MORNING MESSAGE
...
to date, the debate over TPP and fast track has produced more heat than light.
The president and his allies keep puffing the treaty’s potential to increase
exports without mentioning what it will do for imports. They keep arguing the
treaty will have the strongest labor rights provisions ever, while ignoring the
fact that Vietnam, designated as the major low-wage producer in the deal,
doesn’t even allow independent trade unions ... This week, the Congressional
Progressive Caucus broke through this mire, releasing its “Principles for Trade:
A Model for Global Progress.” The principles lay out elements of an alternative
trade strategy, one built to benefit workers, not investors, and to serve the
public interest, not the special interests of global companies and
banks.
All Eyes On Wyden
Impasse
on fast-track. W. Post: “Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch
(R-Utah) told reporters that his plans to introduce legislation to grant the
administration additional powers to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership …
would be delayed until April … [Sen. Ron] Wyden said his additional demands from
Hatch are aimed at answering concerns from fellow Democrats for more public
accountability in trade agreements.”
Wyden
wants fast-track “shut off.” NYT: “[Wyden is] trying to thread a maddeningly
narrow needle with proposals that would placate Democrats who worry that any
such deal will hasten the loss of United States manufacturing jobs while
assuring Republicans that he is not undermining the free flow of global commerce
… ‘Right now it’s kind of stuck because I think some of the Democrats want
things that we just can’t give them,’ Mr. Hatch said on Tuesday … [Wyden]
remains adamant that if the president brings forward a trade deal that falls
short of the standards expected by lawmakers, Congress should be able to suspend
trade-promotion authority so members can amend it.”
Swing Justices In Play On Obamacare
“Did
John Roberts Tip His Hand?” asks The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin: “Anthony
Kennedy had asked about ‘Chevron deference,’ a doctrine of law that describes
how much leeway the executive branch should have in interpreting laws. [The
Solicitor General], not surprisingly, said that the Chevron doctrine gave the
Obama Administration more than adequate permission to read the law to allow
subsidies on the federal exchange. ‘If you’re right about Chevron,’ Roberts
said, at long last, ‘that would indicate that a subsequent Administration could
change that interpretation?’ Perhaps it could, Verrilli conceded. The question
suggests a route out of the case for Roberts—and the potential for a victory for
the Obama Administration.”
Justice
Kennedy also may uphold. W. Post’s Ruth Marcus: “Kennedy’s concern involved
whether prohibiting subsidies on federal exchanges would be unfair — not to
citizens denied subsidies, mind you, but to states themselves. States, Kennedy
noted, would be put to the coercive choice of either setting up their own
exchanges or being stuck with the ensuing disaster … ‘It seems to me that under
your argument, perhaps you will prevail in the plain words of the statute,
there’s a serious constitutional problem if we accept your argument.'”
Bernie Frets About Prez Run
Sen.
Bernie Sanders wants to know if support is there for a presidential run, in
Buzzfeed interview: “If I do it, it has to be done well. And that’s not just
for my ego. The worst thing I could do is run a poor campaign without the
organizational support, without the money — and then have people say that the
ideas themselves are ideas that people don’t support.”
Warren
told Hillary to cut Wall Street ties. Politico: “In December, the former
secretary of state invited Warren to her mansion on Whitehaven Street in
Washington … Warren suggested that the probable Democratic frontrunner do more
to distance herself from the titans of finance and advised her to stock the
White House economic team and Treasury Department with fewer big-bank Wall
Street types and more outsiders …”
Democrats
prepare effort to win back state legislatures. Politico: “A delegation of
about 20 Democratic state legislators from around the country representing a
group called the State Innovation Exchange is planning to huddle on Thursday and
Friday with administration officials in the White House, with Sen. Elizabeth
Warren on the Hill and with policy experts at the Center for American
Progress.”
Breakfast Sides
Republicans
push bill through Senate overturning union election reform. AP: “The
Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday voted 53 to 46 to kill a National
Labor Relations Board rule reducing the time between a union’s request for
representation and a vote by workers on it. The legislation now goes to the
House … the Senate vote indicates that supporters are far from the two-thirds
majority that would be needed to override him.”
Sen.
McConnell urges states to ignore EPA climate rules. NYT: “‘Think twice
before submitting a state plan — which could lock you in to federal enforcement
and expose you to lawsuits — when the administration is standing on shaky legal
ground and when, without your support, it won’t be able to demonstrate the
capacity to carry out such political extremism,’ Mr. McConnell wrote [in an
oped].”
Corporations
are skimming off the top, instead of investing in the economy. W. Post’s Harold
Meyerson: “In the 1960s and ’70s, about 40 cents of every dollar that a
corporation either borrowed or realized in net earnings went into investment in
its facilities, research or new hires. Since the ’80s, however, just 10 cents of
those dollars have gone to investment … the money that once went to expansion
and new ventures has gone instead into shareholders’ pockets.”
CFPB
readying payday lender rules for this month. The Hill: “…it is likely to
target short-term loans, including those requiring a borrower’s car title as
collateral. The CFPB is also believed to be weighing restrictions on lenders’
ability to automatically roll over loans and electronically debit payments from
customers’ bank accounts, as well as language requiring them to determine a
borrower’s ability to repay a loan.”
Progressive
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