Jobless Aid Vote Expected Tomorrow
Another unemployment insurance vote set for tomorrow in the Senate. The Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has set up a cloture vote for Thursday on a new measure that would provide a three-month reauthorization of the emergency program that is paid by extending a 'pension smoothing' provision. But Senate Republicans said Tuesday they are still working toward an agreeable plan and were chafed that Reid is resisting their call for amendments ... Democrats noted on Tuesday that 24 Republicans, including McConnell, voted for the 2012 bill that included the pension offset ... The offset would extend pension smoothing relief for four years by allowing companies to use historic interest rate averages in calculating their pension contributions. [The bill] also includes a provision from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that would stop millionaires from collecting unemployment benefits."
Huge majority wants government to reduce income gap, finds CNN poll: "A CNN/ORC International survey released Wednesday indicates more than six in 10 Americans strongly or somewhat agree that the government should work to narrow that gap, compared to 30% who believe it should not. 'That sentiment may put Republicans in a difficult position, because nearly seven in 10 of those surveyed believe GOP policies favor the rich compared to the 30% of respondents who said Democratic policies benefit the wealthy,' said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland."
House Resistance To Fast-Track
Top House Dem "not optimistic" trade bills will pass. The Hill: "House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer [said] 'Both parties have significant areas of concern with respect to trade promotion authority. I think there's a difficult path forward, if there is a path forward,' he said during a press briefing in the Capitol. 'I won't say I'm pessimistic, [but] I'm not optimistic. … I just think it's a tougher road than I've seen before.' ... Hoyer [also] downplayed the Democratic division on the issue, saying the Republicans are also split on the fast-track authority."
NYT's Thomas Edsall questions secrecy in trade negotiations: "On Sept. 8 last year, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts declared in a speech to the AFL-CIO: 'Why are trade deals secret? I’ve heard people actually say that they have to be secret because if the American people knew what was going on, they would be opposed. Think about that.' Warren is right. Trade negotiations have, in fact, become so wide in scope, with so many losers and winners, that negotiations cannot be conducted in the open. The case of trade reflects a larger shift in the balance of power. As multinational or 'stateless' capital diminishes the sovereignty of individual countries, including the United States, and strengthens the autonomy of international corporations, it weakens the already fragile economic security of millions of out-of-work Americans."
Republicans Debate Debt Limit Retreat
"Republicans Looking for the Exit on Debt Limit" reports Roll Call: "Put simply, the GOP has lost its willingness to fight on the issue — negotiation fatigue over a once-reviled hike to the nation’s borrowing limit that may best be summarized by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio. 'There’s no sense picking a fight we can’t win,' he told his rank and file in a closed-door meeting Tuesday..."
Still no consensus on a strategy, reports Politico: "Here’s why Republicans are stuck in neutral: They have a significant bloc of members who decline to vote for any debt limit increase out of principle. The rest of the conference is split between this smattering of suggestions ... In a closed meeting Tuesday, Speaker John Boehner urged Republicans to get their act together so they don’t have to pass a clean debt ceiling bill from the Senate. But several senior GOP aides and lawmakers say that scenario is looking more likely. Senior Senate Democratic sources are delighting in the House Republicans’ disorganization and say that the House should move first."
CBO Finds Obamacare Unchains Workers
WH rebuts misinterpretations of CBO report regarding Obamacare. The Hill: "The report predicted more people would leave the workforce because of lower wages, and be slower to return because they would want to keep their healthcare insurance subsidies ... Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors Jason Furman told reporters that the law would not reduce the hours being offered by employers. Instead, Furman said, ObamaCare allowed greater 'choice' — for workers to scale back their hours to spend more time with their children, or to leave their jobs to launch a small business or startup."
More from TNR's Jonathan Cohn: ".Some of the people cutting back hours will be working parents who decide they can afford to put in a little less time with their co-workers and a little more time with their kids. Some will be early sixty-somethings who will retire before they reach 65, rather than clinging to low-paying jobs just to get health benefits. 'This is what we want in a fair society,' says Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist and Obamacare architect. 'We don't want to enslave the old and sick to their jobs out of some sense of meanness. If they are dying to quit/retire, then let's them. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.'"
More Mortgage Settlements
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley settle with feds over mortgage misconduct. Bloomberg: "Morgan Stanley said yesterday it reached a $1.25 billion deal to end Federal Housing Finance Agency claims the bank sold faulty mortgage bonds to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the firms’ losses pushed them into U.S. conservatorship. JPMorgan will pay $614 million after admitting it submitted ineligible loans for Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Affairs insurance."
Lapsed tax credit undercuts homeowner relief from prior settlement. NYT: "Come tax time, JPMorgan Chase will be able to write off the $1.5 billion in debt relief it must give homeowners to satisfy the terms of a recent settlement. But the homeowners who receive the help will have to treat it as taxable income, resulting in whopping tax bills for many families who have just lost their homes or only narrowly managed to keep them ... A tax exemption for mortgage debt forgiveness, put in place when the economy began to falter in 2007, was allowed to expire on Dec. 31 ... Congress routinely allows tax breaks to expire and then reinstates them, usually retroactively, as it did last year. But the stakes are high for families dealing with large declines in their home values, and reinstatement of the tax breaks is more uncertain because of a movement in Congress to broadly overhaul the tax code..."
Breakfast Sides
Tea Party congressman threatens Speaker coup over immigration. Roll Call: "Speaker John A. Boehner should lose his gavel if he pursues immigration this year, a prominent tea party Republican said in an interview with CQ Roll Call on Tuesday. 'I think it should cost him his speakership,' Rep. Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho warned, if Boehner puts an immigration overhaul on the floor. But even if Boehner shelves immigration, Labrador said, the party needs new leadership — and the two-term lawmaker is not ruling out a run for leadership himself."
EPA "struggling" to craft regulation capping carbon from power plants. NYT: "...if the language in the regulation is too loose, there could be little environmental impact. And if it is too stringent, it could lead to the shutdown of coal plants before there is enough alternative power to replace them ... the agency is looking closely at a proposal by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit group, that could well be the heart of the regulation: states could comply with the rule not just by cleaning or shutting down coal plants, but also by making far broader changes across the electricity system ... Handing so much choice to the states sets up the likelihood that Republican governors opposing climate policy will fight the federal requirement ... E.P.A. officials have also been warily watching the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act and the 36 governors who balked at setting up state health care exchanges. People close to the climate regulation process say they view the health care rollout as an object lesson in how they need to ease the public reception of what they hope will be a legally bulletproof regulation."
