Greece Braces For Bailout's End
Greece shuts its banks until after July 5 referendum. Bloomberg: "The bank controls followed a weekend of turmoil that started with Tsipras’s shock announcement late Friday of a July 5 referendum on austerity ... While Tsipras and his government urged a 'no' vote in the referendum, he repeated his request to the European Commission to extend the bailout at least until the ballot."
Greece should vote "no," says NYT's Paul Krugman: "First, we now know that ever-harsher austerity is a dead end: after five years Greece is in worse shape than ever. Second, much and perhaps most of the feared chaos from Grexit has already happened. With banks closed and capital controls imposed, there’s not that much more damage to be done. Finally, acceding to the troika’s ultimatum would represent the final abandonment of any pretense of Greek independence."
A Greek exit from the euro may be no big deal, argues Zachary Karabell in Politico Magazine: "...even a yes vote to accept the further budget and pension cuts along with tax increases may come too late to halt a chain reaction that will force Greece to abandon the euro ... [But] Greece’s GDP is the size of Delaware ... there is, as many have said, only one end of the world, and this isn’t it."
Hillary Braces For Bernie Wins
Bernie Sanders increasingly threatens Hillary Clinton, says W. Post: "Sanders’s emerging strength has exposed continued misgivings among the party’s progressive base about Clinton, whose team is treading carefully in its public statements. Supporters have acknowledged privately the potential for Sanders to damage her — perhaps winning an early state or two — even if he can’t win the nomination."
Jeb Bush could end filibuster to repeal Obamacare. Bloomberg: "Appearing on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, the former Florida governor was asked if he'd [end] the legislative filibuster to replace the Affordable Care Act ... 'I'd have to see—if the repeal is what I'm going to advocate, then I might consider that,' he said..."
Breakfast Sides
Congress remains divided how to pay for extending the highway trust fund. The Hill: "Senate Democratic leaders ... want to pay for it by requiring U.S. corporations to repatriate overseas profits at a 14 percent tax rate ... and tax future foreign earnings at 19 percent ... Republican Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) has called for increasing federal taxes on gasoline and diesel by 12 cents over two years and indexing it to inflation ... [Grover] Norquist said Congress would have more funding for highway construction projects if it wipes out the federal requirement established by the Davis-Bacon Act to pay local prevailing wages ... [Rep. Paul] Ryan has opposed paying for increased transportation funding by taxing overseas profits because he wants to use the reservoir of funding for a broader tax reform initiative."
Hawaii leads nation in rooftop solar. WSJ: "More than 50,000 houses in the state act as tiny power plants, putting any electricity that they don’t use onto the grid. But grids were designed to zip electrons across high-voltage wires from a few big power plants to homes and businesses; they were not made to work the other way around. ... making it tough to absorb bursts of solar power added to the grid on sunny days or make up for a sudden drop on cloudy ones."
Maine's right-wing governor may get impeached. NYT: "[A charter] school had hired Mark Eves, the Democratic speaker of the House and a LePage foe, as its next president, starting Wednesday. Mr. LePage said Mr. Eves was unfit to lead the school, and threatened to withhold more than $500,000 in annual state money unless the hiring was rescinded ... Representative Jeffrey Evangelos, an independent, was among those who began researching impeachment proceedings last week on the grounds of abuse of authority, misuse of assets and unbecoming conduct."
