Unemployed Get Filibustered
Republicans filibuster jobless aid again. NYT: "...Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, abruptly called a vote to end debate on two Democratic measures that would extend benefits for out-of-work Americans for at least three months, gambling that he could muster enough support from moderate Republicans to move on to final passage for at least one of the proposals. But both votes failed ... Some senators remained optimistic that they would still be able to reach a compromise, but the earliest they are likely to return to the legislation is at the end of the month, when they return from a weeklong break."
Reid sees Republicans losing the argument. Politico: "...Reid dismisses the idea that Americans are interested in wonky procedural debates, believing instead they will remember this as the week that Republicans blocked the restoration of aid to more than a million long-term unemployed Americans."
Long-term unemployed scared for their futures. National Journal: "'It’s very nerve-wracking and I’m very anxious,' Clarissa Garcia Jewett, 46, of Miramar, Fla., told me last week. 'I really don’t know where to go, because what little income we had coming in is gone. I don’t know what we’re going to do. You go from it being bad to being dire. What do I do? It’s not from not wanting to find work. It’s about not getting called back.'"
Dems Put Fast-Track on Slow Track
WH can't find Democratic sponsors for fast-track bill. Politico: "...the White House can’t even find a Democratic co-sponsor in the House. Meanwhile, the bill’s main Democratic backer in the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, is on his way out, and key senior Democrats on the committee, including its incoming chairman, say they either don’t support the bill or want to change it."
US struggling to win environmental protections in Pacific trade agreement. NYT: "The Obama administration is retreating from previous demands of strong international environmental protections in order to reach agreement on a sweeping Pacific trade deal that is a pillar of President Obama’s strategic shift to Asia, according to documents obtained by WikiLeaks ... Environmentalists said that the draft appears to signal that the United States will retreat on a variety of environmental protections — including legally binding pollution control requirements and logging regulations and a ban on harvesting sharks’ fins — to advance a trade deal that is a top priority for Mr. Obama ... 'It is an uphill battle, but we’re pushing hard,' said Michael Froman, the United States trade representative."
Trade deal conflicts with President's agenda to reduce inequality, argues W. Post's Harold Meyerson: "...defenders of free trade are indulging in the worst kind of imperviousness to facts. But when the case for free trade is coupled with the case for raising U.S. workers’ incomes, it enters a zone where real numbers, and real Americans’ lives, matter. In that zone, the argument for the kind of free-trade deal embodied by NAFTA, permanent normal trade relations with China and the Trans-Pacific Partnership completely blows up. Such deals increase the incomes of Americans investing abroad even as they diminish the incomes of Americans working at home. They worsen the very inequality against which the president rightly campaigns."
Obama To Tout Manufacturing
Obama to push manufacturing in North Carolina today. W. Post: "...Obama will announce on the campus of North Carolina State University that the school will lead a group of 18 businesses and six universities in establishing a new 'manufacturing innovation institute,' the White House said ... 'Each institute is designed to serve as a regional hub designed to bridge the gap between applied research and product development, bringing together companies, universities and other academic and training institutions, and Federal agencies to co-invest in technology areas that encourage investment and production in the U.S,' the White House said in a statement."
NYT adds: "The establishment of a manufacturing institute in North Carolina showcases the White House’s determination to press ahead with jobs programs, with or without Congress. But it also lays bare the limits of Mr. Obama’s authority, since Congress has stymied more ambitious proposals that would require legislation ... setting up 15 institutes would require congressional authorization. So last year, Mr. Obama narrowed his focus to three institutes that could be established using existing funds and executive authority."
Boehner Readies Immigration Gambit
National Journal analyzes Boehner's immigration strategy: "... Boehner is planning to unveil a set of Republican principles for immigration reform before President Obama's State of the Union address ... the principles will be broad, nebulous even ... If it flops over hardliners' objections to anything that approaches amnesty for illegal immigrants, Boehner and Republican campaign leaders looking for cash can still tell the business community they tried ... What Boehner is hoping for, however, is that a majority of the GOP conference—the middle-of-the-road folks who listen to their local chambers of commerce and sympathize with the need to court Latinos—will have a different view than [the] hardliners. And if they do, they could win sizable concessions from liberals to change the immigration system. They could dramatically bolster border and worksite enforcement and rein in the current family-based 'chain migration' system."
