Warren May Oppose Fed Nominee
Sen. Warren questions Fed nomination. The Hill: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is 'not sure' about President Obama’s pick to fill the No. 2 spot at the Federal Reserve. The outspoken liberal and bank critic expressed concerns about the nomination of Stanley Fischer to be the Fed vice chairman on Bloomberg’s 'Political Capital with Al Hunt.' ... Warren did not detail her reservations about Fischer, but only said that now is a 'hard time' for the Fed."
Warren is more radical, and more nationally appealing than Bill de Blasio, says TNR's Noam Scheiber: "Warren spends much less time fulminating against the rich per se. Though she has an interest in inequality, she talks far more about the middle-class than the poor ... De Blasio’s rhetoric sounds more leftist, implying a relentless competition between underclass and overclass. But the substance of Warren’s agenda is far more radical. She wants to upend a fundamentally corrupt system, one in which big banks and other interests have coopted the apparatus of government. By contrast, de Blasio implicitly accepts 'the system'—which in New York means an economy built around the financial sector and the real estate industry—and wants to mitigate its least desirable effects."
Banks trying to defang Volcker Rule. Bloomberg: "U.S. banks are seeking to limit the reach of the Volcker Rule by challenging its definition of what it means to own a hedge fund or private-equity fund. The opening gambit was made by theAmerican Bankers Association, the industry’s biggest lobbying group, which said in a federal lawsuit filed last month on behalf of community banks that regulators had defined too broadly what it means to have an ownership stake. A week later, four other organizations, including the Financial Services Roundtable, sent a letter to bank-supervisory agencies making the same point."
International bank regulators ease new rule. NYT: "The relief to lenders may, however, be temporary as the regulators signaled there is still no agreement on the final level of the new leverage ratio, which measures how much capital a bank must hold against its loans and other assets. The ratio was initially set at 3 percent of bank capital, but regulators from the United States, Britain and elsewhere are pushing for a higher number ... On Sunday, the Basel Committee’s oversight body, which is led by the European Central Bank’s president, Mario Draghi, backed key changes to the leverage ratio."
Republicans Still Out Of Ideas
Paul Krugman slams new GOP anti-poverty ideas: "...they’re deeply committed to the view that efforts to aid the poor are actually perpetuating poverty, by reducing incentives to work ... a party committed to small government and low taxes on the rich is, more or less necessarily, a party committed to hurting, not helping, the poor."
Former GOP Sen. Judd Gregg says his party is too negative, in The Hill oped: "If the goal is to actually capture the attention of the American people beyond those on the right who live in a perpetual world of conspiracy and the language of 'no,' it might be time to consider going positive ... Nothing in the negative, no mention of Obama, no social fratricide. Just good ideas that will cause Americans to think twice and maybe say 'You know, those Republicans, they have something there.'"
More Republican-run states may expand Medicaid under Obamacare. Politico: "...Pennsylvania and Tennessee are actively working with the Obama administration to expand Medicaid, although their efforts to squeeze policy concessions on the GOP wish list — like requiring enrollees to pay more — could be a dead end. Indiana and Oklahoma are eyeing alternative versions of expansion and were granted a one-year reprieve by the Obama administration to extend existing state health care programs while they think about it ... Governors in small, Republican-dominated states like Wyoming, Kansas and Utah say they’re keeping an open mind in 2014, despite their hatred for the overall health law. And in every undecided state, an unusual alliance of powerful hospital, business and religious interests has been leaning on Republican leaders to reverse course."
Supreme Court Considers Recess Power
Supreme Court to hear arguments on presidential recess appointment power today. The Hill: "Oral arguments slated for Monday will center on a trio of recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts. If they uphold the decision, experts say the justices could endanger hundreds of NLRB decisions."
But ruling won't affect appointments this year. Roll Call: "No matter what the court says about recess appointments in a decision expected in June, for the following six months Senate Democrats will still be able to exercise their newly engineered ability to advance all of President Barack Obama’s nominees (unless there’s one for the Supreme Court) without finding 60 votes to overcome Republican opposition. And if his party holds on to Senate control in November, the same would hold true during Obama’s final two years in office."
