Tea Party Loses Mississippi Showdown
Black voters beat Tea Party in MS GOP senate runoff. W. Post's Chris Cillizza: "...runoff turnout in the 24 counties with a black population of 50 percent or more was up almost 40 percent from the primary. In all other counties, turnout was up just 16 percent ... [Sen. Thad] Cochran's ability to convince a strongly Democratic constituency to be for him -- despite the fact that every Democratic consultant believed McDaniel gave the party a better chance to win the seat in the fall -- is simply remarkable ..."
"Is Thad Cochran’s win a win for earmarks?" asks W. Post's Jamie Fuller: "From 2008 to 2010, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran (R) sponsored or co-sponsored 757 earmarks ... there's little doubt that Cochran's campaign-long defense of sending spending home helped him squeak out a win last night ... [For example, he] appropriated [$500,000] to the Agricultural Research Service facility in Stoneville, Miss. in 1999 to study reminform nematodes. The facility also received $351,000 to study red imported fire ants ... For people in Mississippi — and states across the South — studying the invasive red ant is important. The fire ants ruin electrical equipment [and] devastate crops across the country ... Mississippi's K-12 education system receives [$800M] annually. Another $400 million go to state universities and community colleges. When McDaniel said he opposed federal funding for education, Cochran's campaign quickly made it into an issue that showcased the importance of federal spending."
Long-Term Jobless Aid Bill Is Back
New bipartisan unemployment insurance bill introduced in Senate. W. Post: "Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) ... introduced a new bill to fund the program for five months. The new legislation is a significant revision to the Reed/Heller bill that passed in the Senate earlier this year but was never brought up for a vote by the House GOP leadership. It does not include retroactive payments for jobless Americans who stopped receiving emergency unemployment insurance when the federal program expired in December, a major component of the previous bill. The new legislation would allow any jobless American whose federal aid was cut off in December to receive unemployment insurance payments for as many weeks as they had remaining of eligibility when the benefits ceased ... Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) vowed this month to put the bill on the floor if Heller can round up enough Republican votes..."
Odds remain low for passage. TNR's Danny Vinik: " There’d be no back payments this time, but all workers who were eligible for benefits during the interim period would retain their eligibility. Has this won them new support? It would not appear so. This bill, like the last one, is widely assumed to be dead on arrival in the House. The stakes here are big. There are still 3.4 million long-term unemployed workers in the country. That’s higher than any point in U.S. history outside of the past few year ... Center for Budget and Policy Priorities calculates that 300,000 ... would be veterans. That’s ironic, because Republicans have spent the past month (rightfully) decrying the Veterans Affairs department..."
Brookings Challenges Student Loan Debt Concerns
NYT's David Leonhardt touts Brookings study downplaying student loan crisis: "...the share of income that young adults are devoting to loan repayment has remained fairly steady over the last two decades ... Only 7 percent of young-adult households with education debt have $50,000 or more of it. By contrast, 58 percent of such households have less than $10,000 in debt, and an additional 18 percent have between $10,000 and $20,000 ... The misperceptions matter because they distract us from the real trouble with our higher education system ... the hundreds of thousands of people who emerge from college with a modest amount of debt yet no degree."
But TNR's Mike Konczal debunks: "...this study, like many arguments along these lines, suffers from a major problem: It focuses on a month-to-month comparison. When we look at the effects of a major economic change—whether it’s government debt, taxes, or replacing a system of publicly funded free colleges with a system of debt for a diploma—we can’t just look at what immediately happens. We need to also consider how people behave in the long run. And when we look at student loans from the point of view of a lifetime, the results are more worrisome."
Breakfast Sides
Sen. Sanders inches closer to running in the Democratic presidential primary. HuffPost: "...he is thinking of calling himself an 'independent Democrat' for purposes of a presidential campaign. 'That would mean running in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, but acknowledging that I am an independent, and have won every election I have run as an independent.' ... 'I think what we need is a new politics -- a different type of politics than Hillary’s,' he said. 'A politics that is much more grassroots-oriented, much more having to do with strong coalition-building and grassroots activism than I think Hillary has demonstrated over the years, or supported.'"
Boehner considers suing Obama over executive orders. CNN: "[The Speaker's spokesperson] did not give an indication of how soon Boehner would decide whether to bring the lawsuit against the President, or which actions he would challenge ... Rank and file House Republicans have been pushing for months for top GOP leaders to file a lawsuit ... If Boehner does decide to bring a lawsuit against the President, one avenue he could take is to convene a Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group made up of House Republicans - something he did in 2011 when the White House said it would no longer defend the anti same-sex marriage law, the Defense of Marriage Act."
Pro-coal, pro-environment senators seek common ground on climate. Politico: "West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin shot a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill, while Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has delivered 71 floor speeches calling for action on global warming. But even they can come together to find common ground on climate change, the two Democratic senators say ... [They are] planning a joint floor appearance on the topic Wednesday — followed, perhaps, by some eventual legislation that could crack down on greenhouse gas emissions while helping coal-dependent states adapt ... Don’t expect the two senators to propose wide-ranging climate legislation, however."
