Dems Move In Different Directions
Progressive Caucus pushes executive action on the economy. HuffPost: "[Rep. Raul] Grijalva and his fellow caucus co-chair, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), are putting their weight behind two proposals in particular: one executive order that would give federal contracting preference to firms that pay a living wage of $15 and provide basic benefits to workers, and another guaranteeing that contractors wouldn't interfere with worker efforts to unionize ... 'President Obama has already established his authority over federal procurement,' [Campaign for America's Future's Robert] Borosage said. 'Now he can and should take another bold step. He can put the government on the side of working people and good employers, rather than favoring exploitative employers.'"
Red-state Senate Dems look to work with Republicans. Politico: "Red staters and other moderates could determine whether Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid prevails on any given cliff-hanger vote ... When asked about the prospects that his party would block the GOP agenda for the next two years, [Sen. Joe] Manchin didn’t mince words: 'That’s bullsh—. … I’m not going to put up with that.'"
NYT's David Leonhardt proposes middle-class tax cut to boost incomes: "The Democratic Party’s short-term plan to help the middle class just isn’t very clear. Some of the policies that Democrats favor, such as broader access to good education, take years to pay off. Others, like reducing medical costs or building new roads, have an indirect, unnoticed effect on middle-class incomes ... The best hope for doing so, in the immediate future, is probably the oldest and most obvious play in the book: a tax cut ... any such tax cut could be paired with a tax increase for top earners ..."
House won't propose bill to keep government open until December. The Hill: "An omnibus spending bill that would prevent a government shutdown by funding federal agencies through September 2015 won’t be released for several weeks, House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing told The Hill on Monday. The bill will likely be released the week of Dec. 8, Hing said. The government will shut down after Dec. 11 without a new funding bill."
Republicans Gear Up For AG Nomination...
Republicans seek to push AG nominee on immigration. Politico: "The Republicans’ early strategy ... centers on whether the president has the authority to bypass Congress on immigration — allowing Republicans to write their own narrative on the nomination ... 'With Republicans on these issues, they always run the risk of overreach,' added a Senate Democratic leadership aide. 'She’s not tied to the administration, she hasn’t had a tie to any of these past executive actions. … Efforts to tie her down to that stuff would come across as overly political.'"
Dems likely won't push for quick confirmation vote. The Hill: "...aides say the time crunch and growing GOP opposition to Lynch make it exceedingly unlikely ... Reid needs Republican cooperation to pass other priorities in December, including an omnibus spending bill, a package extending a variety of expired tax cuts, the Defense Department authorization bill and dozens of lower-profile nominees ... In addition to that legislative to-do list, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is insisting on passing an overhaul of the National Security Agency (NSA) before the clock runs out on the Democratic majority."
...And To Fight EPA
Republicans prepare to fight climate rules. NYT: "...Republicans do not have the votes to repeal the E.P.A. regulations, which will have far more impact on curbing carbon emissions than stopping the [Keystone] pipeline, but they say they will use their new powers to delay, defund and otherwise undermine them."
Democrats seeing incoming Senate enviro committee chair as perfect foil. Politico: "[Sen. Jim Inhofe] is the Hill’s most flamboyant critic of climate research, denouncing the concept of man-made global warming as a 'hoax' and a 'conspiracy.' Now that he’s about to take charge of the committee that oversees environmental policy, Democrats aspire to make Inhofe the face of GOP know-nothingism, while at least one Republican consultant says his style of skepticism could create headaches for candidates up and down the ticket in 2016."
Breakfast Sides
Obama strikes trade agreement with China. Politico: "The U.S. and China have achieved a breakthrough that paves the way for countries to approve an expansion of the tariff-cutting Information Technology Agreement, which Beijing had blocked for more than a year ... The announcement was good news for U.S. businesses hoping to see the elimination of 25 percent tariffs on semiconductors and 8 percent duties on certain medical equipment, such as computerized tomography scanners and magnetic resonance imaging machines. China was reluctant to include those products in the proposed expansion of the pact in an attempt to boost the development of its own industries. ... The White House said in a fact sheet that the deal would support up to 60,000 additional U.S. jobs..."
Voter ID laws may have tipped three Senate races. W. Post's Catherine Rampell: "... some back-of-the-envelope calculations from Wendy Weiser — director of the Democracy Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice — should at least give us pause: Right now, it looks like the margin of victory in some of the most competitive races around the country was as big as the likely 'margin of disenfranchisement,' as Weiser puts it. That is, more people were newly denied the right to vote than actually cast deciding ballots."
Banks prepared to settle in currency case. Bloomberg: "Banks suspected of rigging the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency market are preparing to reach settlements as early as this week with the main U.S. derivatives regulator ... The Commodity Futures Trading Commission may levy fines of about $300 million against each firm, depending on the level of their involvement ... Investigations are under way on three continents as authorities probe allegations that dealers at the world’s biggest banks traded ahead of clients and colluded to rig benchmarks used by pension funds and money managers to determine what they pay for foreign currencies."
