GOP To Politicize CBO
Republicans reportedly reject re-appointment of CBO chief. Bloomberg: "The move comes after a campaign from conservative lawmakers who want to change the way the CBO calculates the costs of government ... They agreed with calls from incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price for a new director who might introduce so-called dynamic scoring to CBO analysis. Dynamic scoring is the idea that policy changes can induce significant macroeconomic effects, such as tax cuts partially paying for themselves. Democrats say the method is unproven and relies on too many assumptions."
Incoming Sen. Majority Leader tries to convince conservatives on strategy to squeeze Obama. NYT: " Mr. McConnell ... acknowledges that changing the mind-set of opposition he helped instill in his colleagues will be crucial to advancing legislation that will attract Democratic support and force Mr. Obama into difficult choices over whether to sign measures pushed by his adversaries ... Mr. McConnell’s strategy is to pass each of the 12 spending bills individually and mix restraints on administration policy and rule making in the bills, along with spending favored by the White House, leaving the questions of approving the measure or shutting government agencies in the president’s hands."
One Wall Streeter Goes Down
Mortgage executive forced out. TNR's David Dayen: "...New York Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky ... announced [William] Erbey would step down chairman of Ocwen and four related businesses, as part of the settlement of an investigation into the company’s sad enduring legacy of ripping off homeowners. It isn’t a prison sentence. But on the spectrum of accountability for financial industry executives, 'forced to resign' beats 'suffered no consequences while staying in power.'"
HuffPost's Robert Kuttner charges Sen. Chuck Schumer with enabling Dodd-Frank rollback: "Schumer went out of his way to keep his fingerprints far away from this measure. What reconciled the senator's conflicting political interests was a strategy that let others take the lead in promoting the swaps push-out rider, but to signal his Wall Street allies that he was doing nothing to oppose the measure -- and then to scream bloody murder when a journalist suggested that he might have had anything to do with it."
Union Win On Organizing, Loss On Pensions
Union members livid at congressionally-mandated pension cuts. CNN: "More than a million current and retired truck drivers, construction workers and other union employees could see their pension benefits cut now that Congress has passed a controversial new measure ... However, any cuts would ultimately require government approval and will only be allowed at those plans ... projected to become insolvent in the next 10 to 20 years ... In the meantime, the fund's retirees and others are in another waiting game, wondering when -- and by how much -- their checks could be cut."
NLRB eases faculty unionization. NYT: "The ruling, in a case involving a union drive by contingent faculty at Pacific Lutheran University, sets out frameworks for deciding which faculty members are managerial and not eligible for a union, and which religious institutions and faculty are exempt from the labor board oversight. In both areas, the labor board substantially expanded the group covered by labor laws and eligible to join unions ... 'This is a huge decision for higher ed, where 75 percent of us are now contingent faculty,' said Jane Harty, a music lecturer at Pacific Lutheran..."
