Obama Pushes Trade Deal During Asia Conference
Trade tops Obama agenda during 3-day China visit starting today. NYT: "The White House has methodically lowered expectations that a deal will be reached in Beijing. But the fact that Mr. Obama is meeting the other leaders so early in the trip — combined with recent reports of progress in talks with one of the key participants, Japan — has prompted trade analysts to speculate that there could be some kind of a surprise. The Trans-Pacific Partnership does not include China, so Mr. Obama’s main commercial proposal for the Chinese will be a new bilateral investment treaty between the countries. Economists said it could be the most significant opening of the Chinese market for American companies since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001."
In China, Obama touts "good progress" towards Pacific trade deal. Reuters quotes: "During the past few weeks our teams have made good progress in resolving several outstanding issues regarding a potential agreement. Today is an opportunity for us at the political level to break some remaining logjams ... What we are seeing is momentum building around a Trans-Pacific Partnership that can spur greater economic growth, spur greater jobs growth, set high standards for trade and investment throughout the Asia-Pacific."
Politico suggests window for trade deal is short: "... the midterm elections in the U.S. appear to have handed Obama’s trade agenda back to him on a silver platter ... [But if] a deal isn’t inked and sent to Congress by May or June, it will most likely be delayed until the next president takes office in 2017..."
Dems Try To Regroup
Race for DCCC Chair may signal future direction of the Democratic Party, says HuffPost's Robert Kuttner: "One of the people running hard for the job is Congressman Jim Himes of Greenwich, Connecticut -- hedge fund country. Rep. Himes' former job, before taking his seat in 2009, was Vice President of Goldman Sachs ... another contender is Rep. Jared Polis of Denver. A tech entrepreneur, Polis is the sixth richest member of the House ... Polis was a co-sponsor of the 'Race to the Top' education act promoting standardized school testing. Like other libertarian tech Democrats, Polis is a big defender of Bitcoin. There is one clear progressive interested in the DCCC job -- Rep. Donna Edwards ... She would probably raise less money from Wall Street, but more from regular people, and Edwards would beat the bushes to recruit progressives to run for Congress."
Dems look to take back state legislatures. Politico: "President Barack Obama’s former liaison to the states will launch a major new state-focused organization called the State Innovation Exchange — or SiX for short — before donors on Friday at the annual winter meeting of the Democracy Alliance liberal funding club. SiX’s goal is an ambitious one: to compete with a well-financed network of conservative groups — including the American Legislative Exchange Council — that for years have dominated state policy battles, advancing pro-business, anti-regulation bills in state after state."
Fresh Tests For Obamacare
NYT's Paul Krugman slams latest conservative legal attack on Obamacare: "...it now appears possible that the Supreme Court may be willing to deprive millions of Americans of health care on the basis of an ... obvious typo ... if you look at the specific language authorizing those subsidies, it could be taken — by an incredibly hostile reader — to say that they’re available only to Americans using state-run exchanges, not to those using the federal exchanges ... everything else in the act makes it clear that this was not the drafters’ intention, and in any case you can ask them directly, and they’ll tell you that this was nothing but sloppy language ... Once upon a time, this lawsuit would have been literally laughed out of court..."
Conservatives press McConnell to use procedural maneuver for repealing Obamacare. The Hill: "With Senate Democrats likely to filibuster any stand-alone repeal bill, conservatives say incoming Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should use a procedural maneuver known as reconciliation to muscle through a bill with 51 votes ... McConnell suggested at a post-election press conference last week that Republicans could take advantage of reconciliation, but did not commit to using it for ObamaCare repeal."
New website test as next Obamacare enrollment period nears. W. Post: "...the Obama administration is expressing confidence that HealthCare.gov is no longer the rickety online insurance marketplace that exasperated consumers a year ago. Behind the scenes, however, federal health officials and government contractors are scrambling, according to confidential documents and federal and outside experts familiar with this work. They have been making contingency plans in case the information technology or other aspects prove less sturdy than the administration predicts. And some preparations are coming down to the wire."
Breakfast Sides
Student loan debt disproportionately saddles graduate students. Time: "Graduate students now collectively owe as much as 40 percent of the estimated $1.2 trillion in outstanding student debt, according to the New America Foundation, even though they make up only 14 percent of all university enrollment ... In 2012, to save about $1.8 billion a year, Congress also stopped subsidizing the interest that accumulates on federal student loans taken out by graduate students while they’re in school and for six months after they finish. And a proposal to streamline existing federal tax credits would reduce the deductions they will be able to take for educational expenses."
Backlash over high-stakes testing grows. NYT: "... this year not only parents but also educators across Florida are rebelling. They have joined anational protest in which states have repealed their graduation test requirements, postponed the consequences of testing for the Common Core — national standards in more than 40 states — and rolled back the number of required exams."
Judge in AIG bailout trial seems sympathetic to billionaire litigant Maurice Greenberg: "Maurice R. Greenberg, the ousted chief executive of American International Group Inc., was practically laughed out of New York for claiming that he and other shareholders were shortchanged by the U.S. government's $182-billion bailout of AIG. No one's laughing now ... Greenberg couldn't have landed a more receptive judge than Thomas C. Wheeler, who has focused on the minutia of the bailout deal while rebuffing the government's efforts to raise the broader context of the global financial fiasco ... Wheeler ... spent his career as a corporate lawyer specializing in government contract claims before his appointment to the bench in 2005 by then-President George W. Bush."
