Obama Headlines Climate Summit
Obama nudges China in U.N. climate summit address. NYT: "Declaring that the United States and China — the world’s two largest economies and largest polluters — bear a 'special responsibility to lead,' Mr. Obama said, 'That’s what big nations have to do.' ... Mr. Obama made it clear that after taking the political risks in June of proposing a far-reaching Environmental Protection Agency regulation to force American power plants to curb their carbon emissions, he now expected the Chinese to do likewise. There were indications that China might be ready with its own plan, although many experts say they will be skeptical until Chinese officials reveal the details."
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But "offers few climate details" says Politico: "Obama didn’t promise $1 billion to help poor countries adapt to the dire effects of climate change, like France did. And he didn’t offer any hints about how sharply greenhouse gas emissions would be cut in the years after 2020, like the European Union and several other countries did. Instead, the president on Tuesday delivered a forceful but largely detail-free speech that sought to reassure the world about the United States’ commitment to reaching a global climate change agreement at crucial talks in Paris at the end of 2015, while leaving the specifics for later ... Obama did make several announcements in his speech, including a series of measures to boost global resilience to the effects of climate change and a new executive order that he signed Tuesday."
Corporations pledge action at summit. NYT: "Forty companies, among them Kellogg, L’Oréal and Nestlé, signed a declaration on Tuesday pledging to help cut tropical deforestation in half by 2020 and stop it entirely by 2030. They included several of the largest companies handling palm oil ... Apple, which has won plaudits from environmental groups for supporting renewable power in the United States, said that it would start focusing on emissions at its suppliers, which are mainly located abroad and account for some 70 percent of the greenhouse gases that come from production and use of the company’s products."
What Will Fix The Wealth Gap?
NYT's Tom Edsall explores how we can make economic growth raise middle-class incomes again: "Why don’t we have redistributive mechanisms in place to deploy the trillions of dollars in new wealth our economy has created to shore up the standard of living of low- and moderate-income workers ... Shawn Fremstad, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress [says,] 'a big-picture solution involves higher marginal income tax rates for the top 1 percent and some sort of wealth tax on the top of the top...' ... [But m]any center-left economists are wary of raising taxes on wealth, as opposed to income. They cite their fear of creating disincentives to innovation, the flight of wealth to low-tax havens, and the establishment of new tax avoidance schemes here in America."
Bill Clinton suggests more favorable tax treatment for multinationals in CNBC interview. HuffPost: "'America has to face the fact that we have not reformed our corporate tax laws,' Clinton told CNBC, according to a transcript. 'We have the highest overall corporate tax rates in the world. And we are now the only OECD country that also taxes overseas earnings on the difference between what the companies pay overseas and what they pay in America.' ... 'Everything we are doing now, including these [new] inversion rules, I have no problem with ... But we are bailing water out of a leaky boat.' ... Bill Clinton also called to 'give incentives to repatriate … nearly $2 trillion overseas,' suggesting that the U.S. grant a tax holiday on money deliberately kept out of the country to avoid paying U.S. taxes on it."
Conservatives Still Conservatives
House conservatives plot again to oust Boehner as Speaker. The Hill: "For months, several clusters of conservative lawmakers have been secretly huddling inside and outside the Capitol, plotting to oust John Boehner from the Speaker’s office when House Republicans regroup after the November elections. The strategy — for now — seems disorganized and fluid: Find a way to push the Speaker’s race to a second ballot, create turmoil in the conference, portray Boehner as highly vulnerable and offer up an alternative ... [Rep. Raul] Labrador ... hinted that a Boehner challenger could step up if Republicans fail to win control of the Senate in November."
Some Republicans still blame the "47% percent." HuffPost: "A Republican candidate running for Congress in Nevada says former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was right when he made his controversial '47 percent' remarks. 'Can I say that without getting in trouble like Gov. Romney,' Cresent Hardy, a state assemblyman, said in a video posted online by the Nevada State Democratic Party. 'The 47 percent is true. It's bigger now.'"
