MORNING MESSAGE
The
“fast track” trade bill introduced last week by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has a number of problems ... Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.),
ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, on Thursday offered an
alternative, the Right Track for TPP Act of 2015 ... This bill is a fast track
process for doing trade right — or at least for modifying the secretly
negotiated TPP so it can be somewhat palatable to more of us than just the 1
percent. Unfortunately, the House Ways and Means Committee’s chairman, Rep. Paul
Ryan (R-Wis.), ruled the substitute measure “out of order,” ...
Upcoming Events Next Week Tackle Inequality
Sen.
Elizabeth Warren’s and Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Middle Class Prosperity Project
visits Howard University Monday, 2:30 PM: “The forum will focus on
the effect of rising college costs on the middle class particularly the debt
challenges facing students at HBCUs, community colleges, for-profit colleges and
non-traditional students paying for higher education.”
“Color
of Wealth Summit” convenes Thursday, 8:30 AM at U.S. Capitol Visitor
Center: “For every dollar in wealth held by the typical white family
in 2011, the typical Latino and African-American families only owned seven and
six cents respectively. Members of Congress and leading economic policy experts
will explore the implications of wealth inequality…”
Fast Track Moves Ahead In The House
House
Ways & Means approves fast track on mostly party-line vote. The Hill:
“…only two Democrats [lent] their support to the divisive bill, highlighting the
difficulty President Obama is having courting members of his own party. As
expected, Democratic Reps. Ron Kind (Wis.) and Earl Blumenauer (Ore.) backed the
measure.”
House
GOPers say they have the votes for fast-track. Politico: “‘In fact, we do
have the votes to pass the bill,’ House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions
[said] … The latest indication of the GOP’s dominance on the issue: Rep. Paul
Ryan snubbed Sander Levin’s alternative … Levin bristled in his low-key way when
he learned his amendment wouldn’t even get a vote …”
Currency
provision may complicate TPP negotiations. NYT: “Treasury Secretary Jacob J.
Lew maneuvered for months to avoid a requirement that future trade accords
include measures to prevent countries from artificially depressing their
currencies, which make their exports cheaper and United States imports more
expensive … Senators in both parties disagreed … The amendment was added to a
separate customs enforcement bill … a victory of sorts for the administration …
But lawmakers said they would move in coming weeks to merge the customs and
trade promotion bills.”
President
Obama levels pointed criticisms at anti-TPP progressives, at Organizing for
Action summit speech. The Hill quotes: “When people say this trade deal is
bad for working families, they don’t know what they’re talking about … I take
that personally. My entire presidency has been about helping working families …
Someone coming up with a slogan like ‘death panels’ doesn’t mean it’s true … You
need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed
25 years ago.”
Will Clinton Take Warren's Ideas?
Hillary
Clinton still hasn’t embraced any of Sen. Warren’s positions. Mother Jones:
“Take the speech [Warren] gave last week at an economics conference in New York
… offering a wide-ranging list of ideas about how the government could build on
Dodd-Frank … Mother Jones sent a detailed list of these policy proposals to the
Clinton campaign for comment, but it declined to weigh in on any specifics…”
Hillary
knocks GOPers at “Women In The World” event. W. Post quotes: “There are
those who offer themselves as leaders who would deport mothers working to give
their children a better life, rather than risk the ire of talk radio … There are
those who would offer themselves as leaders who would even play politics with
the nomination of our nation’s chief law enforcement officer and victims of
human trafficking … It isn’t leadership. It isn’t going to create a single job
or strengthen anyone’s wages.”
Will Republicans Get Any New Ideas?
Republican
presidential candidates stuck on discredited “zombie” ideas, says NYT’s Paul
Krugman: “Start with Mr. Christie, who thought he was being smart and brave
by proposing that we raise the age of eligibility for both Social Security and
Medicare to 69 … [That] would impose a great deal of hardship [but] save
remarkably little money … every prominent Republican talks about Obamacare as if
all the predicted disasters have, in fact, come to pass … Tax proposals like
Marco Rubio’s would create a giant hole in the budget, then claim that this hole
would be filled by a miraculous economic upsurge. Supply-side economics, it’s
now clear, is the ultimate zombie: no amount of evidence or logic can kill
it.”
Iowa
conservatives wary over Scott Walker’s rhetorical shifts. Des Moines
Register: “Republican Scott Walker’s last public event in Iowa six weeks ago
began a wave of scrutiny about whether he has changed his mind on a series of
issues — ethanol mandates, immigration, common core academic standards, same-sex
marriage and others. … ‘I wouldn’t say it’s a red flag yet, but it’s a concern
right now,’ Sam Clovis, a well-known conservative leader who lives in the Sioux
City area … ‘People are confused about where he stands on certain issues.'”
Gov.
John Kasich hints at platform for possible bid. USA Today: “He said Social
Security needs ‘major surgery’ but did not endorse any specific entitlement cuts
or changes. He said he wants to overhaul the tax code — perhaps with a flat tax
— but emphasized that he hadn’t endorsed a detailed proposal yet … he met with
about 20 Republicans to push his balanced budget amendment.”
Breakfast Sides
Bloomberg
Michael Lewis’ argues flash crash arrest argues for regulatory reforms: “The
authors of the SEC report either consciously ignored or did not bother to
acquire from the CFTC a lot of accessible, and damning, information about what
was happening in the U.S. stock markets the day of the flash crash. The world
will now want to know why they did this. (And why we should not instantly listen
to Paul Volcker and fold these two regulators into one.)”
Boehner
slightly pessimistic on bipartisan tax reform. Bloomberg: “The Ohio
Republican cited a ’50-50 chance at best’ during an interview Thursday … ‘The
challenge there is how do you deal with 70 percent of American businesses that
don’t pay corporate tax rates’ … President Barack Obama and many Democrats and
Republicans, including House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, agree that they
want to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent and curb business tax
breaks to help pay for it. They would leave individual rates alone to avoid a
politically charged fight.”
Progressive
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