MORNING MESSAGE
Tax
day. In the District of Columbia, the main post office stays open until
midnight. Taxpayers who waited until the last moment line up to get a receipt
showing they filed on time. America’s civic ritual. But not everyone
participates. America’s major corporations – Apple, Pfizer, Microsoft, Citigroup
– have stashed a stunning $2.4 trillion abroad in order to avoid paying an
estimated $700 billion in taxes.
BURNING ISSUES: WHEN FRACKING GOES GLOBAL
Fracking
is rapidly becoming a global concern, says Jesse Coleman, a research
investigator for Greenpeace, in this Burning Issues video segment.
ONE DAY TO NY
Sanders
says discount NY polls, on NBC’s “Today.” Politico: “‘Generally speaking,
polling has underestimated how we do in elections.’ Sanders noted that his
campaign was down by as many as 25 points in Michigan before it pulled off the
upset victory on March 8. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls of
likely voters … Clinton leads Sanders by nearly 13 percentage points…”
Working
Families Party could boost Bernie in NY. Mother Jones: “‘They have the best
political operation in New York,’ says Bill O’Reilly, a Republican consultant in
the state … For months, the party has been engaged in voter outreach on Sanders’
behalf—knocking on doors, phone banking, talking to local leaders, and helping
Sanders draw local endorsements.”
Sanders
stumps at public housing complex. W. Post: “Bernie Sanders on Sunday brought
his presidential campaign to a run-down public housing complex in Brooklyn,
usually an overlooked destination on the road to the White House, in a bid to
underscore what he characterized as the nation’s misguided spending
priorities.”
Sanders’
Vatican speech delivers economic populist message on global stage: “The
challenges facing our planet are not mainly technological or even financial,
because as a world we are rich enough to increase our investments in skills,
infrastructure, and technological know-how to meet our needs and to protect the
planet. Our challenge is mostly a moral one, to redirect our efforts and vision
to the common good.”
Clinton
touts bipartisanship in conservative Staten Island. W. Post: “Clinton told
the crowd that bipartisanship shouldn’t be a dirty word. After 9/11, she
recalled telling President George W. Bush that New York would need $20 billion
to rebuild and aid families. ‘He said: “You’ve got it,”‘ Clinton said. ‘Despite
intense Republican pressure to back down.'”
W.
Post’s E. J. Dionne urges Clinton and Sanders to start the healing: “Will
both candidates now acknowledge that the differences between them are minor
compared with the philosophical chasm that separates them from any of their
potential Republican foes?”
CRUZ SCOOPS US DELEGATES
Cruz
winning the inside game. Politico: “In Georgia. In Wyoming. In South
Carolina. In Kansas. In Florida. Ted Cruz put on a clinic, mobilizing his GOP
activist base to capture at least 50 delegates on Saturday while Trump came away
with about a dozen … Cruz has dominated these delegate selection battles, even
in states whose primaries Trump won handily.”
Trump
rips “rigged” system. NYT: “…speaking to reporters on Staten Island, Mr.
Trump said he hoped that the July convention ‘doesn’t involve violence’ ‘And I
don’t think it will,” he said. ‘But I will say this: It’s a rigged system. It’s
a crooked system. It’s 100 percent crooked.'”
RNC
convention rules fight already begun. Politico: “At issue: a controversial
proposal that would drastically alter how the convention would function,
changing the underlying rule book for proceedings — and potentially affecting
whether party insiders could draft a so-called white knight at a deadlocked
convention. Rules Committee Chairman Bruce Ash criticized RNC Chairman Reince
Priebus and his allies in an email Saturday to his panel, accusing them of
working to scuttle the proposal and prevent it from getting a hearing at this
week’s RNC spring meeting…”
IMMIGRATION BATTLE REACHES SUPREME COURT
Supreme
Court to hear arguments today on Obama’s immigration orders. W. Post: “The
court’s decision in United States v. Texas, which is expected in late June, will
determine whether the administration can begin enrolling illegal immigrants in a
federal program to grant them work permits without fear of deportation … [If the
Court] deadlocks at 4-to-4, the lower-court ruling would remain in place. In
that case, other states or advocacy groups could attempt to file suit in other
jurisdictions in hopes of winning a favorable ruling to move forward with the
program…”
Former
Republican Senator Dick Lugar defends Obama’s executive action on immigration in
NYT oped: “… by its nature, immigration enforcement requires executive
discretion … When the president took his executive action on immigration, he was
not flouting the will of Congress; rather, he was using the discretion Congress
gave him to fulfill his constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be
faithfully executed.'”
BREAKFAST SIDES
House
Dems have strong fundraising quarter. W. Post: “Down 30 seats, it’s a tall
order [to win the House], but a torrid fundraising pace set by the party’s
national campaign organ means they have reasons to hope. The Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee raised $24.9 million in the first quarter of
2015 — the committee’s best-ever Q1 fundraising total…”
Jared
Bernstein offers progressive tax reform ideas for Tax Day in W. Post: “Stop
defunding the IRS … Close the carried-interest loophole … End deferral [by
multinationals] … Stop privileging debt financing…”
Progressive
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