Push For Executive Action On Immigration
Pressure builds for Obama to act with Congress. The Hill: "The president has delayed any executive action on the issue to allow House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) more time and political space to move immigration reform legislation this summer. But with GOP leaders showing no appetite for bringing any such bills to the floor, more and more Democrats want Obama to expedite a unilateral response in the name of keeping immigrant families together ... The huge surge of migrant children crossing the southern border complicates the issue for Obama. While Democrats have framed the issue as a humanitarian crisis highlighting the need for congressional action on immigration reform, Republicans say it represents a failure of leadership in the White House – and another reason Obama can't be trusted to enforce current laws, let alone to manage sweeping new reforms."
Pelosi to visit border. Politico: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will travel to the southern border of the U.S. on Saturday to be briefed by Customs and Border Protection on the flood of unaccompanied minors entering the country ... 'The humanitarian crisis unfolding across our nation’s southern border demands Congress come together and find thoughtful, compassionate and bipartisan solutions,' Pelosi said..."
VP optimistic in private meeting with immigration advocates. Politico: "'The takeaway from the vice president [was] immigration reform is not dead and those who say it is, they’re wrong. It’s just a matter of time,' [Sojourner's Jim] Wallis said in an interview ... Jenny Yang, the vice president for advocacy of World Relief who also attended the meeting, added that Biden urged the advocates assembled for the meeting to not give up on Congress."
"The GOP is now officially the party of ‘get the hell out’" says W. Post's Greg Sargent: "Exactly one year after the Senate passed an immigration reform bill ... [Republicans] have committed the party to a course premised on two intertwined notions: There are no apparent circumstances under which they can accept legalization of the 11 million; and as a result, the only broad response to the crisis they can countenance is maximum deportations."
Everybody Says Economy Is Rigged
Conservatives agree with Sen. Warren. W. Post: "According to a new Pew survey, 62 percent of Americans think that the economic system unfairly favors the powerful, and 78 percent think that too much power is concentrated in too few companies. The discontent isn't limited to those who share Warren's liberal ideology; 69 percent of young conservative-leaning voters and 48 percent of the most conservative voters agree that the system favors the powerful..."
Massachusetts signs highest minimum wage in nation. AP: "Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on Thursday signed a bill raising the state's $8 per hour minimum wage to $11 per hour by 2017. The bill increases the minimum wage gradually, to $9 per hour in 2015, $10 in 2016 and $11 in 2017 ... The measure also gradually raises the minimum wage for tipped workers, such as restaurant servers, from $2.63 per hour to $3.75 per hour, a 31 percent increase and the first since 1999."
Treasury Tries Again On Housing
Treasury aims to strengthen foreclosure relief program. NYT: "Of the $46 billion in federal bailout money reserved for homeowners after the crisis, about $38 billion has been obligated but only $12.4 billion has been paid out. The administration has defended its cornerstone program, a loan modification program known as HAMP, which has resulted in more than 1.3 million loan restructurings. The program helped far fewer people than anticipated, but officials say that it pushed lenders to behave better in general ... For tenants, the help announced Thursday was less direct, coming in the form of subsidized loans to apartment builders for affordable housing."
Dean Baker unimpressed: "The clear implication is that lenders would be making loans that don't meet the standards of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, but would be packaged into mortgage-backed securities by private issuers. Some folks may be old enough to remember the last time we saw something like this."
SCOTUS Messes With NLRB
Supreme Court ruling on recess appointments impacts recent NLRB decisions. WSJ: "...436 cases [were decided] during the 18 months two of the three now-invalid appointees were seated ... The current board must decide whether to protectively redo those 436 rulings to try to shield them from new challenges, though labor lawyers said that in general, the vast majority of board decisions aren't controversial. Many of the NLRB orders have likely already been implemented, such as workers being rehired or collective-bargaining contracts being negotiated and implemented. It would be hard to undo such things and likely not worthwhile for parties to challenge ... [Other] decisions made during the 18-month period include one that protected employees from being fired for complaining about working conditions on social-media sites[,] gave greater rights to unions seeking information in employee-discipline cases and eased the type of financial information a union must provide to workers who object to being members."
And could hamper future labor reform agenda. The Hill: "...one official from the International Franchise Association said the NLRB could be so busy reissuing decisions from old cases that it would not have time to move forward with the so-called quickie election rule, which would speed up union elections to as little as 10 days from the time they file a petition with the agency. 'Hopefully, they'll be [so] overstretched with reviewing all the cases from 2012 and 2013 that they won't necessarily have time to issue that rule,' the official said ... Adding more fuel to the fire, Democrat board member Nancy Schiffer's term runs out in December. President Obama may find it even more difficult to appoint another Democrat to fill her seat after the Supreme Court's ruling. The current NLRB will face pressure to issue new decisions in these cases before the Democrats lose that majority at the end of the year..."
Breakfast Sides
Obamacare naysayers keep being wrong, says NYT's Paul Krugman: "...they made at least six distinct predictions about how Obamacare would fail — every one of which turned out to be wrong ... It’s remarkable how many supposed experts on health care made claims about Obamacare that were clearly unsupportable. For example, remember 'rate shock' ... Or remember claims that young people wouldn’t sign up, so that Obamacare would experience a 'death spiral' of surging costs and shrinking enrollment?"
"Senate lurches closer to highway fund stopgap" reports The Hill: "The progress came when Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) agreed to delay a vote on a $9 billion patch and use the extra time to address Republican concerns ... Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Finance Committee's ranking Republican, said Wednesday that he could only agree to a transportation funding package if it includes 'a significant number of spending cuts to go along with any revenue increases' — even in a temporary fix.
