Phony GOP Attack On House Rules
American Enterprise Institute's Norm Ornstein rips Republicans for hypocrisy on procedure: "...I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news ... In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times [and it] was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld)."
"Deem and Pass" Is NOT "Without A Vote" notes OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "If any members of the House do not want to deem the Senate bill passed, they can vote 'No' on the rule which would deem it passed. Any members of the House who vote 'Yes,' would do so by recorded vote, so their constituents will be able to judge their actions."
HuffPost's slams media for awful reporting on the phony attack: "This is all about the House Democrats being scared out of their minds that they'll have to spend even an hour explaining, 'No, we do not approve of the Cornhusker Kickback.' But that's America, circa 2010. It makes the Democrats look timid, but it doesn't make them wrong."
Dems turn process charge back on GOP and insurance industry. The Hill quotes Speaker Pelosi: “If you want to talk about process, let’s talk about the process that the insurance companies use when they say to you, ‘When you become sick, your insurance is cancelled.’ When they say to you ‘You’re on your way to an operation, but your insurance is rescinded because we just feel like it, and we can do it so we will.’” Pelosi said at a press conference. “Or what they say when they say to somebody, ‘You have a preexisting condition and so you cannot have health insurance.’ ... Let’s talk about that process."
TPM's Josh Marshall says Rep. Eric Cantor's demand for an up or down vote on the original senate health care reform bill "taketh the cake": "Really? Have we forgotten why we're here? The entire reason we're in this situation is that Cantor's fellow party members in the Senate won't allow any votes on health care at all."
Weak Tea Party turnout for anti-health care rally. HuffPost: "Tea Party organizers told CNN that somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 people gathered today in Washington D.C. But the Democratic National Committee estimates placed the number of attendees at a mere 300, an amount that they later mocked and used as evidence that 'the air is out of the tea party balloon,' as DNC spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine said..."
NBC/WSJ poll finds political risk for congresspeople no matter which way they vote: "If their representative votes with Republicans to defeat the bill, 34 percent say they would be less likely to re-elect that member ... But if their member of Congress votes with Democrats to pass the legislation, 36 percent say they would be less likely to re-elect that member ... Translation: 'There is no easy place right now in the health care debate,' says McInturff, the GOP pollster."
Congress still fine-tuning final bill to achieve strong cost estimate from CBO. Bloomberg: "Among the issues House leaders and the CBO are discussing are the size of subsidies for middle- and low-income families; changes to the Medicare payroll tax; the amount of funding states get for Medicaid programs for the poor and disabled, and payments to doctors who take Medicaid patients [as well as] the provision affecting the so-called 'doughnut hole,'..."
CBO wait risks delaying vote past this weekend. Roll Call: "That delay appeared to push a vote to Saturday at the earliest because House leaders want to give Members at least 72 hours to read the bill. If the package isn’t unveiled Wednesday, Democrats would not be able to keep the 72-hour rule and vote before President Barack Obama is scheduled to leave for his trip to Indonesia and Australia."
Anti-health care corporate lobbies vastly outspending reform advocates in final days. Politico: "...a pro-reform coalition announced that it would spend $1.7 million on advertising in about 17 districts urging House members to back the final bills and pledging support come the November midterms. But opponents, led by the Chamber and a coalition of other business trade groups, are spending about $750,000 a day, in essentially the same districts."
Howard Fineman reports on MSNBC that Rep. Dennis Kucinich will announce switch to "Yes" at press conference today. FireDogLake's Jane Hamsher calls on Kucinich to return donations if true.
"Members of the middle class are losing their health insurance faster than any other income group, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, reports HuffPost.
"Big Insurance Rate Increase for Pennsylvania Poor" headlines NYT.
NYT chronicles Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's strategy of non-stop obstruction: "Even Mr. McConnell’s fellow Republicans say somewhat admiringly that he can be a secretive and coldly calculating tactician with an eye for political openings, someone more consumed by political strategy than ideology or philosophy."
Dodd Bill Hit From All Sides
Bank lobbyists poring through Dodd bill. Politico: "Banks, credit unions and financial firms that operate in more than one state are taking aim at language that would enable states to pass stronger consumer protection rules than the federal statutes ... The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ... is already increasing its ad buys inside and outside the Beltway opposing the consumer [protection agency] piece in Dodd’s bill."
Republicans on banking cmte complain Dodd is moving too fast, but leave door open to support: "Most of the unhappy GOP senators are expressing their displeasure in temperate terms, leaving alive hope that they may still come on board at some point in the legislative process. But not all ... In a positive sign for the bill’s Senate prospects, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), No. 4 in GOP leadership said ... 'a lot of our people do want to vote for something.'"
GOP has no strategy on financial reform yet, reports Roll Call: "More so than on any other issue this Congress, Republicans appear nearly unanimous in their hope that a consensus can be reached and that the Senate ultimately produces a bill that they can support. But several influential Republicans acknowledged Tuesday that the Conference has yet to settle on a road map for financial regulation and is stuck in a wait-and-see mode."
Lobbyists opposing new fee to assist with identifying systemic risk. CQ: "[The bill] contains a provision that would result in assessments on financial institutions with more than $50 billion in assets [to] fund a new Office of Financial Research ... on top of cash that large institutions would have to pay into another fund to cover the potential collapse of large financial firms..."
Fed will control CFPA budget notes Dean Baker: "This means that if the Fed believes that the agency is causing too much trouble to the financial industry, it would have the power to squeeze its budget so that it would become less troublesome."
NYT op-ed contributor Daniel Carpenter rips decision to put CFPA in Fed: " The Fed’s politically reactive posture is the exact opposite of the sustained care that consumer financial protection demands."
Bernanke to argue for retaining all bank oversight in congressional testimony today. Bloomberg: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank is best qualified to oversee the largest financial institutions and should retain its oversight of smaller banks as well."
W. Post Ezra Klein argues the Dodd bill fails to deal with failed regulators: "...this bill gives those failed regulators more power and autonomy, not less. It deals with the information that they didn't have and it deals with the authority they didn't have, but it doesn't deal with their failure to want to regulate."
Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo defends Dodd approach to "too-big-to-fail": "...it bars financial firms from owning more than 10 percent of the assets in the financial system, while creating a Financial Stability Oversight Council ... that will recommend stricter capital and leverage standards for firms as they grow ... firms will have to write living wills, laying out their interconnectedness and liabilities in the event that they fail ... on this piece, he does seem to have thought through a workable way to ensure that firms have a hard time becoming gigantic, and have no expectation of a taxpayer funded bailout, regardless of their size."
PRWatch.org's Mary Bottari lists 7 positives and 6 negatives of the Dodd bill, including criticism of "too-big-to-fail" provisions: "Capital requirements and leveraging requirements to be set by regulators [but] No break up of the too big to fail banks, no prevention of too big to fail."
Bipartisan Bill Presses China On Currency
Bipartisan Senate bill aims to pressure China on currency manipulation. CQ: "The measure unveiled Tuesday ... would change the criteria used in making that decision and force Treasury to report to Congress biannually on 'fundamentally misaligned currencies' ... If the “priority” countries did not address alignment concerns within 90 days, the administration would be required to take action at the International Monetary Fund and end federal procurement from those countries. After 360 days, the U.S. Trade Representative would be required to request dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization ... Prospects for action [at the committee level] remain unclear..."
NYT edit board calls for international response to China: "One way would be to press the I.M.F. to officially pronounce on whether China is breaking the rules and manipulating its exchange rate. That is part of the fund’s job ... it would help if some other countries — certainly those in the European Union, but perhaps aspiring players including India and South Korea — started publicly making the case that the cheap renminbi is hurting them, too."
Weak WH Jobs Forecast
Pessimistic WH jobs forecast spurs congressional calls for greater infrastructure investment. The Hill: "Net monthly job growth for this year would be about 100,000, a pace not quick enough to substantially cut the 9.7 percent jobless rate, said White House economist Christina Romer ... Jobs would grow at a faster pace in coming years — about 200,000 per month in 2011 and 250,000 in 2012 — but that still wouldn’t be enough to bring the jobless rate down to pre-recession levels ... A number of Democrats called on the administration to create a new national infrastructure bank to finance projects, instead of devoting $4 billion to an infrastructure fund."
Senate skittish on using TARP funds for Main Street jobs. CQ: "House Democrats said they would take $75 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program ... to pay for part of the $154 billion jobs bill ... But the TARP idea is running into problems in the Senate ... Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said ... he does not view the funding shift as a valid way to prevent deficit growth..."
Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Russ Carnahan seek to help local transit avoid service cuts and layoffs. Streetsblog: "The Brown-Carnahan measure would allow urban areas -- now barred from spending federal money on operating, save for 10 percent of their stimulus allocations -- to use between 30 percent and one-half of their federal transit grants to defray the cost of keeping trains and buses running. The bill also would free up more funding for urban transit agencies that have demonstrated cuts in carbon emissions after getting anti-pollution stimulus grants ... "
Conservatives Shill For Bank Lobby on Student Loan Reform
Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo flags conservative congresspeople shilling for bank lobby, calling student loan reform a "job-killer": "... let’s recognize the congressmen’s statements for what they are: a defense of wasting taxpayer money on loan companies that add no value to the educational experience."
Republicans use "government takeover" talking point to defend government subsidies to private student lenders. W. Post: "Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said student borrowers would receive worse service if the government monopolizes the business ... Democrats and the Obama administration said that the guaranteed loan program amounts to a giveaway to banks that could be better spent on students."
Next Steps On Climate In Senate Unclear
President Clinton urges Senate to tackle climate and create jobs: "Former President Bill Clinton urged Senate Democrats to pass energy and climate change legislation that he said would provide an economic spark to the U.S."
Draft Senate bill to be modeled by EPA soon, next steps unclear. The Hill: "Reid noted that the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has already approved a broad energy measure ... 'The question is, do we amend that with the climate change stuff, or do we come up with a new bill to take care of all that?' Reid said ... Lieberman told reporters Tuesday that they hope to have draft legislative language by the end of next week to provide to EPA for modeling."
Grist's Josh Nelson asks "Is Senator Graham looking for an excuse to bail on climate legislation?": "When democrats pass health care legislation in the next few days, Senator Graham will have a potentially career-defining decision to make. He can take the easy route, the predictable path, by joining
republicans in an orchestrated tantrum and an attempt to completely shut down the government. Or he can do what he knows is right and continue working for clean energy legislation that will create jobs, reduce pollution and improve our national security."
Christian Coalition running ads supporting Graham's efforts on climate bill. CBS: "There is certainly room for bipartisan support on the issue, however. The Christian Coalition of America, founded by conservative televangelist Pat Robertson, supports climate change legislation and last week released a radio ad urging its supporters to call Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and encourage him to continue working on the issue."
Carbon tax on motor fuels, instead of carbon cap, may win Big Oil support for climate compromise. Politico: "Supporters believe that consumers will opt to lower their fuel consumption if gas prices increase. Oil companies think the bill is fairer because it puts greater impetus to lower emissions on consumers than on producers, which, they argue, are just responding to market forces ... Revenues from the tax would be used to fund programs promoting cleaner transportation options like public transit, bike and pedestrian projects and carpooling." EARLIER from Wonk Room: "American Petroleum Institute Tells Lawmakers It Supports Carbon Fee Because It’s Easier To Demonize."
Climate Progress on new CAP-NRDC-UAW report finding climate policy will create manufacturing jobs: "...saving oil will create good jobs, not in the abstract, but directly by driving demand for specific additional manufactured components. The move to greater fuel economy means greater labor content per vehicle and higher employment across the fleet ... . By 2020 this analysis shows ... supplying the U.S. automobile market with more efficient cars could provide a net gain of over 190,000 new jobs from improvements to fuel economy alone."
