches, including ramping up staffing at call centers where people can apply for insurance by phone. The Department of Health and Human Services says it is also bringing in technology experts from inside and outside of government to help diagnose the issues. Obama will be flanked at the Rose Garden event by people the White House says have already enrolled during the first three weeks of sign-ups."
Website glitches obscure big picture, notes NYT's Paul Krugman: "...this botch has nothing to do with the law’s substance, and will get fixed. After all, a number of states havesuccessfully opened their own exchanges, doing for their residents exactly what the federal system is supposed to do everywhere else ... The real threat remains the effort of conservative groups to sabotage reform, especially by blocking the expansion of Medicaid. This effort relies heavily on lobbying, lavishly bankrolled by the usual suspects, including the omnipresent Koch brothers..."
`Texans that are not Ted Cruz like ObamaCare. Mother Jones: " The uninsured in his own state will tell you a different story. Stacy Anderson, from Fort Worth, runs her own business selling sweaters online. She says she has not had health insurance for the past seven years because the sweater business is not too lucrative. 'It cost more than I made some months,' she says. Anderson says she was just diagnosed with skin cancer, though it is not life-threatening. 'I've had it, apparently, for the entire seven years I've been uninsured,' she says. 'It will be nice if I can buy health insurance and get it treated.' ... 3.5 million uninsured Texans will finally get coverage under Obamacare. (One million more could have been covered if Gov. Rick Perry had agreed to the law's expansion of Medicaid.)"
JPMorgan Expected To Settle
JPMorgan settlement expected to total $13 billion. Bloomberg: "JPMorgan Chase & Co. is preparing to pay $13 billion to end U.S. civil probes of its mortgage-bond sales, an amount that ranks among the largest settlements by a single company and dwarfs fines previously imposed by the Justice Department ..."
Threat of civil charges prompted CEO to propose settlement. NYT: "On Sept. 24, four hours before the Justice Department was planning to hold a news conference to announce civil charges against the bank over its sale of troubled mortgage investments, Mr. Dimon personally called one of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s top lieutenants to reopen settlement talks, people briefed on the talks said. The rare outreach from a Wall Street C.E.O. scuttled the news conference and set in motion weeks of negotiations that have culminated in a tentative $13 billion deal..."
FHFA seeking $6 billion from Bank of America. Bloomberg: "A U.S. housing regulator is seeking at least $6 billion from Bank of America Corp. to settle civil claims the firm sold faulty mortgage bonds to government-backed finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ... The FHFA sued Bank of America and 17 other firms over faulty mortgage bonds two years ago in an effort to recoup some of the losses taxpayers were forced to cover when the U.S. took over the failing mortgage finance companies in the wake of the credit crisis."
