Progressive Breakfast: Fifty Shades of Austerity: The Germans, The Greeks, and the GOP

MORNING MESSAGE

Negotiations broke down Monday after the Europeans presented Greece with an ultimatum it must have known would be rejected ... It seems somehow appropriate that this week’s Euro-showdown came just after American audiences gave “Fifty Shades of Gray” a record-breaking opening weekend. There are those in the United States who share the Germans’ economic kink – they’re called Republicans – and the hostility underlying their austerity fetish is revealed from time to time in moments of unintended candor.

Deportation Relief Delayed

WH expects to prevail after federal judge blocks deportation relief. W. Post:Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Tuesday that his department will comply with a federal judge’s order to halt the controversial immigration actions President Obama announced in November, but he expressed confidence that the administration will win its upcoming appeal.”
Judicial ruling clearly activist, says NYT edit board: “To get to where he clearly wanted to go, Judge Hanen first had to find that the 26 plaintiff states have standing — that is, the legal capacity — to sue the administration over the new policy. He ruled that at least Texas did because the actions would force the state to spend scarce resources providing things like driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. Judge Hanen said the costs were the result of the federal government’s ‘failure to secure the borders,’ and he noted the millions of dollars that states spend to educate ‘each illegal alien child,’ even though, as he knows, the Constitution already requires states to provide that education.”
Obama’s immigration hopes lie with Supreme Court. Politico: “Obama vowed to appeal the ruling, but that challenge will head to a court considered the most conservative federal appeals court in the country: the 5th Circuit … The White House’s best chance to get Obama’s immigration efforts back on track may lie with the Supreme Court, which issued a 5-3 ruling in 2012 backing strong discretion for the federal government in immigration enforcement…”
Homeland Security fears short-term funding solution. Politico: “…a continuing resolution is just about the worst way that Congress could solve the funding problem, short of actually shutting the department down …. A continuing resolution wouldn’t include any of the money the department is supposed to get for new initiatives — it just keeps last year’s funding on autopilot. And it can’t issue the grants that help pay for emergency response and equipment upgrades, as well as the ones that fund surveillance cameras to look for terrorists in New York.”
McConnell fails to seize opportunity for a deal. The Hill: “‘He certainly has not looked that way thus far,’ said a senior Democratic aide. ‘He could have said, “This issue is being discussed in the courts; that’s the appropriate venue. Let’s keep the fight there and fund DHS in the meantime.”‘”

Bernie Backs Free College

Sen. Bernie Sanders proposes two years of free tuition at public colleges. The Hill: “Sanders, who is mulling a 2016 White House run, said rising college costs are preventing young people from going to college and are leaving many students in debt. ‘This is absurd. This is absolutely counter-productive to our efforts to create a strong economy,’ he said, adding that the United States is lagging behind other countries where college is free.”
Investing in community college students pays off, finds NYT’s Eduardo Porter: “A few years ago, the City University of New York began Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, which covered any tuition not already provided by financial aid. It offered students free textbooks and MetroCards for the subway. Crucially, it offered intense tutoring … [The] program roughly doubled the three-year graduation rate among the most disadvantaged students, those who initially needed remediation classes.”

Breakfast Sides

Hillary met with Warren in December, reports NYT: “Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren … [Warren’s] confidants have suggested that she would use her Senate perch during the 2016 campaign to nudge Mrs. Clinton to embrace causes like curtailing the power of large financial institutions … [Clinton] is intent on developing an economic platform that can speak to her party’s populist wing and excite working class voters without alienating allies in the business community.”
Obama weighs intervening in labor dispute. Politico: “President Barack Obama may have to intervene directly in the West Coast ports dispute, becoming the first Democratic president since Jimmy Carter to impose a resolution on a private labor-management conflict. The slowdown in shipping comes at an especially awkward time for Obama, who is trying to push through a global trade deal largely opposed by organized labor … Labor and management both know that, should [Labor Sec] Perez also fail and the stalemate continue, the next logical step would be for the president to declare a national emergency under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and force a solution.”
Tax breaks to encourage savings mostly help rich. Bloomberg: “The federal government spent $384 billion in 2013 on tax incentives that encourage savings, linked mainly to home ownership and retirement plans … The highest-earning fifth of U.S. taxpayers got about two-thirds of the tax refunds … while the bottom fifth received less than 1 percent, a report by the Urban Institute shows.”
Greece may ask for a 6-month loan extension. Bloomberg: “Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government intends to make the request on Wednesday … German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble signaled it may not be enough … ‘there is no loan agreement, it’s an assistance program … Greece would like to receive credit, but not fulfill the conditions’…”

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