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The Latin American Iron And Steel Conference Announce New Speaker: Aristides Corbellini, Steel Department Director of VALE (NYSE:VALE)

by on April 13, 2011

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The Latin American Iron And Steel Conference Announce New Speaker: Aristides Corbellini, Steel Department Director of VALE (NYSE:VALE)

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The Latin American Iron And Steel Conference Announce New Speaker: Aristides Corbellini, Steel Department Director of VALE (NYSE:VALE)

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WATCH: Boehner Discusses Budget Deal, Says GOP Won’t ‘Roll Over’ On Debt

by on April 11, 2011

Huffington Post…

House Speaker John Boehner spoke about a budget deal struck between Democratic and Republican leaders late last Friday to avert a government shutdown during an appearance on Fox News on Monday. In the exclusive interview , Boehner defended the spending agreement, which left some conservative lawmakers less than pleased , and offered a glimpse into budget negotiations that unfolded behind-the-scenes. Asked to discuss a reportedly tense moment when Vice President Joe Biden lost his temper with the Speaker, Boehner described the heated outburst as “feigned moral outrage.” He said, however, that the behavior was “out of character” for the vice president and afterwards they “just moved on” from the incident. As for President Barack Obama, he said that while they “certainly haven’t always agreed” when it comes to policy issues, they “understand each other better” and were “honest” and “straight up” with one another over the course of the budget negotiations. In the interview, Boehner also addressed the prospect of raising the debt ceiling, an issue expected to take center stage in a looming and potentially more intense fiscal showdown. “I think not raising the debt limit would have serious, very serious implications for the world-wide economy and jobs here in America,” he said, adding, “But having said that, we’re just not going to do the typical Washington thing, roll over, increase the debt limit with addressing the underlying problem.” Boehner said that the government “needs to listen” to the fiscally conservative message of the Tea Party when it comes to tackling the economic issue. CBS News reported on Sunday: President Obama, who is advocating to raise the level at which the U.S. government is legally permitted to borrow, so as not to cause a default on payments, has said he wants to see a “clean” bill on the matter – one without attachments. The leading Republicans in the House says no way. On Saturday night House Speaker John Boehner declared, “The president says, ‘I want you to send me a clean bill.’ Guess what, Mr. President. Not a chance you’re going to get a clean bill.” While speaking on Fox News, however, Boehner did say, “We do not want to default on our debt and we should not default on our debt.” In an op-ed published by USA Today on Monday, Bohner said the budget deal last week “is far from perfect” and there’s much more to be done to rehabilitate the economy. “More of the same spending, taxing and borrowing will not make our economy stronger or our future brighter,” he wrote. “This is why the spending cut agreement is important. While not nearly enough, these cuts represent a first step in taking our nation off the path to national bankruptcy, to giving employers the confidence they need to expand their businesses, and to sparing our children of lives indebted to foreign countries such as China.” WATCH: Part One WATCH: Part Two

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WATCH: Boehner Discusses Budget Deal, Says GOP Won’t ‘Roll Over’ On Debt

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John Boehner: Let’s Cut Entitlements

March 4, 2011

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he’s determined to offer a budget this spring that curbs Social Security and Medicare, despite the political risks, and that Republicans will try to persuade voters that sacrifices are needed.

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The Hollow Cry Of ‘Broke’: New York Times Editorial

March 3, 2011

“We’re broke! We’re broke!” Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday. “We’re broke in this state,” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said a few days ago. “New Jersey’s broke,” Gov. Chris Christie has said repeatedly. The United States faces a “looming bankruptcy,” Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

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Rep. Mike Honda: Cents and Sensibility: The Economic Case Behind Immigration Reform

February 7, 2011

House Speaker John Boehner’s recent selection of Rep. Elton Gallegly of California over Rep. Steve King of Iowa to head the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee is one step closer to the kind of reform for which past administrations, including those of former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, had long called. Both Republican congressmen may be opposed to the kind of reform that House Democrats call for. But Gallegly seems inclined to take a more reasoned approach. Especially if Democrats can explain the economic advantages to reform. And there are many. Immigration brings formidable fiscal implications. Keeping immigrants here or sending them home can save or cost taxpayers dearly. Just count the ways that reform, which puts undocumented immigrants on the path to legalization, could foot our country’s finances. First, any deportation plan for undocumented immigrants would cost our country’s gross domestic product a whopping $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years, according to a study by Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Conversely, if we embrace comprehensive immigration reform, we could add $1.5 trillion to the U.S. GDP over the next 10 years. The economy could also benefit from a temporary worker program, Hinojosa-Ojeda projected,by raising GDP by $792 billion. Second, immigrants who become U.S. citizens consistently pursue higher-paying jobs and higher education, spend more and provide higher tax revenue. Just imagine what 12 million newly documented Americans could do for the economy. The legalization process also brings economic benefits — like the retention of remittances. Workers send substantial portions of their salary to family members abroad, but reform could reunite families separated by our immigration system and keep monies in the U.S. For example, total U.S. remittances to Latin America was almost $46 billion in 2008. Of that, Mexico received almost $24 billion. Reducing remittances offers obvious cash infusion for our economy, since billions of dollars now sent overseas would be spent instead on U.S. businesses — creating jobs and helping to revive our economy. Third, by giving 2.1 million American students the opportunity to pursue higher education or military service, our government could collect $3.6 trillion over the next 40 years. The DREAM Act, which failed in the Senate in December but remains a bipartisan effort, offers a conditional six-year path to permanent, legal U.S. residence for immigrant youth who demonstrate good moral character and complete at least two years of higher education or U.S. military service. Without the DREAM Act, about 65,000 students a year — honor-roll scholars, star athletes, talented artists and aspiring teachers — will graduate high school and then hit a roadblock. Instead of upward mobility and higher education, they will be forced to live in the shadows and work low-paying jobs. Fourth, the Reuniting Families Act, which I plan to reintroduce this Congress, would allow all Americans to be reunited with their families — including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender “permanent partners.” The economic benefits of this policy cannot be overstated. American workers, with their families by their side, are happier, healthier and more able to succeed than those living apart from loved ones for years on end. By pooling resources, families can do together what they can’t do alone — start small businesses, provide care for the young and old, create U.S. jobs and contribute more to this country’s welfare. Healthier communities have more expendable income and place a lower burden on government social services. This correlation is well substantiated — but it is up to us to make it a reality. We understand that during tough economic times, the natural reaction is to close borders and look inward. Yet the irony of an anti-immigration sentiment, which fears job losses for Americans if more workers enter the U.S., is that it is fiscally prudent to legalize, insure, employ, reunite and educate our immigrants than to keep families apart. This is a time when we must use every available resource to stimulate our economy and control government spending. To my fiscally conservative Republican colleagues, the onus is on you. Left to future Congresses, the number of undocumented immigrants will only increase and the visa waits will only get longer. Meanwhile, we will lose an opportunity to do what’s economically right. The fiscal case is clear: reform now. California Rep. Mike Honda serves on the Appropriations and the Budget Committees and is the Democratic senior whip. Follow Rep Honda on Facebook and Twitter .

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GOP Budget-Cutting Plan Marks Political Gamble

February 7, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Republican drive to cut spending, which begins in earnest this week, marks a political gamble that the public’s hunger for smaller government will trump its appetite for benefits, subsidies and other federal support. Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., calls it the “$64,000 question,” and then promptly answers it. “People will be supportive of almost any decreases in spending as long as they believe they’re done in an open, equitable and fair manner,” said Price, a member of the party leadership. Democrats, already eyeing the 2012 elections, sound disbelieving. “I’m not sure which country they’re speaking to,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. “How they think that slashing, dramatically slashing important programs is going to help jump start the economy is beyond me.” The polls make clear the potential risks for both sides. In an Associated Press-CNBC survey last November, shortly after Republicans scored large gains in the midterm elections, 87 percent of those polled said record federal deficits were likely to cause a major economic crisis over the next decade. Also, 85 percent said the cost of financing the federal debt would cause problems for their children or grandchildren. Yet only 47 percent said cutting spending should be a higher priority than increasing it on education, health care and alternative energy development, which was backed by 46 percent. In a CNN survey last month, those questioned said by an 81-18 margin that is was more important to prevent significant cuts to Medicare than to reduce the deficit. For Social Security, the split was 78-21. So far, the House has been awash in Republican rhetoric about spending cuts. But with Congress still getting organized for the year, relatively little actual chopping has occurred. The House voted to reduce its own budget, went on record in favor of eliminating federal subsidies for presidential candidates and party conventions, and cheered itself for setting goals for cuts. This changes in the coming week, when work begins on a bill to keep the government in operation after March 4, but at a level $35 billion lower than enacted for last year. “These cuts will not be easy, they will be broad and deep, they will affect every congressional district, but they are necessary and long overdue,” Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, said in a statement. The cuts will be specific and on a large scale, for the first time, as Republicans tackle a federal deficit projected to reach $1.5 trillion this year, and an accumulated debt of more than $13 trillion. Whatever the longer-term ramifications, Republicans who were sworn into Congress for the first time last month are eager to begin. “I think people, even in government in my local communities, are saying, `Yeah, we get it. We understand. We have to do something,” said Rep. Sean Duffy, elected to a seat in Wisconsin long held by Democrat David Obey, who was chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over spending on domestic programs. “I don’t feel there’s a backlash even in the district that had the benefit of David Obey’s earmarks,” Duffy said. Added Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, in the Republican’s weekly radio and Internet address: “In order to get Americans back to work and create jobs, there is no limit to the amount of spending that we’re going to be willing to cut.” Already, it is evident that dozens of new Republicans, many backed by tea party supporters, want more, not less, when it comes to spending cuts. When the leadership directed that Rogers slice $35 billion, some conservatives said they want more. “I think you’re going to see it get below that” by the time the House sends the measure to the Senate, Duffy predicted. Last fall’s GOP Pledge to America cited a goal of $100 billion for the year, and even though the fiscal year is more than half over, that’s what many of the conservatives want as a strong first step. If that’s what the newcomers want, that’s probably what they will get, because when added to the ranks of conservatives who were elected previously, they command a majority of the House. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has pledged to give individual lawmakers ample opportunity to seek changes during floor debate. Duffy and others have signed onto a proposal by the 175-member Republican Study Committee to eliminate dozens of programs as part of an attempt to reduce deficits by $2.5 trillion over a decade. Not all of that would come in the first bill to reach the floor. But no opportunity to press President Barack Obama and the Democrats will be overlooked. It’s likely that several short-term bills will be needed while negotiations play out on the measure to tide the government over to September. The new budget year begins Oct. 1. Republicans will want to ratchet down spending on each one, although Duffy and others say they want no part of a government shutdown. Shutdowns summon painful memories for an earlier generation of Republicans. When Speaker Newt Gingrich led the rank and file into one in 1995, President Bill Clinton used it to depict him and them as irresponsible radicals. Additionally, the Treasury Department has said Congress will need to raise its borrowing authority this spring. Boehner and other Republicans have said they will use that as leverage to force a series of changes in government spending habits. Republicans also will release a budget this spring that is likely to call for changes in benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare as well as other programs. Over the summer and fall, they will send the Senate a series of spending bills for the 2012 budget year. There will be plenty of opportunity to clash with Obama and try and reinforce Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s hand in negotiations with majority Democrats in the Senate. “There are 87 new freshmen on our side of the aisle who came here to save the country,” said Price. ___ EDITOR’S NOTE – David Espo is AP’s chief congressional correspondent.

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Fact Check: GOP Health Care Reform Claim Appears Shaky

January 19, 2011

WASHINGTON — Republicans pushing to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul warn that 650,000 jobs will be lost if the law is allowed to stand. But the widely cited estimate by House GOP leaders is shaky. It’s the latest creative use of statistics in the health care debate, which has seen plenty of examples from both sides. Republicans are calling their thumbs-down legislation the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” Postponed after the mass shootings in Tucson, a House vote on the divisive issue is now expected Wednesday, although Democrats promise they’ll block repeal in the Senate. A recent report by House GOP leaders says “independent analyses have determined that the health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy.” It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as the source of the original analysis behind that estimate. But the budget office, which referees the costs and consequences of legislation, never produced the number. What follows is a story of how statistics get used and abused in Washington. What CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can downshift to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job. “The legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount _roughly half a percent_ primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply,” budget office number crunchers said in a report from last year. That’s not how it got translated in the new report from Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other top Republicans. CBO “has determined that the law will reduce the ‘amount of labor used in the economy by.roughly half a percent.,’ an estimate that adds up to roughly 650,000 jobs lost,” the GOP version said. Gone was the caveat that the impact would be small, mainly due to people working less. Added was the estimate of 650,000 jobs lost. The Republican translation doesn’t track, said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute. “CBO isn’t saying that there is job loss as much as they are saying that fewer people will be working,” explained Fronstin. “There is a difference. People voluntarily working less isn’t the same as employers cutting jobs.” For example, the budget office said some people might decide to retire earlier because it would be easier to get health care, instead of waiting until they become eligible for Medicare at age 65. The law “reduces the amount of labor supplied, but it’s not reducing the ability of people to find jobs, which is what the job-killing slogan is intended to convey,” said economist Paul Van de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The center advocates for low-income people, and supports the health care law. In theory, any legislation that increases costs for employers can lead to job loss. But with the health care law, companies can also decide to pass on added costs to their workers, as some have already done this year. To put things in perspective, there are currently about 131 million jobs in the economy. CBO projects that unemployment will be significantly lower in 2014, when the law’s major coverage expansion starts. A spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Committee Republicans pointed out that CBO’s report did flag that some employers would cut hiring. “The CBO analysis does not claim that the entire response is people exiting the labor market,” said Michelle Dimarob. The law’s penalties on employers who don’t provide health insurance might cause some companies to hire fewer low-wage workers, or to hire more part-timers instead of full-time employees, the budget office said. But the main consequence would still be from more people choosing not to work. That still doesn’t answer the question of how Republicans came up with the estimate of 650,000 lost jobs. Dimarob said staffers took the 131 million jobs in the economy and multiplied that by half a percent, the number from the CBO analysis. The result: 650,000 jobs feared to be in jeopardy. “For ordinary Americans who could fall into that half a percent, that is a vitally important stat, and it is reasonable to suggest they would not characterize the effect as small,” she said. But Fronstin said that approach is also questionable, since the budget office and the GOP staffers used different yardsticks to measure overall jobs and hours worked. The differences would have to be adjusted first in order to produce an accurate estimate. Said Van de Water, “The number doesn’t mean what they say it means.”

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: Mr. President, Americans Agree On Social Security; So Talk to Us, Not Washington

January 13, 2011

Mr. President, you moved a nation today with your words in Tucson. “Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame,” you said, “let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” You also said this: “It’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.” Two weeks from now the State of the Union address will be an opportunity to bring Americans together — Americans who have been bitterly divided by party loyalty and ideology, but who stand united in their support for the social programs that have improved our lives for the past seventy-five years. On that night, will they know that somebody has heard them? Will they feel that someone is talking to them? Will they feel they have a voice inside the Capitol rotunda, in a city where they sometimes seem to have been forgotten? There’s a popular idea in Washington that I’ve — perhaps too harshly — called “the Third Way Fallacy.” It essentially says we can end the harsh and divisive nature of today’s politics by having Washington party leaders work out their differences in private. Some of us think that’s the wrong way to go about the people’s business — that a truly “bipartisan” approach must respect the opinions of each party’s members , not just those of its leaders. But whatever my past criticisms of Third Way, the organization had a terrific suggestion today for increasing civility in politics. In an open letter to Speaker Boehner, they suggested that the Congressional seating chart be changed for this year’s State of the Union address so that members aren’t separated by party. “We do not see any purpose behind putting Democrats on one side of the floor and Republicans on the other,” Third Way’s letter said. “The spectacle of one side of the room leaping to its feet while the other sits glumly on its hands is just that — a spectacle. Perhaps having both parties sit together, intermingled, would help control the choreography of partisanship that accompanies the President’s remarks.” This idea is smart, moving, and even beautiful. The State of the Union has turned into an annual circus, as you know far better than I. Americans want more statesmanship in Washington, and this would be a symbolic way of letting them know they’ve been heard. The Speaker would bring honor to himself and his institution if he took this suggestion. It would, in Third Way’s words, “demonstrate what is true but not always apparent — that we are one nation, not two, and that Members are unified by their service to our country.” Mr. Boehner is famous for crying in public, but if he follows this suggestion maybe we’ll cry instead. It might be good for the country if more of us shared the burden of tears. But the business at hand won’t just be symbolic. As you know, Mr. President, leaders of both political parties have been talking about Social Security cuts. Your own Deficit Commission came up with some very Draconian (and unpopular) ideas, and members of your Administration haven’t committed to defending retirement benefits. There are even rumors that people in your Administration have floated trial balloons about cutting a deal with Republicans to raise the retirement age and make other cuts. Inside the Beltway there’s some “bipartisan” approval for those ideas. But outside Washington the real bipartisan consensus is even stronger: Large majorities of Americans — Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike — agree that Social Security must be defended, not cut. Mr. President, I hope you’ll have the chance to see the poll numbers on Social Security. We know you’ve said you won’t govern by following polls, and we respect that. But it’s moving and inspiring to see the way Americans of all political parties have joined together in their defense of Social Security. They speak with one voice about how to handle it: Raise the payroll tax cap and protect its current benefits. They’re equally united in their defense of Medicare in similarly large numbers. These are the people’s programs, and people of all political persuasions want them protected. We know that Americans don’t like party squabbling. But that doesn’t mean they want the two parties to collaborate on policies that rank-and-file members of both parties have rejected. Voters mean exactly what they’ve told those pollsters for years: They want Washington politicians to work for them , not each other. They’ll be watching on January 25 to see their leaders speak to them, or to each other. When asked how we should cut the deficit, Americans would rather raise taxes on the wealthy than cut Social Security by more than two to one. These Americans — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — make up the New Silent Majority, and they speak with a single voice. To paraphrase Third Way, when they talk about Social Security they demonstrate what is true but not always apparent — that we are one nation, not two. This bipartisan consensus has the unwavering support of non -partisan experts, too — experts like Harry C. Ballantyne, who was appointed Chief Actuary for the Social Security Administration under Ronald Reagan. Mr. Ballantyne and two respected economists wrote a paper that explains how the bipartisan preference for Social Security — keep benefits and raise the payroll tax cap — addresses that program’s very modest long-term shortfall. There will be many people in the room with you who want to make these cuts anyway, Mr. President. Despite the great benefits that have flowed to the wealthiest among us, they’ll want to protect the wealthy from paying the same payroll tax rate as police officers or nurses. These differences of opinion are unavoidable in a democracy. But you’ll have an opportunity to show the nation how its leaders can differ with courtesy and grace — and in this case, with a bipartisan majority at your back. You’ll be able explain that you’re not defending Social Security because you speak for Democrats, but because you speak for all Americans. While you’re at it, you can also defend the principles of trust and honesty. Too many politicians and pundits have said that the government’s bonds, which cover the money it has borrowed from Social Security’s Trust Fund, is just an “IOU.” That’s not true. And you can remind them that even if it were true, we’re an honorable people who make good on our IOUs. There isn’t a single argument being thrown around today about Social Security that hasn’t been around for 75 years: “Ponzi scheme,” too many old people and too few workers — you name it, we’ve heard it before. That’s why President Eisenhower’s bipartisan panel refuted them all back in the 1950s. Ike’s experts defended our shared hopes and dreams back then, and now it’s our generation’s turn. You also said that in a time of tragedy “we reflect on the past. Did we spend enough time with an aging parent… Did we express our gratitude for all the sacrifices they made for us?” What better way of expressing gratitude to all of our aging parents than by ensuring their financial security? That’s an ideal way to “expand our moral imaginations, listen to each other more carefully, sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” Our moral imaginations shouldn’t be limited to slanted ideas cooked up in think tanks and parroted by pundits and consultants. Sometimes listening to one another, really listening, means we have to silence the clamor of Beltway chatter. Our instincts for empathy can be sharpened by the image of an elderly woman in a small urban apartment, struggling to get by on $800 per month. They should direct our thoughts to the 68-year-old janitor whose back aches after half a century spent pushing a broom. They should call us to remember the waitress whose feet can no longer support her for eight hours, and whose bent fingers can no longer scribble on her order pad. We’ve been bound by shared dreams since the country was founded. Social Security and Medicare turned some of those dreams into reality. Let’s not turn them back into dreams. Mr. President, this year’s State of the Union will help to shape your legacy. That legacy can be one of real bipartisanship. You can bring us together as a people by expressing our shared commitment to Social Security. That’s a commitment that binds Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and even Tea Party followers together in a common bond. Reach out for that bond. Express it. Build on it to create a new American consensus – a consensus for fairness, a consensus for security, a consensus for growth and jobs. Americans are united on the issue of Social Security, and the state of that union is sound. At least in one small way, we’re already bound together in our hopes and dreams. In a wounded moment, that bond can help us heal. Richard (RJ) Eskow, a consultant and writer (and former insurance/finance executive), is a Senior Fellow with the Campaign for America’s Future. This post was produced as part of the Strengthen Social Security campaign. Richard also blogs at A Night Light . He can be reached at “rjeskow@ourfuture.org.” Website: Eskow and Associates

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Michael Maslansky: Four lessons companies can learn from the midterm elections

November 18, 2010

The morning after the mid-term elections it seemed anyone considering a run for office wouldn’t need to hire a campaign manager. Every news site, every cable news channel, and your favorite blog told us the myriad “lessons” we supposedly learned from an event less than 24 hours old. A simple Internet search would turn up everything you need to know about the political environment for your pending candidacy. The analysis runs the gamut from silly to sophisticated. But the election also yielded important lessons for companies. By studying the political conversation we’ve gained four key insights into the current national mood. Apologies to eye backers, but language is the real window to the soul. 1. Talk like you’re not from around here. The strongest trend we saw in the campaigns was toward language and imagery that implies the speaker is an “outsider.” For example, in his victory speech Wisconsin senator-elect Ron Johnson, who unseated 18-year veteran Russ Feingold, explained why “one guy from Oshkosh, a husband and a father, stepped up to the plate and decided to run for US Senate.” It was because “we’re just simple Wisconsin folks here. We know what needs to be done if you’re trying to get out of a deep hole.” Translation: insiders don’t know what needs to be done, so you picked me. This doesn’t mean computer companies should run advertisements with folksy engineers that don’t put much stock in fancy book larnin’. But you’ll want to communicate in language that shows you understand most Americans feel the traditional markers of authority aren’t credible anymore. 2. Be realer. Authenticity is always an important quality for maintaining credibility (unless you’re in the pop music business – looking at you here Lady Gaga). But authenticity can be a moving target. What Americans think of as “real” doesn’t always remain the same. In this election it seemed to center on what jobs you’ve done before running for office. Politicians seemed engaged in a contest to out-gritty each other with previous occupations. Missouri’s Robin Carnahan slopped some livestock [She lost though - need example of Dem who won]. Wisconsin’s Sean Duffy chopped wood. Again, we’re not suggesting CEOs start engaging in public displays of downhomeyness. (“Hi. I’m Warren Buffet. And every morning when I’m cleaning my outhouse…”) But messages that imply you’re rolling up your sleeves and doing real work are going to do better right now than messages which name your bona fides, e.g. “the best-selling ____ in America,” or “the oldest and most well-established ____.” 3. Taking responsibility is necessary. Even if you’re not to blame for something, if the public thinks you are, you might as well be. When President Obama talks about the deficit, he still attaches the caveat “that I inherited.” People aren’t buying it anymore. It’s not to your advantage to explain why you’re not to blame. People are fed up with passing the buck to someone else. Your lawyers might fight you on it, but it will actually work to your advantage to say “We didn’t do everything we could have done. We’ve learned from this. And here’s our plan for the future.” The public doesn’t want – or need – a set of lengthy arguments to determine fault. They want an adult to appear, accept responsibility and start moving forward. 4. The truth won’t set you free. Just because the facts are on your side doesn’t mean people will see it your way. There are more than enough facts to go around, and people will just pick the ones that fit the conclusion they feel is best. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask President Obama. Advisers of every ideological stripe assured him that the only way to save the economy was to pump stimulus money into it and prop up failing businesses. Just about every credible economic source still agrees those measures were necessary. Yet many voters now think of it as “overreaching.” What matters is how people feel about your brand, your product or your issue – not what might be true about it. This is not to say that the truth doesn’t matter, but if your audience isn’t open to hearing about your truth, a savvy communicator would be smart to find another line of communication. The bottom line: what voters want from their politicians is often the same thing consumers want from the companies with which they do business. Today, that means being a little more Homer Simpson and a little less Homer. It also means recognizing that its your consumers’ view of the world that matters most, even when that view seems illogical, irrational or just plain irrelevant.

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Extended Unemployment Could Outlast Extended Unemployment Insurance

November 5, 2010

WASHINGTON — The government announced Friday morning that the unemployment situation barely changed in October. The unemployment rate has been stuck above nine percent for a year and a half as nearly 15 million people are out of work. They will remain so for the foreseeable future, according to most estimates. People who lost their jobs more recently may get less of a cushion than people laid off at the beginning of the recession. That’s because Congress may lose its appetite for reauthorizing the extended unemployment insurance it created in 2008 and 2009. According to the Labor Department, 6.2 million people — 41.8 percent of all unemployed — have been out of work for longer than six months. State governments provide jobless benefits for layoff victims for those first six months, and the federal government traditionally picks up the rest. To fight the worst recession since the Great Depression, Congress has given the unemployed in hardest-hit states an unprecedented 73 weeks of additional benefits. During the second-worst recession in the early 1980s, Congress provided 55 weeks. It didn’t begin to take them away until unemployment dropped to 7.2 percent. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told HuffPost on Thursday that reauthorizing the 73 weeks is her third priority in the upcoming lame duck session, after dealing with the expiring Bush tax cuts and providing a $250 cost-of-living benefit for Social Security recipients. But once Congress reconvenes on Nov. 15, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will have just two weeks before the extended benefits expire at the end of the month. Republicans and conservative Democrats held up the previous reauthorization for nearly two months. The progressive Economic Policy Institute estimates that keeping extended unemployment benefits through 2011 would create 723,000 jobs at a cost of $65 billion, or 1.7 percent of the White House’s projected $3.8 trillion budget for that year. Most economists regard unemployment insurance as among the most economically stimulative fiscal policies. It will be extremely difficult for lame-duck Democrats to get such a lengthy reauthorization. The previous four efforts each lasted for a few months at a time. If the next reauthorization is similarly short, that means it will come due on the watch of incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who will probably not be amenable to tens of billions in deficit spending specifically requested by President Obama. Congressional Democrats have refused to compromise on offsetting the cost of unemployment benefits, which are traditionally given an emergency designation . “Congress doesn’t have to be a lame duck — it can make a huge impact now by renewing for another year the jobless benefit extensions that expire on November 30th,” said Christine Owens, director of the National Employment Law Project, in a statement Friday. “If Congress fails to act, two million workers will be cut off next month alone — in the heart of the holidays — and any brief stopgaps will still put millions at risk of cut- offs next year. Congress simply cannot pull the plug on families and businesses if it has any realistic intention to turn things around.” There are lots of people who are still unemployed after 99 weeks of benefits (though nobody knows how many ). It’s unlikely they’ll get any more help from Congress. President Obama said Friday in light of the bleak employment situation that part of his strategy to create jobs includes “extending unemployment benefits to help those hardest hit by the downturn while generating more demand in the economy.”

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Matt Sledge: Aqueduct Report: Jay-Z Was Clueless

October 27, 2010

The New York inspector general’s report on the tainted Aqueduct bidding process contains a little-noticed tidbit about the Aqueduct Entertainment Group’s most famous would-be investor. Jay-Z, as it turns out, never actually inked a deal with AEG. “Contrary to numerous media reports,” the investigation finds, nothing was ever made official. (Earlier this year multiple outlets seemed to suggest that Jay-Z had an active stake in the project). What’s more, Jay also didn’t seem to know much about the project, Inspector General Joseph Fisch determined after taking his testimony. That conversation “revealed”: scant knowledge of AEG’s proposal and its composition, no finalized agreement with AEG, and no lobbying by him whatsoever. Regardless, his notoriety caused his name to be mentioned in most news articles discussing AEG which brought his name, and well-known conviction, to the forefront. So much for the the savvy, take-charge CEO persona Jay-Z likes to present to the world. The report seems to suggest that he was little more than a hype man for the AEG bid. The project’s real heavy hitters may have been hoping to use Jay to impress just one person: Governor David Paterson. A February report in the New York Post suggested the AEG consortium chose Jay-Z to gain the favor of the governor, who became friends with the rapper last year. The multimillionaire music impresario’s part of the AEG bid bears a striking resemblance to his role with the New Jersey Nets. Although he controls only a tiny share of the basketball franchise, his stake is trumpeted loudly in promotional materials for the related Atlantic Yards arena project, and he was prominently featured at its groundbreaking in Brooklyn, along with Governor Paterson. As Norman Oder has perceptively written of the groundbreaking, putting the rapper “front and center” was “a brilliant move relying on the unsurprising shallowness of a star-struck press.” For AEG, however, Jay-Z’s inclusion in the project backfired. New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was apparently irritated with the governor’s fanboy crush on the best rapper alive . On January 29 he imposed as a stipulation for his support of the bid a rule prohibiting anyone “convicted within the past 15 years of a felony” from investing in the project. Jay-Z’s misdemeanor conviction (for stabbing a record producer) presumably would have disqualified him. The IG found that Silver’s condition was “specifically directed” at Jay-Z and one other potential financial backer. But Jay-Z didn’t immediately drop out, instead waiting “several weeks” until an investigation on him was initiated — and a subpoena was sent. It wasn’t until March 8, after he had drawn additional critical scrutiny from the press, that he officially backed out. On the Aqueduct deal, Shawn Carter’s much lauded (and self-lauded) business acumen was nowhere to be seen.

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Calls Mount For Foreclosure Moratorium, Investigations

October 7, 2010

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) joined the growing chorus of elected officials demanding a moratorium on foreclosures this week in response to mounting furor over revelations that banks have used bogus affidavits to take people’s homes away. “I write to request that your mortgage-servicing division suspend foreclosures on Nevada home owners until systems are in place to ensure Nevadans are not being improperly directed into foreclosure proceedings,” said Reid in an Oct. 3 letter to Ally Financial, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase. Several of the nation’s largest banks have already halted foreclosures in the 23 states where a court’s approval is required to foreclose. Ally (formerly known as GMAC), Bank of America, and JPMorgan have paused foreclosures after employees admitted in sworn depositions they didn’t verify information in thousands upon thousands of affidavits they signed. Nevada is not a “judicial foreclosure” state, but, Reid wrote, “suspending foreclosures on Nevadans is also justified because the reports of shoddy and defective affidavit preparation suggest that servicers might not be reviewing a home owner’s loan documents with the requisite care.” The still-unfolding paperwork scandal is reminiscent of the predatory lending and “liar’s loans” that inflated the housing bubble in the first place. Homeowner advocates say servicers are cutting corners by relying on “robo-signers” to produce bogus affidavits after losing paperwork as mortgages have been repackaged into securities and repeatedly sold on Wall Street. Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) on Tuesday asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate, and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) sent a similar request to the Treasury Department. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) called for a national moratorium on foreclosure on Thursday, as did groups like the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Fair Housing Alliance, National Council of La Raza, the NAACP and the Center for Responsible Lending. “My state of Rhode Island leads our region in foreclosures, and I have seen firsthand the devastation that losing a home brings a family,” wrote Whitehouse in a letter to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Reserve. “Until the major loan servicers demonstrate that they (1) are making every reasonable effort to keep families in their homes through loan modifications and/or forbearance; and (2) have the capacity to properly and respectfully carry out foreclosures, I ask that you impose a moratorium on all foreclosures on homes that secure the mortgages you hold or control.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other California Democrats asked the Justice Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to launch investigations into foreclosure fraud on Monday. “Left to their own devices, [the banks] no sense of community, no sense of what’s right for our country,” Pelosi told HuffPost. “Just get something so we can turn it into a financial instrument so we can short it or long it or whatever, and privatize the gain and nationalize the risk, both to the taxpayer, to the homeowner, to the consumer, it’s stunning. This is a very big deal.” Attorneys General in several states, including Texas , Iowa , Delaware , Connecticut , and Colorado , among others, have asked servicers to freeze foreclosures The calls for moratoriums and investigations have come mostly from Democrats, but Republicans have piped up as well. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) joined the calls for an investigation on Wednesday. A spokesman for House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) told HuffPost, “At a time when economic uncertainty and unemployment are putting great pressure on homeowners and the housing market, it is imperative that we get all of the facts about this situation, and quickly.” The uproar over foreclosures led President Obama to effectively veto a bill passed by Congress last week without debate that consumer advocates said would have made it more difficult to fight bogus affidavits. Consumer advocates called the bill’s timing suspicious; Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said it was “almost like a trap door” for banks needing an out from the paperwork scandal.

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House Overwhelmingly Passes Trade Sanctions Bill Targeted At China

September 30, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has approved legislation that would allow the U.S. to seek trade sanctions against China and other nations for manipulating their currency to gain trade advantages. The 348-79 vote Wednesday sends the measure to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear. Senate supporters hope to get a vote on a similar proposal after Congress returns following the November congressional elections. Supporters said the bill would allow the Obama administration to pressure China on an issue that they say has led to the loss of more than 2 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. over the past decade. The vote came as lawmakers scrambled to wrap up unfinished business so they can hit the campaign trail with a little over a month before the Nov. 2 elections. Polls show that the state of the economy and an unemployment rate that remains stuck at 9.6 percent are the top concerns of voters. The measure was passed by a wide margin with 99 Republicans joining Democrats to vote yes. Those in opposition included 74 Republicans and five Democrats. Supporters said the size of the vote should send a strong message to Beijing that Washington will not tolerate currency manipulation and other trade practices viewed as unfair to American workers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that in 20 years America’s trade deficit with China has gone from $5 billion annually to $5 billion every week, an imbalance she said demanded action by Congress to protect American jobs. “We do this because 1 million American jobs could be created if the Chinese government took its thumb off the scale and allowed its currency to respond to market forces,” she said in a speech on the House floor. American manufacturers contend that China’s currency is undervalued by as much as 40 percent against the dollar. That makes Chinese products cheaper and more competitive in the United States and American products more expensive in China. The legislation would allow the imposition of stiff sanctions on Chinese imports. It would expand the definition of improper government subsidies to include a government’s manipulation of its currency to gain trade advantages. Currently, the Commerce Department does not consider currency manipulation as a government subsidy for which it can impose trade sanctions. During the House debate, supporters cited studies that they said show the legislation would boost American exports and create more manufacturing jobs in this country. “Some credible estimates are that we could return a million American jobs to this country,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., in urging support for the legislation. “We can either take bold steps or we can take baby steps.” Opponents said the legislation would boost the cost of clothing, toys and other goods that American consumers buy and also ran the risk of sparking retaliation by China against American exports. “The available evidence is that the price of many of these Chinese goods will go up 10 percent, a pair of shoes that a mother needs for her child to go to school … toys at Christmas, all become more expensive,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. Supporters rejected that argument, saying it is critical in hard economic times to protect U.S. jobs. “Without a job, you can’t buy goods at any price. This bill is about jobs,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich. Passage of the proposal was cleared when Levin led an effort to craft a compromise proposal that supporters believe will be better able to withstand a challenge before the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based group that oversees the rules of world trade. Before the House vote, Chinese officials in Beijing reiterated that they support exchange rate flexibility but offered no new indications that they plan to accelerate the revaluation of their currency, the yuan. In June, Beijing promised a more flexible exchange rate but since that time the yuan has risen by only about 2 percent in value against the dollar. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress earlier this month that the administration stands ready to find a more effective strategy for pressuring China. He said the administration is not only focused on the currency issue but on such topics as rampant copyright piracy of U.S. products and various barriers the Chinese have erected to U.S. goods. In a statement, the Treasury Department said, “Today’s vote clearly shows lawmakers have serious concerns about this issue. The president and Secretary Geithner share those concerns. They have said repeatedly that China needs to allow a significant, sustained appreciation over time.” The administration has not taken a position on whether it will support the House bill. But trade experts said they believed the administration will use its passage as a way to pressure Beijing to accelerate its appreciation efforts. President Barack Obama raised the currency issue in a meeting with Chinese officials last week in New York. He is expected to pursue the issue in November at the summit of the Group of 20 major economies in South Korea. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who is pushing a similar China currency bill in the Senate, said after the House vote that he will work to get a Senate vote on his bill during a lame-duck session of Congress after the November elections. “The Chinese ought to be aware that Congress is serious about confronting their currency manipulation,” Schumer said in a statement.

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Robert Reich: Republican Economics as Social Darwinism

September 26, 2010

John Boehner, the Republican House leader who will become Speaker if Democrats lose control of the House in the upcoming midterms, recently offered his solution to the current economic crisis: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, lead a more moral life.” Actually, those weren’t Boehner’s words. They were uttered by Herbert Hoover’s treasury secretary, millionaire industrialist Andrew Mellon, after the Great Crash of 1929. But they might as well have been Boehner’s because Hoover’s and Mellon’s means of purging the rottenness was by doing exactly what Boehner and his colleagues are now calling for: shrink government, cut the federal deficit, reduce the national debt, and balance the budget. And we all know what happened after 1929, at least until FDR reversed course. Boehner and other Republicans would even like to roll back the New Deal and get rid of Barack Obama’s smaller deal health-care law. The issue isn’t just economic. We’re back to tough love. The basic idea is to force people to live with the consequences of whatever happens to them. In the late 19th century it was called Social Darwinism. Only the fittest should survive, and any effort to save the less fit will undermine the moral fiber of society. Republicans have wanted to destroy Social Security since it was invented in 1935 by my predecessor as labor secretary, the great Frances Perkins. Remember George W. Bush’s proposal to privatize it? Had America agreed with him, millions of retirees would have been impoverished in 2008 when the stock market imploded. Of course Republicans don’t talk openly about destroying Social Security, because it’s so popular. The new Republican “pledge” promises only to put it on a “fiscally responsible footing.” Translated: we’ll privatize it. Look, I used to be a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. Believe me when I tell you Social Security is basically okay. It may need a little fine tuning but I guarantee you’ll receive your Social Security check by the time you retire even if that’s forty years from now. Medicare, on the other hand, is a huge problem and its projected deficits are truly scary. But that’s partly because George W. Bush created a new drug benefit that’s hugely profitable for Big Phrma (something the Republican pledge conspicuously fails to address). The underlying problem, though, is health-care costs are soaring. Repealing the new health-care legislation would cause health-care costs to rise even faster. In extending coverage, it allows 30 million Americans to get preventive care. Take it away and they’ll end up in far more expensive emergency rooms. The new law could help control rising health costs. It calls for medical “exchange” that will give people valuable information about health costs and benefits. The public should know certain expensive procedures only pad the paychecks of specialists while driving up the costs of insurance policies that offer them. Republicans also hate unemployment insurance. They’ve voted against every extension because, they say, it coddles the unemployed and keeps them from taking available jobs. That’s absurd. There are still 5 job seekers for every job opening, and unemployment insurance in most states pays only a small fraction of the full-time wage. Social insurance is fundamental to a civil society. It’s also good economics because it puts money in peoples’ pockets who then turn around and buy the things that others produce, thereby keeping those others in jobs. We’ve fallen into the bad habit of calling these programs “entitlements,” which sounds morally suspect — as if a more responsible public wouldn’t depend on them. If the Great Recession has taught us anything, it should be that.anyone can take a fall through no fault of their own. Finally, like Hoover and Mellon, Republicans want to cut the deficit and balance the budget at a time when a large portion of the workforce is idle. This defies economic logic. When consumers aren’t spending, businesses aren’t investing and exports can’t possibly fill the gap, and when state governments are slashing their budgets, the federal government has to spend more. Otherwise, the Great Recession will turn into exactly what Hoover and Mellon ushered in — a seemingly endless Great Depression. It’s also cruel. Cutting the deficit and balancing the budget any time soon will subject tens of millions of American families to unnecessary hardship and throw even more into poverty. Herbert Hoover and Andrew Mellon thought their economic policies would purge the rottenness out of the system and lead to a more moral life. Instead, it purged morality out of the system and lead to a more rotten life for millions of Americans. And that’s exactly what Republicans are offering yet again. Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future , now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org .

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Expiring Tax Cuts Hit Taxpayers At All Levels

September 18, 2010

WASHINGTON — Here’s some pressure for lawmakers: If they don’t reach agreement on extending soon-to-expire Bush-era tax cuts, nearly all their constituents back home will get big tax increases. A typical family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year would have to pay $2,900 more in taxes in 2011, according to a new analysis by Deloitte Tax LLP, a tax consulting firm. The same family making $100,000 a year would see its taxes rise by $4,500. Wealthier families face even bigger tax hikes. A family of four making $500,000 a year would pay $10,800 more in taxes. The same family making $1 million a year would get a tax increase of $53,200. The estimates are based on total household income, including wages, capital gains and qualified dividends. The estimated tax bills take into account typical deductions at each income level. Democrats have been arguing for much of the past decade that tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 under former President George W. Bush provided a windfall for the wealthy. That’s true, but they also reduced taxes for the working poor, the middle class, and just about everyone in between. Those tax cuts expire at the end of the year, setting the stage for a high-stakes debate just before congressional elections in November. If Congress fails to act, families at every income level will see more taxes being withheld from their paychecks come January. The tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 reduced marginal income tax rates at every level. They also provided a wide range of income tax breaks for education, families with children and married couples. Taxes on capital gains and dividends were reduced, while the federal estate tax was gradually repealed, though only for this year. President Barack Obama wants to extend the tax cuts for individuals making less than $200,000 and joint filers making less than $250,000 in adjusted gross income. That’s income from wages, capital gains and dividends, before standard deductions and exemptions are subtracted. Republicans and a growing number of Democrats in Congress want to extend all the tax cuts, at least temporarily. On Thursday, House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said he wants an up-or-down vote on extending all the tax cuts before congressional elections in November. “Raising taxes on anyone, especially small businesses, is the wrong thing to do in a struggling economy,” Boehner said. “On the issue of job killing tax hikes the American people are not going to accept anything less than the vote that they deserve.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t commit to vote on any tax proposals before the election. She did, however, pledge to address them by the end of the year. “The only thing I can tell you is that the tax cuts for the middle class will be extended this Congress,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday. More than half the country backs raising taxes on the richest Americans, according to a new Associated Press-GfK Poll. The survey showed that by 54 percent to 44 percent, most people support raising taxes on the highest earners. In a breakdown of the numbers, 39 percent agree with Obama, while 15 percent favor raising taxes on everyone by allowing the cuts to expire at year’s end. Still, 44 percent say the existing tax cuts should remain in place for everyone, including the wealthy. While Obama’s plan would spare about 97 percent of tax filers, it would mean big tax increases for the wealthy. Under Obama’s plan, a family of four making $325,000 a year would get a tax increase of $5,400, while the same family making $1 million a year would get a tax increase of $56,300, according to the analysis by Deloitte Tax. A family of four making $5 million a year would get a tax increase of $325,600. Pelosi said the nation cannot afford to extend tax cuts for top earners. “I see no justification for going into debt to foreign countries to underwrite and subsidize tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America,” Pelosi said. Making all the tax cuts permanent would add about $3.9 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to congressional estimates. Obama’s plan would cost a little more than $3 trillion over the same period. ___ Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report. (This version CORRECTS that family of four making $1 million would get a tax increase of $53,200, not $52,300.)

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Peter Diamandis: Congratulations to the Winners of the $10 Million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE

September 16, 2010

For those who have followed the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE , today has been a long time coming.  Our vision from the start was to reinvent the paradigm for cars the public can drive. We wanted to ensure that these cars were fast, affordable, safe and achieved more than 100 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) — a new way to directly compare the efficiency of gasoline to electric and other alternative fueled vehicles.  This adventure began in early 2006, when we first developed the concept for this Incentive Prize.  It was officially announced in March 2008, with Progressive Insurance as the competition’s title sponsor.  More than 130 vehicles from around the world registered to participate.  This past summer, we tested the finalist at Michigan International Speedway, all competing for a $10 million purse and one shared goal: to develop viable and super, fuel-efficient vehicles that meet or exceed 100 MPGe. We spent this morning in the nation’s capital at The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. to announce the three winning vehicles among others that will impact our future driving experience.  Joining us on stage were Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi; the President’s Science Advisor, Dr. John Holdren; Senator Mark R. Warner; Representative Edward Markey; Deputy Secretary of Energy , Daniel Poneman; and of course, Progressive Insurance CEO Glenn Renwick.  While our event backdrop was all about history, we came together to celebrate the future and the innovations of companies that have advanced their own automotive technologies because of their role in this competition. We awarded $5 million to the competition’s Mainstream Class (seats four) category winner and $2.5 million each to the two Alternative Class (seats two) winners, one with tandem seating and one with traditional side-by-side seating. Edison2 LLC , based in Charlottesville, Va., won the $5 million mainstream class with its Very Light Car.  This forward-looking, truly aerodynamic vehicle weighs less than 750 pounds and boasts a drag coefficient that is half of what is considered the best today.  In the competition, the Very Light Car achieved just more than 100 MPGe and passed all safety and emissions criteria- made even more remarkable with the knowledge that the car runs on E85 ethanol. Li-ion Motors , based in Mooresville, N.C., won the $2.5 million alternative side-by-side class with its Wave II vehicle.  This battery electric urban car was built on a lightweight aluminum chassis and includes a highly efficient battery package and aerodynamic features that enabled it to achieve 187 MPGe in on-track testing. X-Tracer , based in Uster, Switzerland, won the $2.5 million alternative tandem class with its E-Tracer 7009 vehicle.  The E-Tracer features two stabilizer wheels that automatically drop at low speeds or during sharp turns.  It includes room for two in-line passengers and weekend baggage, and held the record high for efficiency in the competition, coming in at 197 MPGe. While some may consider the competition over, for the winning teams the journey has just begun. Indeed, they will immediately begin leveraging their winning status, prize money and connections made over the course of the competition to catapult their vehicle into the consumer market.  It will not be easy, but I know these teams can, and will, make it happen.  Just like Burt Rutan and Paul Allen were able to take their winning vehicle, SpaceShipOne, from the Ansari X PRIZE and move it forward into commercialization through a $250 million commitment from Sir Richard Branson to create Virgin Galactic, so too, do we wish these winning teams great success in their next steps towards commercialization. We’ve seen a shift in the market since we first launched this competition, and a greater awareness by the American people to think more seriously about the actions we take, and how they affect our environment.  We have also seen a rise in acceptance of the MPGe model used in our competition, a new benchmark in measuring fuel economy. MPGe has the advantage of public familiarity. That is why our partner, Consumer Reports, has joined us in championing MPGe as a robust, transparent and fuel neutral standard that consumers can use to make apples-to-apples comparisons of such next-generation vehicles to the cars they drive today. Edison2, X-Tracer and Li-ion Motors will have the greatest impact.  Their vehicles are set to revolutionize fuel efficiency, as well as the auto industry, because the beauty of this X PRIZE is not just the cars – it is also the technology. Working together, the X PRIZE Foundation and Progressive Insurance have strived to change the paradigm of “mainstream” vehicles by providing a global platform focused on engine efficiency, increased vehicle power, acceleration, safety and increased fuel economy. The innovative technologies brought forth in this competition were astounding and further proved the purpose behind prize competitions — to make the impossible possible. We were not looking for incremental changes or long-term strategies.  The competition’s structure demanded breakthrough thinking that would literally disrupt the industry and produce an accelerated wave to push it ahead in leaps and bounds.  To quote Bob Marley, “it takes a revolution to make a solution.” Congratulations to the winners of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE and to all the participating teams.  Even those teams who achieved 80 or 90 MPGe will also make a huge impact in the marketplace.  Personally, I’m looking forward to driving these vehicles in the near future and hope you will as well!

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Obama Tax Cuts Plan Has House Democrats Deeply Divided

September 15, 2010

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are confronting deep divisions within their nervous ranks over whether to support President Barack Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans – or just punt the entire matter until after voters go to the polls Nov. 2. Democratic leaders committed to Obama’s proposal were hearing Wednesday from endangered lawmakers who fear that raising taxes on anyone in a weak economy could be politically lethal. “Don’t raise taxes in a recession,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. Democratic leaders refused to say whether they were open to changing Obama’s plan, or even commit to a vote before the balloting seven weeks off. Instead, they called House Democrats together Tuesday night to discuss a poll showing that extending tax cuts for middle-income earners was a winning strategy for the party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the case that Obama’s plan was “good policy and good politics,” her spokesman said. Not everyone was convinced. A group of moderate and conservative House Democrats was collecting signatures on a letter calling for Democratic leaders to offer a bill extending tax cuts for all Americans. Broad tax cuts passed during the George W. Bush administration are due to expire at the end of the year. “We are in listening mode,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who heads the House Democrats’ campaign committee. A fuller discussion was expected at the House Democrats’ weekly meeting Wednesday, but it was canceled. This was not the debate Democrats wanted as the midterm election season opened. The plan was to make an extension of the middle-class tax cuts the party’s closing argument – against Republicans, not each other – as voters began to focus on whether they trust Democrats to improve the ailing economy enough to reward them with control of Congress for another two years. Instead, Democrats who already have cast tough votes on bills overhauling the nation’s health care and financial regulatory systems are questioning the wisdom of debating a pocketbook issue just when voters are starting to pay attention to the election. All 435 seats in the House, 37 in the Senate and the Democratic majorities in both are on the line. The rift among Democrats contrasts with strong unity among Republicans in supporting a full renewal of all tax cuts, regardless of income, despite a 10-year cost to the government of about $700 billion above Obama’s plan. Still, House Republican leader John Boehner said over the weekend he would vote to extend the relief only for middle-income Americans if that were the only option available. Some House Democrats, particularly moderates facing difficult re-election battles in districts carried by GOP presidential nominee John McCain two years ago, agree with a proposal offered by Republicans for a short-term renewal of all of the Bush-era tax cuts. “We look forward to working with you to extend all income tax rates,” a small group of conservative-to-moderate House Democrats wrote in a draft letter to party leaders as lawmakers trickled back into town Tuesday from their summer break. Democratic Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah, Melissa Bean of Illinois and Glenn Nye of Virginia were circulating the letter for more signatures and were picking up support. On the Senate side, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said most Democrats support Obama’s plan to allow income tax rates on family income exceeding $250,000 to rise to as high as 39.6 percent. But he also said some want to raise the amount of income exempted from the higher rates above the $250,000 figure called for by Obama – while not advocating a full renewal for, say, millionaires. “Some people think it should go beyond $250,000, but how much and for what period of time is still being debated,” Durbin told reporters Tuesday. The cost of extending the tax cuts for everyone for the next 10 years would approach $4 trillion, according to congressional estimates. Eliminating the breaks for the top earners would reduce that bill by about $700 billion. A one-year extension of the lower rates for high-income earners would cost the government $39 billion. ___ Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

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Obama Tax Cuts Plan Has House Democrats Deeply Divided

September 15, 2010

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are confronting deep divisions within their nervous ranks over whether to support President Barack Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans – or just punt the entire matter until after voters go to the polls Nov. 2. Democratic leaders committed to Obama’s proposal were hearing Wednesday from endangered lawmakers who fear that raising taxes on anyone in a weak economy could be politically lethal. “Don’t raise taxes in a recession,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. Democratic leaders refused to say whether they were open to changing Obama’s plan, or even commit to a vote before the balloting seven weeks off. Instead, they called House Democrats together Tuesday night to discuss a poll showing that extending tax cuts for middle-income earners was a winning strategy for the party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the case that Obama’s plan was “good policy and good politics,” her spokesman said. Not everyone was convinced. A group of moderate and conservative House Democrats was collecting signatures on a letter calling for Democratic leaders to offer a bill extending tax cuts for all Americans. Broad tax cuts passed during the George W. Bush administration are due to expire at the end of the year. “We are in listening mode,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who heads the House Democrats’ campaign committee. A fuller discussion was expected at the House Democrats’ weekly meeting Wednesday, but it was canceled. This was not the debate Democrats wanted as the midterm election season opened. The plan was to make an extension of the middle-class tax cuts the party’s closing argument – against Republicans, not each other – as voters began to focus on whether they trust Democrats to improve the ailing economy enough to reward them with control of Congress for another two years. Instead, Democrats who already have cast tough votes on bills overhauling the nation’s health care and financial regulatory systems are questioning the wisdom of debating a pocketbook issue just when voters are starting to pay attention to the election. All 435 seats in the House, 37 in the Senate and the Democratic majorities in both are on the line. The rift among Democrats contrasts with strong unity among Republicans in supporting a full renewal of all tax cuts, regardless of income, despite a 10-year cost to the government of about $700 billion above Obama’s plan. Still, House Republican leader John Boehner said over the weekend he would vote to extend the relief only for middle-income Americans if that were the only option available. Some House Democrats, particularly moderates facing difficult re-election battles in districts carried by GOP presidential nominee John McCain two years ago, agree with a proposal offered by Republicans for a short-term renewal of all of the Bush-era tax cuts. “We look forward to working with you to extend all income tax rates,” a small group of conservative-to-moderate House Democrats wrote in a draft letter to party leaders as lawmakers trickled back into town Tuesday from their summer break. Democratic Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah, Melissa Bean of Illinois and Glenn Nye of Virginia were circulating the letter for more signatures and were picking up support. On the Senate side, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said most Democrats support Obama’s plan to allow income tax rates on family income exceeding $250,000 to rise to as high as 39.6 percent. But he also said some want to raise the amount of income exempted from the higher rates above the $250,000 figure called for by Obama – while not advocating a full renewal for, say, millionaires. “Some people think it should go beyond $250,000, but how much and for what period of time is still being debated,” Durbin told reporters Tuesday. The cost of extending the tax cuts for everyone for the next 10 years would approach $4 trillion, according to congressional estimates. Eliminating the breaks for the top earners would reduce that bill by about $700 billion. A one-year extension of the lower rates for high-income earners would cost the government $39 billion. ___ Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

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Geithner Calendar: Met Goldman’s Blankfein More Often Than Pelosi, Reid, McConnell, Boehner

September 14, 2010

When it comes to spending time with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of Goldman Sachs may have an easier time getting a meeting than either the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority Leader. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein has shown up on Geithner’s calendar at least 38 times through March since the Treasury Secretary took office in January 2009, three more entries than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 13 more than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a copy of Geithner’s daily log recently published online by the Treasury Department . All told, Geithner met with, spoke to, or attempted to secure conversations with Wall Street chieftains at least 49 times during the five-month period ending in March 2010, a slight increase from the 37 entries on his calendar during the previous five-month period. But it’s still far below his first five months in office, when Geithner met with chief executives from firms like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock at least 76 times — more calendar entries than for the heads of the regional Federal Reserve banks, who are the top overseers of systemically-important banks like JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — or for top members of Congress like Reid, Pelosi, their Republican counterparts, and the heads of the Senate and House committees overseeing financial institutions and economic policy. A Huffington Post review of Geithner’s calendar shows how personally involved he was in Congressional efforts to re-regulate the financial system; how Christina Romer, the former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, slowly faded from the Treasury Secretary’s daily log; how Republicans may have a case when they gripe about not being consulted on economic policy; the continuing involvement of former Treasury Secretary and Citigroup chairman Robert Rubin; the revolving door of access shown to former Fed chairman Paul Volcker; and how President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers, was in close contact during the early months of Geithner’s tenure but then faded behind White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as the administration geared up for the pending political battle over financial reform. The calendar entries show calls made and received — both completed calls and attempts — as well as face-to-face meetings in the Treasury Department and elsewhere. However, it doesn’t show calls Geithner may have made from home or on his way home, or meetings he may have had on the fly while in the White House or on Capitol Hill. It’s not totally complete, but it’s as close to complete as available. For example, as the recently-enacted financial re-regulation bill was entering its home stretch in the House from October through December 2009, Geithner’s calendar shows at least 33 entries for the man who shepherded the legislation through the House, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. There are 35 entries for Frank in the preceding eight-plus months. And after the House passed the bill and it went to the Senate, Geithner began spending more time with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd. From January to March of this year Dodd shows up on Geithner’s calendar at least 37 times. Last year the banking chairman made it onto Geithner’s calendar just 29 times. “He was deeply involved in financial reform. The calls bear that out,” said Steven Adamske, Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. Adamske, who recently joined Treasury after serving as Frank’s top spokesman for the House Financial Services Committee, said he remembers Geithner calling “a couple times a day” and that when the Treasury Secretary would call his former boss, Frank would often put him on speaker phone. The increased contact with Obama’s chief of staff, Emanuel, partly reflects the fight over financial reform, Adamske added. He noted that the White House became much more involved in financial reform once it got to the Senate. Obama, for example, began talking about it more. From November 2009 to March 2010, a period during which the House voted to pass the bill and Dodd negotiated with his Republican counterparts over critical measures like the makeup of the new consumer-oriented financial regulator, Emanuel shows up at least 158 times on Geithner’s daily log, nearly equaling the total reached over the eight-plus months leading up to November. But while the global financial crisis roiled the markets from its September 2008 peak through the early spring — the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a 12-year low in March 2009 — it was Summers who most frequented Geithner’s calendar. The head of Obama’s National Economic Council, Summers is the president’s top economic adviser. He’s also reportedly one of Geithner’s mentors. And during the first two full tumultuous months of Geithner’s term, Summers was listed on Geithner’s calendar at least 86 times — more than Obama and Emanuel combined. As the months wore on, though, Summers began to fade from the log. During the first four full months of Geithner’s tenure in 2009, Summers’s name appeared at least 134 times. But during the last four full months for which records are publicly available (December through March 2010), Summers made the calendar 98 times. Geithner’s calendar also shows the up-and-down access that former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and recently-departed Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer had with the Treasury Secretary. Volcker is listed at least 21 times from the start of Geithner’s tenure through May 2009. He’s then listed nine times over the next seven months. Last October, Volcker told the New York Times of his relationship with the administration: “I did not have influence to start with.” He resurfaced in January when Obama announced that he was adopting Volcker’s proposal to limit risk-taking by banks, appearing on Geithner’s calendar at least 11 times over the next three months. His proposal has since become known as the “Volcker Rule.” A slightly watered-down version was included in the final financial reform legislation. Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, another reported Geithner mentor, appears at least five times on Geithner’s 2009 calendar. But during the month of January 2010, when Obama publicly endorsed the “Volcker Rule,” Rubin had four entries. He didn’t appear to have any calendar entries in February or March, though. As for Romer, she appears prominently on Geithner’s calendar during his first few months on the job. She then faded from the log, appearing just 11 times from November 2009 to March 2010. Romer left the White House earlier this month. Even though an audience with Geithner proved fleeting for some of these Democrats, at least they got one. House Minority Leader John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio vying to take over Pelosi’s Speakership in November, showed up on Geithner’s calendar just once — in February 2009. A review of Geithner’s calendar didn’t yield any more entries. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, doesn’t appear until January 2010. Adamske cautioned that the calendar isn’t a full recording of Geithner’s time atop Treasury, and that conclusions shouldn’t be drawn merely based on Geithner’s daily log. “Drawing conclusions just from this data probably doesn’t tell the full story,” Adamske said. “It should be taken as what it is.” With research assistance by Will Alden and Nathaniel Cahners Hindman. VIEW an interactive chart detailing the number of entries on Geithner’s calendar for notables like Obama, Summers, Blankfein and Volcker. The calendar lists the total number of calendar entries per person per month, categorized by the group they best represent (White House, Congress, Wall Street, etc.). The sums include calls from these individuals, calls to them (both missed calls and answered calls), and in-person meetings. To take full advantage of this interactive feature, make sure to use the options in the left column to filter Geithner’s visitors. ************************* Shahien Nasiripour is the business reporter for the Huffington Post. You can send him an e-mail ; bookmark his page ; subscribe to his RSS feed ; follow him on Twitter ; friend him on Facebook ; become a fan ; and/or get e-mail alerts when he reports the latest news. He can be reached at 646-274-2455.

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Roger Hickey: Deficit Commission: If You Won’t Fire Simpson, Hands Off Social Security

September 1, 2010

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have now called for Senator Alan Simpson, co-chair of the White House deficit commission, to step down — after he insulted the head of the Older Women’s League, Ashley Carson, by implying that her dedication to protecting retirees was not “honest work” — and then he revealed what he thinks of Social Security: “a milk cow with 310 million tits.” Simpson eventually apologized, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stood by Simpson, making it clear that the Obama administration would not send him packing back to Wyoming — unless perhaps the clamor gets louder. At least Gibbs had the smarts to distance President Obama from the substance of Simpson’s remarks. But the silence from commission co-chair Erskine Bowles and commission members like economist Alice Rivlin, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad and Republican Paul Ryan has been deafening. They should be a little worried about his obnoxious style, but the truth is Simpson speaks for a large number of deficit commissioners who want to cut Social Security. So if the White House won’t fire Simpson, the president should tell the deficit commission to take Social Security off the table. The real problem is not Simpson. Most of the commission members agree with Simpson that Social Security benefits should be cut and the retirement age should be raised. They all know that Social Security has its own stream of revenue and contributes nothing to the federal deficit. But this conservative commission majority either wants to “send a message to the bond markets” that America is willing to whack seniors — or they want to steal money from the trillions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund built up through years of extra FICA taxes paid by working Americans and use those savings to cut the deficit caused by tax cuts for the wealthy. Simpson has just been blunter about the plan to steal money from the trust fund. In another hostile confrontation, Simpson told Alex Lawson of Social Security Works that the Social Security trust fund has been spent. Here’s what he said, in his disrespectful style: Simpson: Listen $2.5 trillion of IOU’s which have been used to build the interstate highway system and all the things people have enjoyed since it was set up. Lawson: Two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy – Simpson: Whatever, whatever. You pick your crap and I’ll pick the real stuff. It was to do with the highway system; it was to run America. And those IOU’s in there now, there’s not enough coming in every month. There it is folks. Deficit hawks like Simpson think it is way too hard to take their deficit mandated serious: finding revenues to pay for the deficits wracked up by years of tax cuts and military spending. Instead, they want to show they are tough by raiding the Social Security trust fund by cutting retirement benefits for future retirees who have been paying extra to keep our retirement system solvent. The small number of progressives on the commission have made the case over and over again that Social Security contributes nothing to the deficit. But the hawkish majority, refusing to call for raising taxes on the rich or cutting the military budget, thinks going after the trillions of dollars in the Social Security trust fund is the “confidence-building” consensus accomplishment they will be able to unite around. But the American people won’t let them. Poll after poll, including CAF/Greenberg , finds that Americans of all stripes, Democrats, Republicans, tea party supporters and young people HATE the idea of balancing the budget by cutting Social Security. So please keep exposing Simpson as the undiplomatic spokes person for the deficit hawks. But this should be our new demand: If the White House Won’t Fire Simpson, the Deficit Commission Should Keep Their Hands Off Social Security. And let’s keep telling the truth: Social Security contributes not a penny to the deficit; therefore reducing benefits won’t reduct the deficit. Social Security’s trust fund has enough assets to pay current benefits for the next 27 years. If needed, modest changes that will increase Social Security revenues could extend the program’s solvency for decades into the future. But this Commission, stacked as it is with enemies of Social Security – and fronted by Alan Simpson, is not the appropriate vehicle for making those fixes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking at Netroots Nation in July , got it right: When you’re talking about reducing the deficit and Social Security, you’re talking about apples and oranges. If we want to have a conversation about Social Security and how we keep it solvent, what are the things we can do to keep Social Security solvent way down the road so it’s there for future generations, that I believe is an appropriate conversation. It shouldn’t involve reducing the benefits or raising the limit or whatever, but you could talk about how you keep it solvent. To change Social Security in order to balance the budget; they aren’t the same thing, in my view. That isn’t what we should be doing. So, I will admit and accept the fact that as we make Social Security solvent–and it is solvent for the next into the 2030s–it will have a positive impact on the deficit, but we shouldn’t be looking for reducing benefits and raising ages and all the rest, period, and we certainly shouldn’t be doing it to reduce the deficit. Two different sides of the ledger. Note: The Campaign for America’s Future, which has helped lead the charge against Simpson, now has an action petition going to send this message: If the White House Won’t Fire Simpson, the Deficit Commission Should Keep Their Hands Off Social Security. Click here . Also, CAF is working with MoveOn.org Political Action, CREDO Action, Democracy For America, the Teamsters Union, and Social Security Works to encourage citizens to ask candidates for Congress to promise to oppose SS benefit cuts, retirement age increases and privatization. To see who has made the promise, go to www.handsoffsocialsecurity.org .

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Video: Spain’s Catalonia Bans Bullfighting After Popular Outcry: Video

July 29, 2010

July 29 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg’s Louise Beale reports on a ban on bullfighting in the Spanish region of Catalonia. Catalonia’s parliament in Barcelona voted to ban the practice yesterday in the first such prohibition in mainland Spain. Regional lawmakers voted 68 to 55 for the ban, the speaker of the assembly said. The bill was the result of a popular initiative backed by 180,000 signatures, according to the Prou platform behind the initial campaign. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Lynn Tilton: Dark Days Ahead

July 12, 2010

Last week, our nation celebrated its independence, but the liberties so carefully constructed by our founding fathers are threatened by the economic dangers that lie ahead. Freedom cannot thrive in a country so deeply divided. Most Americans believe government no longer works for them. Under every imaginable economic scenario, this nation faces dark and humbling days ahead. The manner in which we react to this hard truth will determine who we, as a people, will become after this tenure of transformation. We can listen to the banter of partisan rhetoric: the slant, the criticism and the dichotomy of political theories or we can choose to become activists. Very few Main Street Americans can translate the argument between small and big government, for and against rising taxation and whether or not jobs can be created through trade agreements into the immediate needs of their lives. What they do know is that each Thursday the reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics deliver more bad news proving that our beloved country is in crisis and that our people are suffering. Most troubling to me, however, is the absence of urgency from our elected officials to provide and implement an effective action plan for job creation. More than thirty million unemployed and under-employed Americans (and their family members) feel helpless, desperate and abandoned by Washington politicians who focus their partisan gamesmanship on issues other than the only one that matters most to them — their jobs. In the past several months, the issue of unemployment has almost entirely centered on the extension of jobless benefits in Congress. While I do believe that assistance for those in need is humanitarian and necessary, it is imperative that we accept these benefits for what they are — a temporary band-aid on a much larger systemic infrastructure problem — not the rapid job creator Speaker Pelosi claims them to be. This month, one year ago, I made my last of many visits to Treasury to present a plan designed to sustain and create jobs. I believed then, as I do now, that an economic recovery is not possible until we can curb the tide of unemployment. Job losses cannot be stemmed until the liquidation of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), which employ 80% of the American workforce, are halted. Industry in this country must be embraced and accepted as the necessary foundation of our economy. The most direct and rapid solution to sustain and create employment is to incentivize private enterprise to originate and monetize rescue-financing loans for struggling SMEs and capital starved industrial companies. We are now painfully aware that neither large banks nor community banks will provide such loans. My rescue loan plan (RLP), as presented, accessed unutilized TARP funds set aside for the PPIP (Public Private Investment Program) Legacy Securities Program. The Treasury originally intended $100 billion of TARP funds be used for PPIP programs but, only $30 billion was allocated and less was actually tapped for a plan that was ill conceived and underdeveloped. The RLP would have used $30 billion for equity and debt investments. The program’s blueprint was carefully designed to access structures previously announced and required no additional funding from Congress. The RLP would have saved jobs the old fashioned way, by lending money to companies that without funding would otherwise shut down and liquidate, leaving their employees without salaries and benefits. Without jobs, Americans lose the all important hope for a bright and prosperous future. Unfortunately, the offer of my time and patented portfolio construction models, upon which my Patriarch platform has thrived, seemingly fell on deaf ears. At the time of my visit to Treasury in July of 2009, 1 in 3 unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more. Less than one year later, in June of 2010, those individuals made up more than 45% of unemployed persons. Immediate and early action to stop the bleeding and address the daunting but surmountable obstacles to job creation were overshadowed by the more politicized issues of healthcare and financial reform. Questionable Wall Street practices and synthetic financial instruments such as credit default swaps hunger for regulation. However, at the risk of repetition in works of my recent past, the heart, soul and salvation of our nation have never, and will never, reside on Wall Street. The disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street grows increasingly vast and any economic revival will lie in the recovery and resonance of cities and districts beyond southern Manhattan. Immediate and aggressive action is needed from our elected officials to address the epidemic of unemployment. It is a disease whose source must be analyzed and treated to provide long and lasting solutions. The infrastructure of this nation has been badly injured. Manufacturing jobs have been reduced by more than 9 million since the start of the decade. Small and mid-sized businesses struggle to access the necessary working capital to survive. Healing the plague upon the nation will begin with facing and addressing the truth. We need an antidote to end the plague of joblessness and that solution rests with helping America’s struggling small and mid-sized businesses. I hope Washington will hear our call. America’s future depends on it.

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Obama, Cameron Agree on Need for BP to Do `All It Can’ on Gulf Oil Spill

June 12, 2010

By Roger Runningen and Joshua Zumbrun June 12 (Bloomberg) — U.S. President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron agreed that BP Plc must do everything possible to “effectively” address the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House said today. “The President and the Prime Minister discussed the impact of the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, reiterating that BP must do all it can to respond effectively to the situation,” the statement released in Washington said. Cameron’s office, in a separate statement, said the call lasted more than 30 minutes, and the prime minister expressed “sadness” about the “human and environmental catastrophe.” The two leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan and the need for Iran to “live up to its international obligations,” the White House statement said. Obama and Cameron will meet later this month at the Group of 20 summit in Canada and again in Washington July 20, the U.S. said. Escalating criticism of BP by U.S. officials and lawmakers has put Cameron under pressure from U.K. politicians and the media to defend the company. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday there is “no friction” between the U.S. and U.K. as a result of the spill, the worst such environmental disaster in U.S. history. ‘Tension’ “This is the first sign of significant tension between Washington and London since David Cameron became prime minister,” said Nile Gardiner , the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. “Cameron appears to have made a strong gesture toward his U.S. counterpart urging President Obama to back off from using harsh rhetoric against BP.” The prime minister said during that call he was “frustrated and concerned about the environmental damage caused by the leak but made clear his view that BP is an economically important company in the U.K., U.S. and other countries,” Cameron’s office said in an e-mailed statement. Obama said criticism of London-based BP wasn’t aimed at Britain, and he today “affirmed his deep commitment to the special and historic relationship between our two countries,” according to the White House statement. During the call, Obama told Cameron that criticism of BP by the administration, including the president’s own irritation at times, had nothing to do with national identity, a U.S. administration official said. Rather, it was a reflection of White House efforts to ensure that a large, wealthy company lives up to its obligations, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Obama’s Rhetoric “It remains to be seen if President Obama scales back the criticism,” Gardiner said. “Obama himself is under tremendous pressure from his own party to toughen his rhetoric to BP.” The president reiterated that BP must meet its obligations to small businesses and those whose lives have been disrupted, and that the U.S. will insist everything be done to cap the well, capture the oil and pay for the cleanup, including the environmental damage done and the tens of thousands of economic claims as a result of this disaster. As of yesterday, BP reported the filing of 50,101 claims and that is has made payments of $58.1 million. The call between Cameron and Obama wasn’t set up solely to discuss the oil spill, Gibbs said. Cameron returned yesterday from a trip to Afghanistan. Afghanistan While Obama is still dealing with the Afghanistan conflict, tensions with Iran and North Korea and attempts to revive the Middle East peace process, the oil spill has been dominating the president’s agenda and public attention in the U.S. Obama will make his fourth trip to the Gulf coast June 14- 15, and the administration has summoned BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg to a White House meeting on June 16. In an e-mailed statement today, the company said it will affirm to Obama its “total commitment to fulfill our obligations in dealing with the tremendous impact of this tragic incident.” Statements by Obama, top administration officials and lawmakers indicate growing irritation with BP. During a June 4 stop in Louisiana, Obama said that if BP can give shareholders dividends and pay for advertising campaigns, he didn’t want to hear that the company is “nickel-and-diming fishermen or small businesses here in the Gulf who are having a hard time.” BP Dividends Such remarks have raised concern in the U.K., where BP is the second-highest-weighted company in the benchmark FTSE 100 Index , after HSBC Holdings Plc. It accounted for about 14 percent of all dividend payouts in the U.K. in 2009, according to Morgan Stanley. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar , who previously vowed to keep “our boot on BP’s neck” until the damaged well is capped and the oil is cleaned up, said earlier this week that BP should pay lost wages of Gulf region oil workers idled by the government’s six-month moratorium new deepwater drilling. The ban was imposed after the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday joined other lawmakers in calling for BP to suspend dividends to shareholders until Gulf region businesses and residents are “made whole” for their economic losses stemming from the spill. Cleanup Costs BP’s cleanup costs and legal liabilities may reach $37 billion, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. The company’s shares have dropped more than 40 percent since April 20. Obama said on the call that he had “no interest in undermining BP’s value,” according to Cameron’s office. Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published yesterday it may cut or defer its second-quarter dividend payment. BP Plc’s board will meet June 14 to discuss the dividend payment. A decision may not be reached at the meeting, BP spokesman Robert Wine said in a telephone interview today. To contact the reporters on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at rrunningenbloomberg.net

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Georges Ugeux: Bankers, Regulators and Governments: the Difficult Consensus

June 11, 2010

Writing from Vienna, June 11, 2010 As the Washington-based Institute of International Finance (IIF) gathers for its semi-annual event, it has the unique ability to attract decision makers involved in reshaping the banking industry. In the middle of the Eurozone debt crisis, the debates were as hot as the early summer weather in Vienna and the performance of the famous Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding school reminded the participants of the difficult equilibrium between horse and rider is not unlike the current balancing act of finding financial stability. What is even more remarkable, is the consensus that the IIF manages to build amongst its members, as expressed through substantive publications on “Systemic Risks and Systematically Important Firms,” “Reform in the Financial Services Industry” and “A Global Approach to Resolving Failing Financial Firms” where tough resolutions are proposed, and for many of the banking members, starting to be implemented. Yet despite this progress, the mood here is somber and probably overly pessimistic. It took the IIF (and Deutsche Bank) Chairman, Josef Ackermann, to remind the attendants that there was no question of the Euro disappearing, and that the Eurozone would stay the course. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet added that “Central Banks have changed, because the financial world against them has changed.” The changes in the regulatory landscape are part of a unique dialogue between the IIF and the Basel Committee of the Bank for International Settlements, chaired by the Dutch Central Bank President, Arnout Wellink. It does not mean that the new banking standards currently prepared by the BIS and the Financial Stability Board will please the bankers. Just like the new U.S. financial regulation, he was insisting on liquidity buffers, a better capturing of trading risks and the creation of a “global liquidity framework.” Basel III is still hotly debated, but seems now certain that it will happen and will include serious provisions. With all this action is everything under control? Are we making sure that what provoked the last crisis will not happen again? Despite all of this new regulation, banks seem reluctant to sever their links from the most speculative activities and leave the hedge funds to finance themselves in the public markets rather than through their balance sheets. The recent crisis was a failure of risk management — a diagnosis widely shared among the members of the IIF. But we are also starting the next crisis: the public finance crisis in Europe, the United States and Japan. As we saw during the Greek crisis, the banks are the largest holders of Government Bonds. It makes them the biggest lender of their regulators. A public finance crisis is also a bank crisis. The interconnectedness of the financial markets leave no real escape: only diversification allows for risk mitigation. There is afterall a close correlation between the quality of banks and the quality of its risk managers. But all this discussion is happening within the financial bubble that doesn’t involve consumers and other companies. In this context, the risk management of banks encompasses a set of variables that make this job closer to an art than a science. As I leave for the closing dinner where the speaker is Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou who managed the impossible for his country, I was thinking of a quote from Mark Twain: “it is not the dangers we are afraid of that are worrying it is those we are not afraid of because we are not anticipating them.”

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Georges Ugeux: Bankers, Regulators and Governments: the Difficult Consensus

June 11, 2010

Writing from Vienna, June 11, 2010 As the Washington-based Institute of International Finance (IIF) gathers for its semi-annual event, it has the unique ability to attract decision makers involved in reshaping the banking industry. In the middle of the Eurozone debt crisis, the debates were as hot as the early summer weather in Vienna and the performance of the famous Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding school reminded the participants of the difficult equilibrium between horse and rider is not unlike the current balancing act of finding financial stability. What is even more remarkable, is the consensus that the IIF manages to build amongst its members, as expressed through substantive publications on “Systemic Risks and Systematically Important Firms,” “Reform in the Financial Services Industry” and “A Global Approach to Resolving Failing Financial Firms” where tough resolutions are proposed, and for many of the banking members, starting to be implemented. Yet despite this progress, the mood here is somber and probably overly pessimistic. It took the IIF (and Deutsche Bank) Chairman, Josef Ackermann, to remind the attendants that there was no question of the Euro disappearing, and that the Eurozone would stay the course. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet added that “Central Banks have changed, because the financial world against them has changed.” The changes in the regulatory landscape are part of a unique dialogue between the IIF and the Basel Committee of the Bank for International Settlements, chaired by the Dutch Central Bank President, Arnout Wellink. It does not mean that the new banking standards currently prepared by the BIS and the Financial Stability Board will please the bankers. Just like the new U.S. financial regulation, he was insisting on liquidity buffers, a better capturing of trading risks and the creation of a “global liquidity framework.” Basel III is still hotly debated, but seems now certain that it will happen and will include serious provisions. With all this action is everything under control? Are we making sure that what provoked the last crisis will not happen again? Despite all of this new regulation, banks seem reluctant to sever their links from the most speculative activities and leave the hedge funds to finance themselves in the public markets rather than through their balance sheets. The recent crisis was a failure of risk management — a diagnosis widely shared among the members of the IIF. But we are also starting the next crisis: the public finance crisis in Europe, the United States and Japan. As we saw during the Greek crisis, the banks are the largest holders of Government Bonds. It makes them the biggest lender of their regulators. A public finance crisis is also a bank crisis. The interconnectedness of the financial markets leave no real escape: only diversification allows for risk mitigation. There is afterall a close correlation between the quality of banks and the quality of its risk managers. But all this discussion is happening within the financial bubble that doesn’t involve consumers and other companies. In this context, the risk management of banks encompasses a set of variables that make this job closer to an art than a science. As I leave for the closing dinner where the speaker is Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou who managed the impossible for his country, I was thinking of a quote from Mark Twain: “it is not the dangers we are afraid of that are worrying it is those we are not afraid of because we are not anticipating them.”

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Layoff Victims Now Ineligible For Health Insurance Subsidy

June 7, 2010

Jim Sullivan lost his job as a manager at a wholesale distributor in June 2009, but he kept his health insurance thanks to the stimulus bill, which lowered his monthly premium from $638 to $223. “If I didn’t have this insurance I’d be screwed,” said Sullivan, who is 52 and lives in Lansdale, Pa. He said he suffers thyroid disease and has had two hernia operations since his layoff, and that as far as he could tell his condition would make the individual insurance market ridiculously expensive. “When you’re only making $2,300 a month on unemployment and the mortgage and rent is over $1,000, and you got a car payment and other bills, it’s probably one of the things you forgo.” Unfortunately for anyone laid off after May 31, deficit-weary House Democrats decided to forgo reauthorizing the 65 percent subsidy for COBRA, the federal program that allows laid off workers like Sullivan to continue their former employer’s health insurance for 18 months. Without the subsidy, COBRA is prohibitively expensive in most cases. According to a new report from Families USA , unemployed workers who choose to buy health insurance via COBRA have to hand over 84.3 percent of their monthly unemployment benefit, on average. “The elimination of COBRA subsidies means that people losing their jobs will also lose their health care coverage,” said Families USA director Ron Pollack in a statement. “Such a loss of health coverage flies in the face of the recently enacted health reform legislation that is intended to expand health coverage to tens of millions of people.” The Treasury Department reported in May that 15 percent of people receiving unemployment benefits are taking advantage of the subsidy. That’s roughly 1.5 million people ( 67 percent of the 15 million unemployed receive benefits). “[T]he subsidy appears to have been especially important for maintaining health insurance coverage for middle-class families during the recession,” said Treasury’s report, which noted that families earning between $30,000 and $134,000 accounted for most of the people using the subsidy. “Indeed, the availability of the program may have significantly slowed the growth of the uninsured population, which had been skyrocketing through February 2009.” Conservative Democrats in the House, by pushing for the removal of the COBRA subsidies from a “tax extenders” bill to reauthorize several other expiring domestic aid programs, shaved less than $8 billion from the bill’s original $123 billion impact on a federal budget deficit expected to reach $1.5 trillion or so this year. The Senate will take up the legislation on Monday night. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she planned to revisit the COBRA and Medicaid funding provisions soon. “It’s obscene,” said Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wisc.) of the COBRA cut, which happened as the House approved the bill at the last minute before its Memorial Day recess. The Senate adjourned before the House even finished the bill; several programs, including subsidies for doctors who take Medicare patients and extended unemployment benefits, lapsed during the break along with the COBRA subsidies. “It is essential that the Senate put the COBRA subsidy back into the bill it will be considering this week,” said Judy Conti, a lobbyist for the National Employment Law Project. “Without this subsidy, it is unlikely that many unemployed workers and their families could continue their health insurance as COBRA premiums for a family can easily exceed the sum of monthly unemployment checks. “Equally important is the symbolic value of fighting for the COBRA subsidy — last week’s jobs report shows us that now is NOT the time to start cutting back our support of those who are unemployed through no fault of their own,” Conti said. “If we allow COBRA to slip this time, who knows what could be next.” Democrats also jettisoned $24 billion to help states with Medicaid costs. “As a result, states across the country are likely to exacerbate the Medicaid cuts already planned,” says Families USA. “The additional state cuts are likely to include cuts to Medicaid benefits, increases in the out-of-pocket health costs that low-income families must bear, and lower payments to health providers, thereby making needed care unaffordable and/or unavailable.” The rebellion among conservative Democrats signaled that Congress is shifting from fighting the jobs crisis to worrying about the deficit, even though the unemployment rate is higher now than when the expiring programs were created.

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Layoff Victims Now Ineligible For Health Insurance Subsidy

June 7, 2010

Jim Sullivan lost his job as a manager at a wholesale distributor in June 2009, but he kept his health insurance thanks to the stimulus bill, which lowered his monthly premium from $638 to $223. “If I didn’t have this insurance I’d be screwed,” said Sullivan, who is 52 and lives in Lansdale, Pa. He said he suffers thyroid disease and has had two hernia operations since his layoff, and that as far as he could tell his condition would make the individual insurance market ridiculously expensive. “When you’re only making $2,300 a month on unemployment and the mortgage and rent is over $1,000, and you got a car payment and other bills, it’s probably one of the things you forgo.” Unfortunately for anyone laid off after May 31, deficit-weary House Democrats decided to forgo reauthorizing the 65 percent subsidy for COBRA, the federal program that allows laid off workers like Sullivan to continue their former employer’s health insurance for 18 months. Without the subsidy, COBRA is prohibitively expensive in most cases. According to a new report from Families USA , unemployed workers who choose to buy health insurance via COBRA have to hand over 84.3 percent of their monthly unemployment benefit, on average. “The elimination of COBRA subsidies means that people losing their jobs will also lose their health care coverage,” said Families USA director Ron Pollack in a statement. “Such a loss of health coverage flies in the face of the recently enacted health reform legislation that is intended to expand health coverage to tens of millions of people.” The Treasury Department reported in May that 15 percent of people receiving unemployment benefits are taking advantage of the subsidy. That’s roughly 1.5 million people ( 67 percent of the 15 million unemployed receive benefits). “[T]he subsidy appears to have been especially important for maintaining health insurance coverage for middle-class families during the recession,” said Treasury’s report, which noted that families earning between $30,000 and $134,000 accounted for most of the people using the subsidy. “Indeed, the availability of the program may have significantly slowed the growth of the uninsured population, which had been skyrocketing through February 2009.” Conservative Democrats in the House, by pushing for the removal of the COBRA subsidies from a “tax extenders” bill to reauthorize several other expiring domestic aid programs, shaved less than $8 billion from the bill’s original $123 billion impact on a federal budget deficit expected to reach $1.5 trillion or so this year. The Senate will take up the legislation on Monday night. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she planned to revisit the COBRA and Medicaid funding provisions soon. “It’s obscene,” said Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wisc.) of the COBRA cut, which happened as the House approved the bill at the last minute before its Memorial Day recess. The Senate adjourned before the House even finished the bill; several programs, including subsidies for doctors who take Medicare patients and extended unemployment benefits, lapsed during the break along with the COBRA subsidies. “It is essential that the Senate put the COBRA subsidy back into the bill it will be considering this week,” said Judy Conti, a lobbyist for the National Employment Law Project. “Without this subsidy, it is unlikely that many unemployed workers and their families could continue their health insurance as COBRA premiums for a family can easily exceed the sum of monthly unemployment checks. “Equally important is the symbolic value of fighting for the COBRA subsidy — last week’s jobs report shows us that now is NOT the time to start cutting back our support of those who are unemployed through no fault of their own,” Conti said. “If we allow COBRA to slip this time, who knows what could be next.” Democrats also jettisoned $24 billion to help states with Medicaid costs. “As a result, states across the country are likely to exacerbate the Medicaid cuts already planned,” says Families USA. “The additional state cuts are likely to include cuts to Medicaid benefits, increases in the out-of-pocket health costs that low-income families must bear, and lower payments to health providers, thereby making needed care unaffordable and/or unavailable.” The rebellion among conservative Democrats signaled that Congress is shifting from fighting the jobs crisis to worrying about the deficit, even though the unemployment rate is higher now than when the expiring programs were created.

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Video: Pelosi Discusses Obama’s Response to Gulf Oil Spill: Video

May 28, 2010

May 28 (Bloomberg) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks with Bloomberg’s Al Hunt President Barack Obama’s response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Bloomberg’s Mark Crumpton also speaks. Hunt also discusses the outlook for congressional action on funding the wars in Afghanistan and Irag and efforts to reduce the federal deficit. (This is an excerpt of the full interview that airs this weekend on “Political Capital With Al Hunt. Source: Bloomberg)

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Tier 5: Pelosi Says No To More Weeks Of Unemployment Benefits

May 27, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Congress will not take up any measure to give the long-term jobless more weeks of unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks available in some states. Congress is currently locked in an epic battle just to preserve the 99 weeks for the rest of the year. In a seemingly futile effort to appease deficit hawks, Dem leadership already weakened its “extenders bill,” formally known as the American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act, by shortening the unemployment extension through November instead of December. Hundreds of thousands of people, however, have already exhausted 99 weeks of benefits with no jobs in sight. Thousands signed a petition to demand Congress add a “Tier V” to the four tiers of benefits that currently make up the 99 weeks. A reporter asked Pelosi at her weekly press conference if there were any plans to help the 99ers. “No. This bill will go until the end of November, at that time we’ll take up something, but not between now and then,” said Pelosi (D-Calif.). “The situation I see is that members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit. Members who are from high unemployment areas are very concerned about jobs. So we have to come to a compromise as to how to move forward, and we did with this bill going to November.” But come November, if Congress takes up anything related to unemployment, it will most likely be another temporary extension of existing benefits. The extension under consideration this week is the fourth in the last six months. And while a handful of senators have pledged to constituents that they will fight for more weeks of benefits, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said that “99 weeks is sufficient.” HuffPost asked Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad on Thursday (D-N.D.) if Congress will take up another extension in November or if it might not bother even with that. “It’s so hard to know what the economic conditions will be at that point,” he said. Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, which has been lobbying for Congress to extend benefits through the end of the year and beyond, said midterm elections will make things more tricky politically in November. NELP’s goal is for Congress to reauthorize 99 weeks of benefits for the next two years if necessary. “As an advocate, I’m a little worried about what happens at November 30th,” said Stettner. “It’s not a great time to get something done in a thoughtful way.” Stettner added that he does expect Congress to continue to extend enhanced benefits, though perhaps with fewer weeks in certain states. “Nobody’s expecting that there will be no extension next year,” he said. “There have to be extensions given the job hole that we’re in.”

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Tier 5: Pelosi Says No To More Weeks Of Unemployment Benefits

May 27, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Congress will not take up any measure to give the long-term jobless more weeks of unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks available in some states. Congress is currently locked in an epic battle just to preserve the 99 weeks for the rest of the year. In a seemingly futile effort to appease deficit hawks, Dem leadership already weakened its “extenders bill,” formally known as the American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act, by shortening the unemployment extension through November instead of December. Hundreds of thousands of people, however, have already exhausted 99 weeks of benefits with no jobs in sight. Thousands signed a petition to demand Congress add a “Tier V” to the four tiers of benefits that currently make up the 99 weeks. A reporter asked Pelosi at her weekly press conference if there were any plans to help the 99ers. “No. This bill will go until the end of November, at that time we’ll take up something, but not between now and then,” said Pelosi (D-Calif.). “The situation I see is that members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit. Members who are from high unemployment areas are very concerned about jobs. So we have to come to a compromise as to how to move forward, and we did with this bill going to November.” But come November, if Congress takes up anything related to unemployment, it will most likely be another temporary extension of existing benefits. The extension under consideration this week is the fourth in the last six months. And while a handful of senators have pledged to constituents that they will fight for more weeks of benefits, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said that “99 weeks is sufficient.” HuffPost asked Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad on Thursday (D-N.D.) if Congress will take up another extension in November or if it might not bother even with that. “It’s so hard to know what the economic conditions will be at that point,” he said. Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, which has been lobbying for Congress to extend benefits through the end of the year and beyond, said midterm elections will make things more tricky politically in November. NELP’s goal is for Congress to reauthorize 99 weeks of benefits for the next two years if necessary. “As an advocate, I’m a little worried about what happens at November 30th,” said Stettner. “It’s not a great time to get something done in a thoughtful way.” Stettner added that he does expect Congress to continue to extend enhanced benefits, though perhaps with fewer weeks in certain states. “Nobody’s expecting that there will be no extension next year,” he said. “There have to be extensions given the job hole that we’re in.”

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Tier 5: Pelosi Says No To More Weeks Of Unemployment Benefits

May 27, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Congress will not take up any measure to give the long-term jobless more weeks of unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks available in some states. Congress is currently locked in an epic battle just to preserve the 99 weeks for the rest of the year. In a seemingly futile effort to appease deficit hawks, Dem leadership already weakened its “extenders bill,” formally known as the American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act, by shortening the unemployment extension through November instead of December. Hundreds of thousands of people, however, have already exhausted 99 weeks of benefits with no jobs in sight. Thousands signed a petition to demand Congress add a “Tier V” to the four tiers of benefits that currently make up the 99 weeks. A reporter asked Pelosi at her weekly press conference if there were any plans to help the 99ers. “No. This bill will go until the end of November, at that time we’ll take up something, but not between now and then,” said Pelosi (D-Calif.). “The situation I see is that members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit. Members who are from high unemployment areas are very concerned about jobs. So we have to come to a compromise as to how to move forward, and we did with this bill going to November.” But come November, if Congress takes up anything related to unemployment, it will most likely be another temporary extension of existing benefits. The extension under consideration this week is the fourth in the last six months. And while a handful of senators have pledged to constituents that they will fight for more weeks of benefits, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said that “99 weeks is sufficient.” HuffPost asked Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad on Thursday (D-N.D.) if Congress will take up another extension in November or if it might not bother even with that. “It’s so hard to know what the economic conditions will be at that point,” he said. Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, which has been lobbying for Congress to extend benefits through the end of the year and beyond, said midterm elections will make things more tricky politically in November. NELP’s goal is for Congress to reauthorize 99 weeks of benefits for the next two years if necessary. “As an advocate, I’m a little worried about what happens at November 30th,” said Stettner. “It’s not a great time to get something done in a thoughtful way.” Stettner added that he does expect Congress to continue to extend enhanced benefits, though perhaps with fewer weeks in certain states. “Nobody’s expecting that there will be no extension next year,” he said. “There have to be extensions given the job hole that we’re in.”

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Tier 5: Pelosi Says No To More Weeks Of Unemployment Benefits

May 27, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Congress will not take up any measure to give the long-term jobless more weeks of unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks available in some states. Congress is currently locked in an epic battle just to preserve the 99 weeks for the rest of the year. In a seemingly futile effort to appease deficit hawks, Dem leadership already weakened its “extenders bill,” formally known as the American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act, by shortening the unemployment extension through November instead of December. Hundreds of thousands of people, however, have already exhausted 99 weeks of benefits with no jobs in sight. Thousands signed a petition to demand Congress add a “Tier V” to the four tiers of benefits that currently make up the 99 weeks. A reporter asked Pelosi at her weekly press conference if there were any plans to help the 99ers. “No. This bill will go until the end of November, at that time we’ll take up something, but not between now and then,” said Pelosi (D-Calif.). “The situation I see is that members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit. Members who are from high unemployment areas are very concerned about jobs. So we have to come to a compromise as to how to move forward, and we did with this bill going to November.” But come November, if Congress takes up anything related to unemployment, it will most likely be another temporary extension of existing benefits. The extension under consideration this week is the fourth in the last six months. And while a handful of senators have pledged to constituents that they will fight for more weeks of benefits, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said that “99 weeks is sufficient.” HuffPost asked Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad on Thursday (D-N.D.) if Congress will take up another extension in November or if it might not bother even with that. “It’s so hard to know what the economic conditions will be at that point,” he said. Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, which has been lobbying for Congress to extend benefits through the end of the year and beyond, said midterm elections will make things more tricky politically in November. NELP’s goal is for Congress to reauthorize 99 weeks of benefits for the next two years if necessary. “As an advocate, I’m a little worried about what happens at November 30th,” said Stettner. “It’s not a great time to get something done in a thoughtful way.” Stettner added that he does expect Congress to continue to extend enhanced benefits, though perhaps with fewer weeks in certain states. “Nobody’s expecting that there will be no extension next year,” he said. “There have to be extensions given the job hole that we’re in.”

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Budget Process May Be Bypassed by Democrats in Face of Spiraling Deficits

May 14, 2010

By Brian Faler      May 14 (Bloomberg) — Democrats will likely skip the annual task of writing a budget for the U.S. government this year amid lawmakers’ unwillingness to endorse a plan sure to include huge deficits . With the midterm elections looming and primary results showing voters in a sour mood, Congress will probably forgo laying out tax-and-spending plan for the fifth time in the last 12 years. “It’s still on the outer range of possible” that a budget will be produced, “but increasingly less plausible,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer , an Oregon Democrat on the House Budget Committee . “With each passing day it gets a little less likely.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , a California Democrat, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer , a Maryland Democrat, signaled yesterday they are prepared to write separate spending measures rather than lay out a five-year fiscal plan. Republicans said Democrats are shirking a basic congressional responsibility. Representative Paul Ryan , the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, said Democrats are refusing to make the “hard choices American families and small businesses must make every day.” He called that “alarming as spending, deficits and debt continue to spiral out of control.” 10-Year Deficits The government is projected run $10 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years, with interest payments on the debt forecast to quadruple to more than $900 billion annually. Moody’s Investors Service has said it might eventually cut the government’s bond rating if the fiscal outlook doesn’t improve. “Failure to adopt a budget resolution when fiscal resolution is needed most would send the worst possible signal,” said Bob Bixby , head of the Washington-based Concord Coalition . “It would say to investors in Treasury securities, foreign and domestic, that the federal government is still in denial about its fiscal problems and has no plan to address the situation anytime soon.” The past failures by Congress to pass a budget occurred under either Republican or divided control of Congress, and coincided with election years. “You have the problem, always, of people not wanting to cast difficult votes in an election year,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad , a North Dakota Democrat. Political Ads “It isn’t the vote people fear, it’s the television ad” by a lawmaker’s election opponent on budget issues, said Steve Bell, former Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee . “Given the discontent of the electorate,” Democrats “know how powerful and damaging such ads can be,” he said. The Senate Budget Committee adopted a plan last month that anticipated cutting the deficit to $545 billion by 2015 from the current $1.5 trillion. House Budget Chairman John Spratt said he hasn’t given up telling colleagues that adopting a plan would show constituents that Democrats are trying to put the government’s books in order. Still, he said the prospects of Congress reaching agreement on a budget are “iffy.” Spratt, who is among lawmakers facing a serious re-election challenge, said “there are those who have tough seats who, probably some of them would like not to have a budget.” He also said lawmakers could limit spending this year without a budget, by means such as adopting a cap on the government’s discretionary spending. “There are other ways to skin this cat,” he said. Democrats have been unable to agree, though, on what the Obama administration called a modest proposal to freeze discretionary spending unrelated to national security issues. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net

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Gulf of Mexico Spill May Alter Obama’s Plans to Expand Offshore Drilling

April 30, 2010

By Nicholas Johnston and Julianna Goldman April 30 (Bloomberg) — Oil spilling from a damaged BP Plc well in the Gulf of Mexico may complicate President Barack Obama ’s five-year plan to open new offshore tracts to energy exploration. The leak, which is five times bigger than previously estimated, prompted Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to declare a state of emergency, and led Senator Bill Nelson , a Florida Democrat, to ask Obama to indefinitely suspend plans to expand offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. “Obviously, what’s occurring now will also be taken into consideration as the administration looks to how to advance that plan and what makes sense and what might need to be adjusted,” Carol Browner , Obama’s adviser for energy and climate change, said at a White House briefing yesterday. Administration officials escalated the federal response, declaring the spill of “national significance,” announcing immediate inspections of all deep-water drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and convening at the Department of Interior a meeting between government agencies and representatives from more than a dozen companies including BP, Chevron Corp ., ConocoPhillips , Exxon Mobil Corp . and Halliburton Co . Interior Secretary Ken Salazar , who also met with BP officials at their command center in Houston yesterday, urged the companies and technical experts “to get all hands on deck” to deal with the spill, a statement from the department said. “We expect industry to be fully complying with the law and to be taking aggressive measures to ensure that this type of incident does not happen again,” Salazar said in the statement. Federal Response The government response involves the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Interior. Obama has directed the military to consult with BP on whether the Pentagon has technology better than that available in the private sector. The U.S. Navy is sending equipment to the Gulf, including 66,000 feet of inflatable booms for containing the oil and seven systems for skimming the crude off the water. That is in addition to the 76 skimmers, tugs, barges and recovery vehicles already deployed to the spill. At the current rate oil is spilling from the well, by the third week of June the spill will exceed the volume dumped after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. BP is required to cover the costs of the spill under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, drafted after the Exxon Valdez incident. Every Resource “While BP is ultimately responsible for funding the cost of response and cleanup operations, my administration will continue to use every single available resource at our disposal,” Obama said in remarks yesterday at the White House. Obama said he is dispatching Salazar, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to the Gulf today “to ensure that BP and the entire U.S. government is doing everything possible, not just to respond to this incident, but also to determine its cause.” The leak, which followed an explosion on a drilling rig April 20 that left 11 workers missing, is costing BP and its partners in the well $6 million a day. BP’s costs of operation “are ramping up” as they bring more people and equipment, Neil Chapman , company spokesman, said in an interview in Robert, Louisiana. American depositary receipts of BP, which vies with Royal Dutch Shell Plc for the title of Europe’s biggest oil company, plunged 8.3 percent to $52.56 yesterday in New York. Gulf Production The well is in a portion of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts that is already open to energy exploration. The area produces an estimated 1.7 million barrels of oil a day, about 30 percent of domestic production, according to Interior Department figures. Obama last month proposed expanding that area into portions of the Gulf off the coast of Florida as well as opening territory along portions of the East Coast. While the energy industry welcomed the decision, which Obama pitched as necessary to help wean the U.S. off foreign energy sources, it was criticized by environmental groups and some Florida politicians. Some lawmakers expressed skepticism yesterday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday Congress should “look at the danger to the coastline” posed by the oil slick when lawmakers “review the plan the president put forth.” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president will reserve judgment on going forward with new exploration plans until the cause of the rig’s explosion is determined. Start of Process Browner said Obama’s decision “doesn’t automatically open up an area to drilling. It starts a process, and an area may or may not become open to drilling.” When asked whether the administration would support a pause in new deep-water oil drilling, Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes said, “Everything’s on the table.” Nelson, the Florida Senator, said the possibility of an economic and environmental disaster caused by the spill required an immediate halt to Obama’s plans. “The questions about the practices of the oil industry raised in the wake of this still-unfolding incident require that you postpone indefinitely plans for expanded offshore drilling operations,” Nelson wrote in a letter to the president. To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3@bloomberg.net ; Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net ;

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Polish President’s Body Returns Home as Country Comes to Terms With Loss

April 11, 2010

By David McQuaid and Piotr Skolimowski April 11 (Bloomberg) — The body of Polish President Lech Kaczynski is being flown to Warsaw this afternoon as the country deals with the aftermath of yesterday’s plane crash that wiped out key members of its political elite on their way to Russia, where they were to mark the 70th anniversary of a massacre of Polish officers. Coffins carrying the bodies of 60-year-old Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, will arrive at Warsaw’s military airfield at 2 p.m. local time today. The two were identified yesterday by the late president’s twin brother Jaroslaw, who heads the opposition Law and Justice Party. A 90-minute ceremony will be held at the airfield, after which the president’s coffin will be borne in a funeral procession through Warsaw to the Presidential Palace. “This is the most tragic event in the history of Poland outside wartime,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a televised speech yesterday. “Such a dramatic event is unprecedented in the modern world.” Wailing sirens interrupted life across the country at noon today as Poles observed 2 minutes of silence and all traffic was brought to a halt. The crash also killed central bank Governor Slawomir Skrzypek and leaders of the country’s main opposition parties and military, including the Army Chief of Staff Franciszek Gagor. The accident happened as the aircraft struck trees in heavy fog on landing approach in Smolensk, killing all 96 on board, according to Russia’s Emergency Ministry . Ceremonial Duties Under Poland’s constitution the duties of the president, which are largely ceremonial, will be assumed by the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski . He will set a date for a presidential election within two weeks and the vote must be held within 60 days. Komorowski is the candidate of Tusk’s Civic Platform party and polls show he was poised to defeat Kaczynski in presidential elections, originally scheduled for the second half of the year. Executive power under Poland’s constitution is concentrated in the hands of the prime minister as head of government. The president has the power to veto legislation and make some appointments, including generals, judges, ambassadors and the governor of the central bank. Kaczynski, a former anti-communist dissident who promised Poles a “moral revolution,” came to power in October 2005. “Two candidates for president are dead along with almost the whole leadership of the leading opposition party,” said Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski, a sociologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences. “It’s hard to imagine it won’t have consequences for the way politics is practiced in Poland.” Market Stability Piotr Wiesiolek , a deputy governor of the central bank, will temporarily assume the governorship. The central bank’s Monetary Policy Council will meet on April 12 to discuss how to proceed. The death of the governor won’t affect the zloty, which is up 6 percent against the euro this year, or the country’s financial stability, board member Anna Zielinska-Glebocka said in a phone interview. Tusk’s chief adviser, Michal Boni , said in televised comments there is no need for emergency measures to stabilize the economy after the deaths. Boni, who is in constant contact with Wiesiolek, said the authorities stand ready to act should the need arise. Implications “We do not see any negative implications for markets,” said Simon Quijano-Evans , head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Credit Agricole Cheuvreux, in an e-mailed note to clients. “Poland’s constitutional framework is solid and clearly states the steps that have to be taken in such a situation, and the economic system will continue to function in an orderly manner, with the central bank taking a very clearly- defined role.” European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said he was “saddened and shocked” to hear of the accident and that he “deeply regrets the loss of a highly esteemed” colleague. Hundreds of Poles gathered in front of the presidential palace, lighting candles, laying flowers and praying. The roads leading to the palace were crowded with onlookers as the police blocked off the surrounding area. Churches around the country announced services to commemorate the dead. “I thought it’s some stupid April Fool’s kind of a joke when I heard the news and I am in such a state of shock that I can’t stop crying,” said Maria Przyborska, a 54-year old teacher from Warsaw, who laid roses at the palace gates. “I didn’t vote for Kaczynski, but this was my president and I can’t understand how this could happen.” World Leaders Respond The delegation was to attend an anniversary ceremony commemorating the murder of thousands of Poles killed in the spring of 1940 by Soviet forces under Josef Stalin at the Katyn forest, close to the city of Smolensk. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on April 7 hosted a meeting with Tusk in an effort to heal the two countries’ difference over the massacre, making him the first Russian leader to pay his respects to the more than 4,000 Polish officers killed in the Katyn forest, a crime denied by the Kremlin for half a century. U.S. President Barack Obama said he called Tusk to express his “deepest condolences to the people of Poland on the tragic deaths,” according to a statement. The “loss is devastating to Poland, to the United States, and to the world. President Kaczynski was a distinguished statesman who played a key role in the Solidarity movement, and he was widely admired in the United States as a leader dedicated to advancing freedom and human dignity.” ‘Grief and Mourning’ Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered “a thorough investigation in full and closest cooperation with the Polish side,” according to a statement on the Kremlin’s Web site. He declared April 12 a day of mourning. Medvedev also addressed the citizens of Poland on state television to say “all Russians share your grief and mourning. I want to express my deepest, most heartfelt condolences to the people of Poland, and my empathy and support to families and friends of the victims.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the deaths a “political and human tragedy for Poland, for our neighbor country,” in comments broadcast by N24 television out of Berlin. “I gladly remember that Lech Kaczynski invited me to the Polish national holiday on the 11th of November 2008, that was a very special gesture also for a neighbor country like Germany; we spent many, many hours talking about Polish and European history.” ‘Shocked’ Israeli President Shimon Peres said his country is “shocked by the report of the terrible tragedy that has struck Poland,” in a statement distributed by e-mail yesterday. Israel “shares in the mourning of the Polish people and the free world.” Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown said “the whole world will be saddened and shocked as a result of this tragic death,” according to a statement. The government of the largest of the 10 former communist nations to join the European Union since 2004 held an emergency cabinet meeting yesterday after the crash. The country, whose economy was the only EU member to avoid a recession during the credit crisis, will hold a week of national mourning, Komorowski said in comments broadcast by TVP INFO. ‘No Divisions’ “In the face of this tragedy we are all together; there are no divisions, no differences,” Komorowski said. The plane, a Tupolev 154 built in 1990, clipped the tree line at about 10:50 a.m. yesterday Moscow time and broke in two as the pilot attempted a fourth landing amid heavy fog at a military airport near Smolensk, Rossiya-24 said, citing officials at the scene. Newswire RIA quoted an unnamed Russian security official as saying pilot error was a factor in the accident. The Tu-154 model has been around since 1968. Russia’s largest airline, OAO Aeroflot, stopped operating the plane in January of this year, spokesman Oleg Mikhailov said in a phone interview yesterday. “There hasn’t been an accident on this scale in politics since the airplane was invented,” said Wnuk-Lipinski. “It’s such a shock that I still find it hard to believe this has really happened.” Pilots’ Decision Rossiya-24 TV showed live footage of rescue workers attempting to extinguish pockets of fire among the wreckage at the airport, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Moscow. “The plane was landing in bad visibility,” Andrei Yevseyenkov, press secretary for the Smolensk region’s governor told Rossiya-24. “Dispatchers at Severny military airport suggested that the plane land in Minsk (about 200 kilometers away) but the pilots took their own landing decision.” Medvedev dispatched the Emergency Ministry’s Sergei Shoigu to the site of the crash and formed a special commission headed by Putin to investigate the cause. Tusk and Putin also met at the crash site and laid flowers by the wreckage. The two will talk with Russian officials conducting the investigation. The Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office is looking into whether bad weather, human error, a technical malfunction or other reasons caused the crash, according to a statement on the committee’s Web site. A criminal case has been initiated, it said. Both flight data recorders have been recovered from the plane’s wreckage and are now being examined by Polish and Russian investigators in Moscow, Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee said in a statement on its Web site. Russian specialists waited for the Polish team of prosecutors, air- safety specialists and pathologists to arrive before opening the black boxes, Polish government spokesman Pawel Gras said today at a news conference in Warsaw. Political Elite Among the victims were key members of Poland’s biggest opposition party, Law and Justice, including current and former heads of the party’s parliamentary caucus, Grazyna Gesicka and Przemyslaw Gosiewski as well as the party’s main economic expert Aleksandra Natalli-Swiat , and deputy parliamentary speaker Krzysztof Putra . The list also includes deputy parliamentary speaker Jerzy Szmajdzinski , who was the presidential candidate of the opposition Left Democratic Alliance. That means the crash killed the presidential candidates of two of Poland’s three largest parties. Kaczynski had already won the endorsement of the opposition Law and Justice party. He was to officially declare his candidacy in May. ‘Twist of Fate’ “These are all people who are on the front line for Poland domestically and internationally,” said Marek Matraszek, Warsaw-based head of CEC Government Relations, which advises companies in their relations with the government. “They will be very difficult to replace.” Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last Polish president in exile during World War II, Janusz Kurtyka, the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates Nazi and Soviet crimes against Poles, were also on board the plane, according to a list of passengers posted on the government’s Web site. Former Czech President Vaclav Havel , who led his country’s fight against Communism, called the crash a tragedy without comparison. “I would say that we weren’t that close politically but that is irrelevant,” Havel said yesterday in an interview on Czech state-run television. “Even if it had been a different Polish president, to have all this occur together, it’s an unbelievable twist of fate.” To contact the reporter on this story: David McQuaid in Warsaw at dmcquaid1@bloomberg.net Piotr Skolimowski in Warsaw at pskolimowski@bloomberg.net

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Polish President Kaczynski, Central Bank Governor Killed in Plane Crash

April 10, 2010

By David McQuaid and Piotr Skolimowski April 10 (Bloomberg) — Polish President Lech Kaczynski and central bank Governor Slawomir Skrzypek were killed when their plane crashed today in heavy fog in western Russia, the Foreign Ministry said. The 60 year-old president’s wife, Maria, and several Polish officials also died in the crash, which happened as the aircraft was on approach for landing in Smolensk, according to ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski . There were 87 people on the passenger list and the ministry was trying to establish how many eventually boarded the Soviet-built Tupolev 154, he said. The plane was carrying 132 people, RIA Novosti reported. Poland’s central bank confirmed Skrzypek was on board, bank spokesman Maciej Antes told Bloomberg in a phone interview. Piotr Wiesiolek , a deputy governor of the central bank, will temporarily assume the duties of bank governor, Antes said. Under Poland’s constitution the duties of the president will be taken over by the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski . Komorowski, who is the ruling party’s candidate for president in elections due to be held later this year, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk , are both travelling to Warsaw to handle the crisis. The government of the largest of the 10 former communist nations to join the European Union will hold an emergency cabinet meeting today in the “early afternoon”, spokesman Pawel Gras told TVN24 television, which also showed footage of Poles lighting candles in town squares in several cities across the country as they began to mourn the tragedy. Fourth Attempt The plane clipped the tree line at about 10:50 a.m. in and broke in two as the pilot attempted a fourth landing amid heavy fog at a military airport near Smolensk, Russia, Rossiya-24 said, citing officials at the scene. Newswire RIA quoted an unnamed Russian security official as saying pilot error was a factor in the accident. Rossiya-24 TV showed live footage of rescue workers attempting to extinguish pockets of fire among the wreckage almost two hours later at the airport, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) east of Moscow. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dispatched Emergency Ministry Sergei Shoigu to the site of the crash and formed a special commission headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to investigate the cause. Sergei Antufiev, regional governor of Smolensk, said there were no survivors. “It clipped the tops of the trees, crashed down and broke into pieces,” Antufiev told Russia-24 television news network by telephone. The delegation was to attend a commemoration of thousands Poles and Russians killed in the spring of 1940 by Soviet forces under Josef Stalin at Katyn. Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last Polish president in exile during World War II, the head of the Institute of National Remembrance Janusz Kurtyka and the Polish general chief of staff Franciszek Gagor were to be on the plane, according to a list of passengers obtained by PAP newswire. To contact the reporter on this story: David McQuaid in Warsaw at dmcquaid1@bloomberg.net Piotr Skolimowski in Warsaw at pskolimowski@bloomberg.net

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Abhisit Declares Bangkok State of Emergency as Protesters Storm Parliament

April 7, 2010

By Daniel Ten Kate and Suttinee Yuvejwattana April 7 (Bloomberg) — Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared martial law in the capital after protesters stormed parliament, testing the army’s willingness to break up four weeks of mostly peaceful demonstrations. About 3,000 people entered the gates of Parliament for about two hours and thousands more occupied Bangkok’s commercial district for a fifth day. The emergency decree bans gatherings of more than five people, allows detention without charge and gives soldiers immunity from prosecution. “The law doesn’t mean we aim to crack down or hurt people, especially innocent people,” Abhisit said in a nationally televised address. “The nation has been severely affected by the protests and the government needs to rectify the situation.” The protesters, many loyal to exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra , grew in confidence after police and soldiers abandoned attempts to disperse them yesterday. Army Chief Anupong Paojinda enforced orders from Abhisit a year ago to break up rallies by the same group that turned violent, something he may be reluctant to do this time. “Declaring martial law may backfire on Abhisit,” said Michael Nelson, a lecturer at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. “If Anupong sees this as a political problem, an emergency decree may not prompt the military into action.” Abhisit, who has been living in an army barracks, said protesters have breached the constitution and he declared the demonstration illegal. The law would also prevent misinformation and help stop sporadic grenade attacks that have hit the capital over the past month, he said. Election Call The protesters, who say they represent Thailand’s lower classes, want an immediate election. They rejected the premier’s offer to hold a ballot within nine months during televised talks last week, demanding he step down by April 13, the start of the Thai New Year holiday. Many from rural areas may head back to their homes during the three-day break. Anupong, who helped orchestrate the 2006 coup and is due to retire in September, refused to clear anti-Thaksin protesters who seized Bangkok’s international airport in November 2008. Anupong urged then Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to call early elections to end five months of protests. A week later, Somchai was forced out when Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved his party. ‘Selective Curfews’ Abhisit “gave few details on what restrictions would be levied or what actions would likely be taken,” PSA Asia, a Bangkok-based security and risk assessment consulting firm, said in a note to clients. “Selective imposition of curfews for specified areas, banning assemblies in specified areas and prompt deployment of security forces to clear demonstrators to prevent further disruptions are possible.” Before the premier’s announcement, Deputy House Speaker Apiwan Wiriyachai told crowds outside Parliament the military may withdraw support for the government, the Nation reported. The army denied the claim. “That’s not true,” Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said by phone. “We are still working together in unity.” Protest leaders distanced themselves from today’s break-in at parliament. “Our aim is to calm down the situation,” Weng Tojirakarn , one of three leaders who met with Abhisit for televised talks last week, said by phone. “We are still committed to non- violent actions to force an election.” Abhisit was at parliament early today for a meeting of his Cabinet, which decided to extend implementation of the Internal Security Act until April 20. He left before the demonstrators stormed the gates. The act, in place since the rallies began, gives the military power to clear streets and make arrests. Ranks Wane About 8,000 protesters occupied one of Bangkok’s main intersections today, down from 40,000 yesterday, police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri said. Their ranks wane in the afternoon heat and swell at night, he said. The political unrest is “a drag and if it was to become prolonged, it would begin to have a significant impact on the economy,” Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said in an interview today in Nha Trang, Vietnam, where he was attending a meeting of Southeast Asian finance ministers. “We are still not fully realizing our potential as a result of the political impasse that appears to exist.” Thai stocks trade at 12 times 2010 earnings, the third- cheapest multiple in Asia after Pakistan and South Korea, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The SET Index advanced 1.3 percent today, building on gains that have made it Asia’s best-performing benchmark since the round-the-clock rallies began on March 12. The baht traded close to a 22-month high. Four Seasons The demonstrations have disrupted about seven downtown hotels, including brands such as the Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt and Intercontinental. Room occupancy has dropped to about 40 percent and events have been canceled, Prakit Chinamourphong, president of the Thai Hotels Association, said by phone. “We already talked to the government to control the situation and we also talked to protesters, but it’s useless,” he said. “If the protests go on, our situation will be worse.” Thaksin and his allies have won the past four elections on strong support in rural areas for his platform of cheap health care and village loans. The billionaire former prime minister has orchestrated protests from overseas since fleeing a Thai jail sentence in 2008. Abhisit, who must call elections by the end of 2011, has asserted his right to complete his term in office. His Democrat party may win as many as 240 seats, or half the total, in the next contest, he said in a March 22 interview. To contact the reporters on this story: Anuchit Nguyen in Bangkok at anguyen@bloomberg.net ; Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at suttinee1@bloomberg.net ;

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Mike Lux: Which Retiring Senators Will Be Working for Wall Street Next Year?

April 5, 2010

The most unnerving part of the debate on financial reform is wondering which of the retiring senators spending time on crafting the legislation are thinking about, or even actively discussing, going to work for one of the Wall Street mega-banks. One of the great myths in American political theory is that once a politician gets ready to retire, or can’t run again because of term limits or other reasons, it makes him or her likely to be a “statesman” because he or she doesn’t have to worry about the voters anymore. The presumption that actual voters are unhelpful to getting good legislation passed is profoundly undemocratic because once voters don’t matter anymore, other things begin to matter too much: where you will work next, how much you will get paid, what your close friends (many of whom have raised all that money for you over the years) think, what the DC establishment that you will be hanging out with at cocktail parties in your retirement think. Things like that may start to matter a lot more to some retiring Senators than being able to defend the deals you are cutting to voters. It’s not like the kind of thing I’m talking about has never happened. The most obvious case is Billy Tauzin working on the prescription drug bill that was such a sweet deal for Pharma, and then going to work for them as a seven-figure salaried president after he retired. But there are many, many other cases of congresspeople and senators working on legislation affecting an industry the year they retire, then getting a great consulting gig with the industry trade association soon thereafter. The financial reform bill is way too important to let this happen. All of the senators and House members working on this bill should pledge right now that they will not go to work after they retire for Goldman Sachs, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, any other of the other mega-banks, the American Bankers Association, or any of the other big industry players on this legislation. There are too many rumors swirling around on Capitol Hill right now of major players in this fight who are retiring this year starting to feel out industry players for jobs in 2011. The White House, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid should demand that all the Senators working on this bill take such a pledge to not sell out the American public. The Dodd bill needs to be strengthened. Democrats need to draw a line in the sand and fight for a bill that really does something to take on the big banks. If the Republicans want to defend Wall Street by filibustering such a bill, God bless them, I’d be delighted to have that fight. But to get the best possible bill, we need the Senators negotiating it to not be preparing to work for the industry.

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California Now Freeing Violent Inmates To Save Money

March 31, 2010

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Inmates convicted of violent crimes are among those being freed early from California jails to save money, despite lawmakers’ promises that they would exclude most dangerous prisoners and sex offenders. An Associated Press review of inmate data shows that some of the freed criminals were convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, battery, domestic violence, and attacks on children and the elderly. The early release program specifically forbids authorities from freeing prisoners convicted of about 150 crimes such as rape and murder. But any offense that is not specifically listed qualifies for release, and individual counties can then decide who gets out. “This bill not only theoretically will result in a public safety catastrophe, it already has,” said Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lieu, an outspoken opponent of the system who is running for attorney general. He wants to expand the list of excluded crimes. The release of violent offenders does not technically violate the law, but it runs counter to lawmakers’ promises about the plan when it was adopted. Legislators approved the early release program last year as a way to cut costs and reduce crowding in state prisons and county jails. At the time, both the Democratic Assembly Speaker, Karen Bass, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the measure as a reform that would protect public safety while saving as much as $1 billion. Both denied that it even contained early release provisions. But when the law took effect in January, the release of hundreds of inmates from local jails drew a swift backlash, especially after an inmate freed under the law was arrested within a day on suspicion of attempting to rape a female counselor. The Sacramento County inmate had been jailed for a probation violation, but his underlying offense was assault with a deadly weapon. During the first few weeks of the early release program, more than 1,800 jail inmates were released statewide before they had served their full sentences, according to the California State Sheriffs’ Association. Hundreds more have been freed since then, although the association has stopped keeping track. California is not the only state to seek savings in early releases. New or expanded release programs began last year in a dozen other states: Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Texas, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Gov. Pat Quinn suspended Illinois’ program in December after the AP found hundreds of inmates were being released too early. About 200 of the paroled inmates were returned to prison within the first four months of the program because of violations. In California, the AP used public-records requests to obtain lists of inmates who had been freed from several of the state’s most populous counties. The lists were then cross-referenced with inmates’ offenses. Three of those counties – Alameda, Orange and San Bernardino – account for roughly 15 percent of the state prison population. The lists covered the first 2 1/2 weeks of the early release program, which started Jan. 25. In Orange County, about 8 percent of the 278 inmates released early had been serving time for crimes that included assault, battery, corporal injury to a spouse, inflicting injury on a child, cruelty to a child, domestic violence, resisting arrest and possession of a switchblade. In Alameda County, 15 percent of the 87 inmates released early had been sentenced for those crimes and others, including carrying concealed or loaded guns, attempting to take a gun from a police officer and displaying a gun in a threatening manner. San Bernardino County provided jail records for 642 inmates released under the new law. The AP used booking numbers to link a 10 percent sample to court records. Of that sample, 29 percent had been convicted of crimes considered violent or threatening, from domestic violence and weapons charges to stalking and injury to an elder. Los Angeles County, which has the largest population of jail inmates, has not granted any early releases under the law, although it has recently begun freeing inmates because it is running out of space. At state prisons, corrections officials expect to save $500 million by granting early release to about 6,500 inmates this year. Most of those releases will not begin until later this year. The law did not provide direction to county jails about how to evaluate inmates who qualify for early release. “Some are no-brainers,” said Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. J.D. Nelson. With others, “It’s a slippery slope. Sometimes you have an attempted rape, but it’s pleaded down to a misdemeanor. So now you’re going to let that guy out early?” Lieu wants to amend the law to exclude many of the crimes identified in the AP’s research, as well as offenses such as solicitation to commit murder, various hate crimes and child abduction. After the attempted rape arrest in Sacramento County, the Legislature also began considering amendments to the law, including a proposal to exclude county jails entirely from the early releases. Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, a Democrat from Fremont who helped write the law and also is running for attorney general, said it was never supposed to apply to counties. When it passed in September, he praised the legislation as “a smart reform package.”

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Biggest U.S. Health Overhaul in 45 Years Passes House in Victory for Obama

March 22, 2010

By Laura Litvan, James Rowley and Kristin Jensen March 22 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House passed the most sweeping health-care legislation in four decades, rewriting the rules governing medical industries and ensuring that tens of millions of uninsured Americans will get medical coverage. Yesterday’s 219-212 vote marks the biggest victory for President Barack Obama , who will sign the bill into law. Only Democrats voted for the legislation, underscoring a partisan divide that promises to make health care the defining issue in November’s congressional elections. Lawmakers hailed the action as a historic follow-on to the 1965 creation of the Medicare program for the elderly and a way to mitigate soaring health costs that make up a sixth of the U.S. economy. It came after a last-minute deal with anti- abortion Democrats and a lobbying trip by Obama to the Capitol. “It’s a victory for the American people,” Obama told reporters at the White House just before midnight. “This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health-care system but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described passage as “history for our country and progress for the American people.” Two Bills To finish their work on health care, House Democrats approved a Senate bill passed in December and then voted 220-211 to pass a measure that would amend the Senate legislation to fix provisions they don’t like. The Senate must also pass this second bill under a budget process called reconciliation that requires a simple majority vote. While Senate Democrats plan to act this week on the second bill, they face a host of challenges from Republicans that may hold up their work or force a new vote in the House. The two bills together will cost $940 billion over 10 years and cover 32 million uninsured Americans, the Congressional Budget Office estimated. That’s more than made up for with a new tax on the highest earners, fees on health-care companies and hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare savings, which will reduce the federal deficit , the CBO said . Companies such as health insurer WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis, medical-device maker Medtronic Inc. of Minneapolis and drugmaker Pfizer Inc. of New York will get millions of new customers with the extension of coverage. Their industries will also face billions of dollars in new fees. WellPoint Reacts As part of the overhaul, drugmakers agreed to help the elderly more easily afford medicines. Insurers , which opposed the legislation, will have to take all customers, regardless of pre- existing conditions, and face limits on how much revenue can be spent beyond covering medical expenses. “WellPoint is disappointed that after more than a year of debate, Congress has approved health-care legislation that does little to reduce cost and improve quality,” company spokeswoman Kristin Binns said in an e-mail to reporters. Under the bill, Americans will have to buy insurance or pay a penalty, with the possibility of tapping new purchasing exchanges and government aid for lower-income Americans. Republicans said the costs will balloon, criticized the increases in government programs and held out the possibility that private insurance and medical care would be hurt. “We are looking at a health-care bill that nobody in this body believes is satisfactory,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said prior to the vote. “We have failed to reflect the will of our constituents.” Business Groups Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also lobbied against the legislation, and Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc. sent a letter to leaders saying the bills would raise its costs by $100 million in the first year alone. The House’s two-step process became necessary after Democrats lost the 60th vote in the Senate generally needed to push through major legislation. Just weeks after the Senate’s party-line 60-39 vote, Democrats were almost finished drafting a House-Senate compromise bill when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won a Jan. 19 special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Democrat Edward M. Kennedy . The use of the budget-reconciliation tool opens the door for the Senate to pass the second bill with 51 votes, as long as it can withstand Republican challenges and the rulings of a parliamentarian, who will take out any provision he decides have only an incidental impact on the federal budget. ‘Massive’ Amendments New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg , who will help coordinate the Republicans’ efforts, said his party can put forth “massive amounts” of amendments on unrelated issues from gun control to immigration. They can also challenge provisions such as the scaling back of a tax on high-end, or so-called Cadillac, insurance plans because it would affect money flowing into Social Security, he said. Any changes in the Senate would force a new House vote on the reconciliation bill, further complicating the effort. House Democrats particularly wanted to change the Cadillac tax because they say it would affect too many workers. “If those people think they’re only going to vote on this once, they’re nuts,” Senator Orrin Hatch , a Utah Republican, said in a Bloomberg Television interview last week. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin , a member of the Democratic leadership, said yesterday his party is prepared for challenges and any amendments Republicans might file. ‘Ready to Tackle’ “We’re ready to tackle that if that’s what they want to do,” Durbin said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “We’re ready to deal with honest amendments. There will come a time when the American people say enough, this is about politics.” Obama, who faced criticism for largely leaving the drafting of the legislation to Congress, swung into high gear in recent weeks. He hosted a Feb. 25 bipartisan summit at the White House, proposed detailed final compromises and lobbied dozens of undecided Democrats. He postponed a trip to Asia to remain in Washington for yesterday’s vote. Obama benefited in part from the votes of Democrats who are leaving Congress and who were willing to switch sides after voting “no” on a House version in November. He also won support from Democrats, including Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who had threatened to oppose the final measure because it didn’t include a new government program, or public option, to compete against private insurers. Expanding Medicaid The legislation will expand the Medicaid government program for the poor to cover those making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, and offer subsidies for millions of other Americans to buy insurance through an online exchange offering policies at more-affordable group rates. Many employers with more than 50 workers that don’t offer coverage will be subject to a penalty. The reconciliation bill will change the penalty to $2,000 per worker, from $750 in the Senate bill, and subtract out the first 30 employees. The overhaul is financed in large part through new taxes. The reconciliation bill would add a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on investment income imposed on individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year and joint tax filers who have more than $250,000 in earnings. That adds to a higher Medicare payroll tax already in the Senate bill. To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net ; James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net ; Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net

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Biggest U.S. Health Overhaul in 45 Years Passes House in Victory for Obama

March 22, 2010

By Laura Litvan, James Rowley and Kristin Jensen March 22 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House passed the most sweeping health-care legislation in four decades, rewriting the rules governing medical industries and ensuring that tens of millions of uninsured Americans will get medical coverage. Yesterday’s 219-212 vote marks the biggest victory for President Barack Obama , who will sign the bill into law. Only Democrats voted for the legislation, underscoring a partisan divide that promises to make health care the defining issue in November’s congressional elections. Lawmakers hailed the action as a historic follow-on to the 1965 creation of the Medicare program for the elderly and a way to mitigate soaring health costs that make up a sixth of the U.S. economy. It came after a last-minute deal with anti- abortion Democrats and a lobbying trip by Obama to the Capitol. “It’s a victory for the American people,” Obama told reporters at the White House just before midnight. “This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health-care system but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described passage as “history for our country and progress for the American people.” Two Bills To finish their work on health care, House Democrats approved a Senate bill passed in December and then voted 220-211 to pass a measure that would amend the Senate legislation to fix provisions they don’t like. The Senate must also pass this second bill under a budget process called reconciliation that requires a simple majority vote. While Senate Democrats plan to act this week on the second bill, they face a host of challenges from Republicans that may hold up their work or force a new vote in the House. The two bills together will cost $940 billion over 10 years and cover 32 million uninsured Americans, the Congressional Budget Office estimated. That’s more than made up for with a new tax on the highest earners, fees on health-care companies and hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare savings, which will reduce the federal deficit , the CBO said . Companies such as health insurer WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis, medical-device maker Medtronic Inc. of Minneapolis and drugmaker Pfizer Inc. of New York will get millions of new customers with the extension of coverage. Their industries will also face billions of dollars in new fees. WellPoint Reacts As part of the overhaul, drugmakers agreed to help the elderly more easily afford medicines. Insurers , which opposed the legislation, will have to take all customers, regardless of pre- existing conditions, and face limits on how much revenue can be spent beyond covering medical expenses. “WellPoint is disappointed that after more than a year of debate, Congress has approved health-care legislation that does little to reduce cost and improve quality,” company spokeswoman Kristin Binns said in an e-mail to reporters. Under the bill, Americans will have to buy insurance or pay a penalty, with the possibility of tapping new purchasing exchanges and government aid for lower-income Americans. Republicans said the costs will balloon, criticized the increases in government programs and held out the possibility that private insurance and medical care would be hurt. “We are looking at a health-care bill that nobody in this body believes is satisfactory,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said prior to the vote. “We have failed to reflect the will of our constituents.” Business Groups Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also lobbied against the legislation, and Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc. sent a letter to leaders saying the bills would raise its costs by $100 million in the first year alone. The House’s two-step process became necessary after Democrats lost the 60th vote in the Senate generally needed to push through major legislation. Just weeks after the Senate’s party-line 60-39 vote, Democrats were almost finished drafting a House-Senate compromise bill when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won a Jan. 19 special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Democrat Edward M. Kennedy . The use of the budget-reconciliation tool opens the door for the Senate to pass the second bill with 51 votes, as long as it can withstand Republican challenges and the rulings of a parliamentarian, who will take out any provision he decides have only an incidental impact on the federal budget. ‘Massive’ Amendments New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg , who will help coordinate the Republicans’ efforts, said his party can put forth “massive amounts” of amendments on unrelated issues from gun control to immigration. They can also challenge provisions such as the scaling back of a tax on high-end, or so-called Cadillac, insurance plans because it would affect money flowing into Social Security, he said. Any changes in the Senate would force a new House vote on the reconciliation bill, further complicating the effort. House Democrats particularly wanted to change the Cadillac tax because they say it would affect too many workers. “If those people think they’re only going to vote on this once, they’re nuts,” Senator Orrin Hatch , a Utah Republican, said in a Bloomberg Television interview last week. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin , a member of the Democratic leadership, said yesterday his party is prepared for challenges and any amendments Republicans might file. ‘Ready to Tackle’ “We’re ready to tackle that if that’s what they want to do,” Durbin said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “We’re ready to deal with honest amendments. There will come a time when the American people say enough, this is about politics.” Obama, who faced criticism for largely leaving the drafting of the legislation to Congress, swung into high gear in recent weeks. He hosted a Feb. 25 bipartisan summit at the White House, proposed detailed final compromises and lobbied dozens of undecided Democrats. He postponed a trip to Asia to remain in Washington for yesterday’s vote. Obama benefited in part from the votes of Democrats who are leaving Congress and who were willing to switch sides after voting “no” on a House version in November. He also won support from Democrats, including Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who had threatened to oppose the final measure because it didn’t include a new government program, or public option, to compete against private insurers. Expanding Medicaid The legislation will expand the Medicaid government program for the poor to cover those making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, and offer subsidies for millions of other Americans to buy insurance through an online exchange offering policies at more-affordable group rates. Many employers with more than 50 workers that don’t offer coverage will be subject to a penalty. The reconciliation bill will change the penalty to $2,000 per worker, from $750 in the Senate bill, and subtract out the first 30 employees. The overhaul is financed in large part through new taxes. The reconciliation bill would add a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on investment income imposed on individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year and joint tax filers who have more than $250,000 in earnings. That adds to a higher Medicare payroll tax already in the Senate bill. To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net ; James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net ; Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net

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Landmark Health-Care Overhaul Passes House

March 22, 2010

By Laura Litvan, James Rowley and Kristin Jensen March 22 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House passed the most sweeping health-care legislation in four decades, rewriting the rules governing medical industries and ensuring that tens of millions of uninsured Americans will get medical coverage. Yesterday’s 219-212 vote marks the biggest victory for President Barack Obama , who will sign the bill into law. Only Democrats voted for the legislation, underscoring a partisan divide that promises to make health care the defining issue in November’s congressional elections. Lawmakers hailed the action as a historic follow-on to the 1965 creation of the Medicare program for the elderly and a way to mitigate soaring health costs that make up a sixth of the U.S. economy. It came after a last-minute deal with anti- abortion Democrats and a lobbying trip by Obama to the Capitol. “It’s a victory for the American people,” Obama told reporters at the White House just before midnight. “This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health-care system but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described passage as “history for our country and progress for the American people.” Two Bills To finish their work on health care, House Democrats approved a Senate bill passed in December and then voted 220-211 to pass a measure that would amend the Senate legislation to fix provisions they don’t like. The Senate must also pass this second bill under a budget process called reconciliation that requires a simple majority vote. While Senate Democrats plan to act this week on the second bill, they face a host of challenges from Republicans that may hold up their work or force a new vote in the House. The two bills together will cost $940 billion over 10 years and cover 32 million uninsured Americans, the Congressional Budget Office estimated. That’s more than made up for with a new tax on the highest earners, fees on health-care companies and hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare savings, which will reduce the federal deficit , the CBO said . Companies such as health insurer WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis, medical-device maker Medtronic Inc. of Minneapolis and drugmaker Pfizer Inc. of New York will get millions of new customers with the extension of coverage. Their industries will also face billions of dollars in new fees. WellPoint Reacts As part of the overhaul, drugmakers agreed to help the elderly more easily afford medicines. Insurers , who opposed the legislation, will have to take all customers, regardless of pre- existing conditions, and face limits on how much revenue can be spent beyond covering medical expenses. “WellPoint is disappointed that after more than a year of debate, Congress has approved health-care legislation that does little to reduce cost and improve quality,” company spokeswoman Kristin Binns said in an e-mail to reporters. Under the bill, Americans will have to buy insurance or pay a penalty, with the possibility of tapping new purchasing exchanges and government aid for lower-income Americans. Republicans said the costs will balloon, criticized the increases in government programs and held out the possibility that private insurance and medical care would be hurt. “We are looking at a health-care bill that nobody in this body believes is satisfactory,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said prior to the vote. “We have failed to reflect the will of our constituents.” Business Groups Business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also lobbied against the legislation, and Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc. sent a letter to leaders saying the bills would raise its costs by $100 million in the first year alone. The House’s two-step process became necessary after Democrats lost the 60th vote in the Senate generally needed to push through major legislation. Just weeks after the Senate’s party-line 60-39 vote, Democrats were almost finished drafting a House-Senate compromise bill when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won a Jan. 19 special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Democrat Edward M. Kennedy . The use of the budget-reconciliation tool opens the door for the Senate to pass the second bill with 51 votes, as long as it can withstand Republican challenges and the rulings of a parliamentarian, who will take out any provision he decides have only an incidental impact on the federal budget. ‘Massive’ Amendments New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg , who will help coordinate the Republicans’ efforts, said his party can put forth “massive amounts” of amendments on unrelated issues from gun control to immigration. They can also challenge provisions such as the scaling back of a tax on high-end, or so-called Cadillac, insurance plans because it would affect money flowing into Social Security, he said. Any changes in the Senate would force a new House vote on the reconciliation bill, further complicating the effort. House Democrats particularly wanted to change the Cadillac tax because they say it would affect too many workers. “If those people think they’re only going to vote on this once, they’re nuts,” Senator Orrin Hatch , a Utah Republican, said in a Bloomberg Television interview last week. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin , a member of the Democratic leadership, said yesterday his party is prepared for challenges and any amendments Republicans might file. ‘Ready to Tackle’ “We’re ready to tackle that if that’s what they want to do,” Durbin said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “We’re ready to deal with honest amendments. There will come a time when the American people say enough, this is about politics.” Obama, who faced criticism for largely leaving the drafting of the legislation to Congress, swung into high gear in recent weeks. He hosted a Feb. 25 bipartisan summit at the White House, proposed detailed final compromises and lobbied dozens of undecided Democrats. He postponed a trip to Asia to remain in Washington for yesterday’s vote. Obama benefited in part from the votes of Democrats who are leaving Congress and who were willing to switch sides after voting “no” on a House version in November. He also won support from Democrats including Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who had threatened to oppose the final measure because it didn’t include a new government program, or public option, to compete against private insurers. Expanding Medicaid The legislation will expand the Medicaid government program for the poor to cover those making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, and offer subsidies for millions of other Americans to buy insurance through an online exchange offering policies at more-affordable group rates. Many employers with more than 50 workers that don’t offer coverage will be subject to a penalty. The reconciliation bill will change the penalty to $2,000 per worker, from $750 in the Senate bill, and subtract out the first 30 employees. The overhaul is financed in large part through new taxes. The reconciliation bill would add a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on investment income imposed on individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year and joint tax filers who have more than $250,000 in earnings. That adds to a higher Medicare payroll tax already in the Senate bill. To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net ; James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net ; Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net

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Obama Rallies Democrats as House Leaders Predict Health Overhaul Will Pass

March 20, 2010

By Ryan Donmoyer and Catherine Dodge March 20 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama rallied House Democrats to back health-care legislation that he called “the toughest insurance reforms in history” as party leaders said they would have the votes to pass the overhaul tomorrow. “We have been debating health care for decades,” Obama told lawmakers today at the U.S. Capitol . “It is time to pass health-care reform for Americans, and I am confident you are going to do it.” On the eve of the vote on the biggest revamp of U.S. health care in more than four decades, House Democrats abandoned plans to avoid a direct up-or-down ballot on Senate-passed legislation after days of accusations from Republicans that they were ducking a politically difficult vote. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said “we believe we have the votes” as leaders resolved a dispute over Medicare payments to states and moved to defuse a row over abortion. He said Democrats dropped the idea of holding an indirect vote on the Senate bill and simply “deeming” it approved because “we determined we could do this, and it was a better process.” The House will vote on both the Senate bill and compromise legislation that amends parts of the Senate measure that House Democrats don’t like. The compromise bill then goes back to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said today he had the “commitment of a significant majority” of Democrats to approve it. ‘Quiet Crisis’ Obama, who has had more than 60 conversations with lawmakers since March 15 to help Speaker Nancy Pelosi round up the 216 House votes she needs, said today many Americans are living a “quiet crisis” because of health-care concerns. “Now, we’re on the threshold of doing something about it,” said Obama, who has made the issue the centerpiece of his domestic legislative agenda. “We’re a day away.” “Is this the single most important step that we have taken on health-care since Medicare ? Absolutely,” Obama said of the 10-year, $940 billion measure. Republicans universally oppose the legislation, arguing that Democrats are underestimating the cost and pushing though changes that polls show Americans don’t like. “They do not want the federal government involved in their personal health care, and they do not want a bill that spends over $1 trillion,” Representative Dave Camp of Michigan told the Rules Committee today, which was meeting to set the rules for tomorrow’s floor debate. ‘Kill the Bill’ Outside the Capitol, more than 2,000 people gathered to protest the legislation, chanting “kill the bill.” Kristie Greco , a spokeswoman for Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, said demonstrators called Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who is black, a racial epithet and spat on another black lawmaker, Emanuel Cleaver , of Missouri. “I heard people saying things today I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus,” said Clyburn, who is black. Democrats headed off the dispute in their ranks over Medicare payments by agreeing to ease geographic disparities in doctor and hospital payments. Party leaders also said they were confident they can overcome complaints by some members that language restricting federal funding for abortion isn’t strong enough. Hoyer said Democrats are considering asking the Obama administration to issue an executive order that would expressly say “there will be no use of public funds for abortion” to allay some lawmaker concerns. No Separate Vote Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, a leading critic of the abortion language in the legislation, had asked for a separate floor vote to add a stricter ban on such funding. Pelosi ruled that out. “We’re in the final stretch here,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat. Asked whether Democrats need to reach an agreement on an executive order or some other way of appeasing pro-life Democrats before a vote, he said “I’m not sure we do.” The original House bill passed 220-215. Since then, Democrats lost four “yes” votes because of vacancies and a switch by the one Republican who backed the bill. Democrats say the legislation will cover 32 million uninsured Americans and curb medical costs . The Congressional Budget Office said it would also reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the first 10 years. Insurance Mandate The legislation requires Americans to get insurance, offering government aid and new purchasing exchanges to help. Insurers such as Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. would get millions of new policyholders, while being required to accept all customers, even with pre-existing conditions. All told, 37 sitting Democrats voted “no” on the original bill. Another 40 supported the measure while voting “yes” on an amendment calling for stricter controls on abortion funding that Stupak offered at the time. Representative Dan Lipinski , an Illinois Democrat, said he’s switching his vote to “no” because of the abortion issue. New York Representative Michael Arcuri , who voted for the original House bill, said he’s now a “no” because the new measure doesn’t do enough to control costs. Massachusetts Representative Stephen Lynch is also switching to “no,” the Boston Herald reported . ‘Yes’ Votes On the other side, Democrats John Boccieri of Ohio, Allen Boyd of Florida, Bart Gordon of Tennessee, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Betsy Markey of Colorado and Scott Murphy of New York all now plan to vote “yes” after voting “no” in November, according to statements from the lawmakers or their offices. Two more lawmakers said today they would back the bill. Representative Harry Mitchell , an Arizona Democrat, issued a statement saying he will vote “yes,” as did another undecided lawmaker, Representative Adam Smith , a Washington Democrat. To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge1@bloomberg.net Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net ;

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House Leaders Work to Defuse 11th-Hour Fight Over Medicare Reimbursements

March 19, 2010

By Nicole Gaouette and James Rowley March 19 (Bloomberg) — House Democratic leaders worked to defuse an 11th-hour rebellion by more than a dozen lawmakers angry that hard-fought increases in Medicare reimbursements for local hospitals were removed from health-care legislation. The lawmakers’ concern arose after House leaders released the latest version of legislation to overhaul the U.S. health- care system. House leaders are pushing for a March 21 vote on changes to Senate-passed legislation. Left unchanged is Senate language that these lawmakers say won’t go far enough to ease geographic disparities in Medicare reimbursements . Such a provision was included in House-passed legislation to win votes of lawmakers who say hospitals in their districts would be paid less than other facilities for the same services. “My state is getting screwed,” said Representative Peter DeFazio , an Oregon Democrat. “They have to fix it. I’m a ‘no’ vote unless they fix it.” Lawmakers representing health-care providers in 17 states are affected by the change, he said. As House leaders corral votes in favor of the legislation, DeFazio said “there are a number of people who may be miscounted at this time.” House leaders, trying to round up 216 votes to pass revisions to the Senate bill, are working to craft a provision on the Medicare payments that would survive parliamentary challenges by Republicans when the measure is debated in the Senate. ‘Legitimate Concern’ Asked about the issue at a press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters “we do want the language to be closer” to the House measure, which satisfied lawmakers “who have a legitimate concern about the reimbursement to their states being unfair.” “We are working on that language,” the speaker said. A provision to change the Senate version was removed from the legislation yesterday, shortly before House leaders unveiled changes, DeFazio said. It was deleted because Senate staff members told House leaders it might run afoul of parliamentary challenges by Senate Republicans, DeFazio said. To pass muster, every provision must reduce the deficit under budget reconciliation procedures being deployed to enact the most comprehensive redesign of the health-care system in five decades. Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind said many lawmakers are upset that the geographic-disparities provision was removed from the legislation. ‘Wait and See’ “A lot of votes are hinging on it,” he said. Kind said he was “going to wait and see” whether he would support the measure. Lawmakers are trying to rewrite the provision to win a favorable ruling from the Senate parliamentarian. Without changes to reimbursements to hospitals and other providers “it’s going to be hard to justify” voting for the legislation, said Nevada Democrat Shelley Berkley , who planned to meet today with Pelosi to express her concerns about the legislation. “Every one of my hospitals is operating in the red” and the legislation as written “is not going to turn that around,” she said. Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur told reporters this week that she is concerned about differences between hospital reimbursements in her Toledo-area district and more affluent Ann Arbor, Michigan, about an hour’s drive to the north. Toledo-area hospitals “get hurt,” by the reimbursement disparity, “including one which does an enormous amount of charity care,” she said. “This bill, I don’t think, fixes that,” Kaptur said. “That’s a big issue for me.” To contact the reporters on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net ; James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net

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Democrats Pick Up Health-Care Supporters as House Moves Near Critical Vote

March 19, 2010

By Nicole Gaouette and Kristin Jensen March 19 (Bloomberg) — U.S. House Democrats, who cleared a big hurdle in their effort to overhaul the health-care system by producing compromise legislation, are picking up fresh support for a showdown vote this weekend. Democrats need about six more votes from House members to pass the 10-year, $940 billion bill, Obama administration officials said today. President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders aim to sway some in a pool of 14 or 15 undecided lawmakers to get to the 216 votes needed to pass the measure, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We are going to have the votes when the roll is called,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters today. A vote is scheduled for March 21, leaders said. Obama plans to meet with House Democrats at the White House tomorrow. He has met or called about three-dozen lawmakers in the last five days and cleared his schedule today for more last- minute appeals, including a rally in Fairfax, Virginia. “You’ve got to help us finish this fight,” Obama told the crowd. “You’ve got to stand with me just like you did three years ago and make some phone calls and knock on some doors, talk to your parents, talk to your friends. Do not quit.” Four Switch At least four Democrats agreed to switch their votes to back the bill this week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may need more to make up for defections by Democrats concerned about issues ranging from the cost to whether restrictions on abortion funding are strong enough. Democrats say the legislation will cover 32 million uninsured Americans and curb medical costs . The Congressional Budget Office yesterday said it would also reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the first 10 years and further reduce the shortfall afterward. “This changed a few votes in the last few days,” said Representative Bill Pascrell , a New Jersey Democrat who plans to vote for the bill in part because it cuts the deficit. The Senate, which passed its own version of the legislation in December, will take up the revised measure next week. House members objected to key provisions of the Senate bill, and Democratic leaders unveiled a compromise measure yesterday to settle the differences. Biggest Changes Democrats are seeking the biggest changes to the health system since the creation of the Medicare program for the elderly in 1965. Insurers such as Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. would get millions of new policyholders, while being required to accept all customers. Republicans are universally opposed and have vowed to block the plan. They say it costs too much and uses budgeting gimmicks because much of the expansion of insurance coverage comes later in the life of the bill. “They can tweak this thing and tweak it,” House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters. “Still, it’s a trillion dollars they are going to spend.” Business groups have mounted a lobbying campaign against the legislation, and Caterpillar Inc. sent a letter to Pelosi and Boehner saying the bills would raise its costs by $100 million in the first year alone. “We can ill afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus global competitors,” wrote Gregory S. Folley, vice president and chief human resources officer at Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar, in the March 18 letter. Lobbying Lawmakers Obama says the U.S. can’t afford not to overhaul the health-care system, and postponed a trip to Indonesia and Australia to lobby lawmakers. Ohio Representative John Boccieri today told reporters he will support the new legislation after voting against a version when it passed the House in November. That followed similar announcements from Democrats Bart Gordon of Tennessee, Betsy Markey of Colorado and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. The Democrats have lost votes too. New York Representative Michael Arcuri , who voted in favor of the original House bill, said he’s now a “no.” He said the bill doesn’t do enough to control costs in a statement . Representative Dan Lipinski , an Illinois Democrat, said he also is switching his vote to “no,” citing concerns about abortion. That followed the likely loss of Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak , who has said he can’t support the new legislation without changes on abortion. Geographic Disparities And a group of lawmakers are protesting the deletion of a provision designed to ease geographic disparities in Medicare payments. Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio , a “yes” vote in November, said he would be a “no” this time unless the provision, affecting 17 states, is reinstated. “There are a number of people who may be miscounted at this time,” DeFazio said of the “yes” vote count. The original House bill passed 220-215 in November. Since then, Democrats lost four “yes” votes because of vacancies and a switch by the only Republican who supported the bill. All told, 37 sitting Democrats voted “no” on the original bill. Another 40 supported the measure while voting “yes” on language calling for stricter controls on abortion funding put forth by Stupak. Some of their votes, like Lipinski’s, might change. House and Senate lawmakers designed the bill that will make changes to the Senate legislation under a process called reconciliation. It will allow the Senate to pass the revised bill with a simple majority after the House passes the original Senate measure and the changes. To contact the reporters on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net ; Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net

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Republicans Lose Attempt to Force Up-or-Down Vote on Health-Care Overhaul

March 18, 2010

By Catherine Dodge March 18 (Bloomberg) — U.S. House Democrats defeated an effort by Republicans to curtail Democrats’ options in seeking to pass their $940 billion health-care overhaul. By a 222-203 vote, lawmakers headed off a Republican resolution that would have required a separate, recorded vote on the Senate’s health care plan. The Republicans were seeking to keep Democrats from using a parliamentary technique to avoid a direct vote on that bill. The House may hold a rare Sunday vote March 21 on the Senate health-care bill and a separate package of revisions. The overall plan would extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. House Democratic leaders say they may use a parliamentary technique that would “deem” House members to have passed the Senate bill by voting for the more politically palatable measure containing the revisions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier this week that bypassing a direct vote on the Senate measure was an option because there are “a lot of people who don’t want to vote for it.” She also said that when Republicans were in power, they used the pass-and-deem approach “hundreds of times.” Republicans, who unanimously oppose the health-care plan, say no bill or amendment has ever been deemed passed that related to an area affecting one-sixth of the economy, as does the health measure. Taking Responsibility Republicans said Democrats are trying to avoid taking responsibility for the health-care plan. President Barack Obama today postponed until June his planned trip to Indonesia and Australia because of the planned House vote on health care, his top domestic priority. If the plan passes the House, the Senate plans to vote on the package of changes next week to complete legislative action, said Jim Manley , a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid . The legislation potentially would make the biggest health- care changes in four decades. Americans would be required to get insurance, and insurers would have to accept all customers. The House would have to approve the bill passed by the Senate as well as the set of changes to that measure. The pass- and-deem technique would consolidate those two steps, requiring lawmakers to vote only on the changes. To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge1@bloomberg.net

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Yanukovych Hasn’t Fulfilled Pledge to Seek Court Approval for Government

March 15, 2010

By Kateryna Choursina and Daryna Krasnolutska March 15 (Bloomberg) — Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych hasn’t acted on a pledge to Group of Eight and European Union representatives to seek a court ruling on the legitimacy of his parliamentary coalition, which was formed after a last-minute legislative change. “We have not received any requests from Yanukovych so far,” said Henadiy Chernenko, deputy head of the Kiev-based Constitutional Court ’s press service, by telephone today. Yanukovych on March 10 told western leaders he had “decided to ask” the court “whether a coalition and a government formed under the new law would be legitimate.” His first bid for the presidency five years ago was thwarted when the country’s Supreme Court sided with Orange Revolution forces that made Viktor Yushchenko head of state, The parliament on March 11 created a coalition and a government sympathetic to Yanukovych, prompting opposition allegations that the legislative amendments forced through to enable the move were unconstitutional. The Constitutional Court, which in 2008 upheld Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko ’s coalition because it was based on party blocs that represented a majority even after individual lawmakers switched sides, may have no legal choice but to brand the government illegitimate. Even so, some analysts said the court may find ways to avoid any destabilizing move. ‘Legally Dubious’ “Legally dubious changes to the coalition-building mechanism paved the way for the new majority,” Troika Dialog analyst Iryna Piontkivska wrote in a March 12 note. “The recent changes to parliamentary procedures do not seem to jibe with the constitution. However, petitioning the court” may “prove to be a lengthy process, even though there seems little doubt among legal experts that the Constitutional Court will consider the revised coalition mechanism unconstitutional.” Yanukovych’s newly appointed prime minister, long-time ally Mykola Azarov , and his Cabinet won majority support last week only after the parliament adopted a law allowing coalitions based on individual lawmaker affiliations instead of party groups. In 2008, Yanukovych failed to undo Tymoshenko’s majority after the court upheld a law allowing only coalitions based on party blocs. The new government’s shaky legitimacy may cloud its attempts to approve a budget for this year and meet the terms of a $16.4 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Disbursements have been frozen since November, putting in jeopardy the nation’s ability to pay for Russian gas that flows through to Europe and cover basic budgetary needs. ‘Fruitful’ The IMF’s resident representative in Kiev, Max Alier , on March 12 said a team from the fund will visit Ukraine this week to discuss the 2010 budget, which has yet to be passed. Alier said he had “fruitful” discussions with Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Tigipko on the outlook for resuming the IMF program. Yanukovych’s new coalition, called Stability and Reforms, has 235 lawmakers in the 450-seat assembly and includes his Party of Regions, the Communist Party, Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn’s group and 16 lawmakers from the parties of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko , who was dismissed by parliament last week. Tigipko said last week the coalition is “stable” and will increase in size. Azarov has promised lawmakers to submit a budget proposal within a month. He’s also said Ukraine needs an IMF program that “takes into account today’s reality.” Overplayed Azarov is “expected to focus on day-to-day government work rather than engage in political intrigues,” Kiev-based Dragon Capital said in a March 12 note to clients. His Cabinet “looks capable of implementing unpopular measures.” The IMF requires the government to cut the budget deficit to 4 percent of economic output from an estimated 11.5 percent shortfall last year. According to Dragon, “concerns about the Constitutional Court’s potentially pronouncing the current majority illegitimate” are “greatly overplayed.” The west is “unlikely to have any issues about the current coalition as long as it proves capable of reining in political instability and restarting reforms.” In 2008, only one of the Constitutional Court’s 18 judges ruled in favor of allowing coalitions to be formed outside party blocs. All 18 judges are sitting today. Still, the court “has proved on numerous occasions in the past to be very cautious and deliberate when deciding on sensitive political issues and reluctant to engage in open confrontation with the powers that be,” Dragon said. “We thus see no serious threats to the new ruling coalition stemming from the potential litigation.” ‘Awkward Position’ The judges may be forced to find legal loopholes to avoid the blatant inconsistency a ruling in favor of Yanukovych’s coalition would require, some analysts said. If the judges decide “legislative changes which enabled the majority were constitutional, the court will put itself in an awkward position by making a decision which contradicts its previous” ruling, said Yuriy Yakymenko , an analyst at the Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies in Kiev. It may resort to “hair-splitting” to avoid an “awkward situation” by deciding “not to consider the case on the grounds that it already studied a similar case.” If the legislative change is ruled unconstitutional, Yanukovych will dissolve parliament and call early parliamentary elections, said Hanna Herman, deputy head of the president’s administration, on TV Channel 5. To contact the reporters on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net ; Kateryna Choursina in Moscow at kchoursina@bloomberg.net

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U.S. House Leader Hoyer Says Chamber Will Pass Health Measure This Month

March 13, 2010

By Catherine Dodge March 13 (Bloomberg) — U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer predicted his chamber will approve the Senate health-care overhaul this month along with a package of changes, and said public support is gaining for the legislation. “That’s our objective, and I think we will,” Hoyer said of the passage prospects in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt ,” airing this weekend. Lawmakers are trying to finish work on the legislation before going on an Easter break March 26. Hoyer cited a recent poll by The Economist magazine that found 53 percent of Americans support President Barack Obama ’s health-care proposals and 47 percent oppose them. The poll was conducted after Obama’s televised bipartisan summit on health- care on Feb. 25. Polls leading up to the summit showed more than half of Americans were against the Democrats’ plans. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said voters support individual parts of the legislation, including the elimination of lifetime caps on insurance plans, a ban on insurers denying people coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions, and exchanges to shop for the best insurance policies. “When you ask people about that, they say, ‘Yes, I’m for that,’” he said. “We win the pieces.” Obama, who is pushing Democrats to pass health-care legislation before the Easter recess, decided to delay by three days a scheduled trip to Asia to help with efforts to pass the health-care measure. He now will depart for Indonesia and Australia on March 21. House Vote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , a California Democrat, signaled she would seek a vote in her chamber on the legislation next week. Pelosi, speaking to reporters yesterday after the delay of Obama’s trip was announced, said she was “delighted the president will be here for the passage of the bill.” One potential roadblock to passing the measure for House Democrats is how to prevent a defection of some party members concerned about federal funds being used to cover abortion. Michigan Representative Bart Stupak has said about a dozen fellow Democrats, who supported the original House bill in November when it won by five votes, might oppose the legislation over the abortion issue. “I don’t think we’ll lose a dozen votes,” Hoyer said in the Bloomberg interview. “I think we may lose some.” Hoyer, 70, didn’t rule out that Stupak may support the legislation. “He very much wants to see a health-care bill pass,” Hoyer said of Stupak. Stupak’s Stance Stupak spokeswoman Michelle Begnoche said she wouldn’t respond to Hoyer’s comment, saying only that her boss “has not changed his position that he will not vote for the Senate bill on the promises that it will be fixed afterward.” Obama wants House Democrats to approve the bill the Senate passed in December, while approving another measure that would make negotiated changes. Those fixes are designed to ease concerns House members have about the Senate’s 10-year, $875 billion version. Hoyer said House members “want to trust” the Senate to pass the package of changes. “But as Ronald Reagan said, you want to verify,” he said, referring to a comment the former president made about negotiating with the Soviet Union. “I expect at least 51 members of the United States Senate to sign on as cosponsors of the legislation” that makes the changes, he said. That will “clearly represent that they intend to support it.” The changes would be passed under a budget procedure called reconciliation that requires a simple majority vote in the Democratic-controlled, 100-member Senate, rather than the 60 that often is needed for major legislation. Jobs Measure Hoyer also said he hopes to have an agreement with the Senate on jobs legislation to extend unemployment benefits, provide aid to the states and other measures to help boost the economy “very quickly, within perhaps the next couple of weeks.” The Senate approved its version of the bill March 10. Hoyer said a proposal to fund the jobs bill in part by raising taxes paid by private equity executives on carried interest wouldn’t likely be included in the measure. “I don’t think the Senate shows much of an inclination to support carried interest,” he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Dodge in Washington at cdodge1@bloomberg.net

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Democratic Defections on Abortion Issue May Imperil Health-Care Overhaul

March 5, 2010

By Laura Litvan March 5 (Bloomberg) — U.S. House leaders are facing the possible defection of about a dozen anti-abortion Democrats from a health-care bill just as lawmakers enter their final push for the landmark legislation in Congress. Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan said Senate-passed language on abortion isn’t acceptable to him and the other lawmakers in the bloc, and that if the issue isn’t resolved they will vote against the broader health legislation. “We’re prepared to take responsibility” for the defeat of the bill, Stupak said yesterday on ABC Television’s “Good Morning America” program. “I want to see health care, but we’re not going to bypass some principles and belief we feel strongly about.” His comments underscore the risk the abortion issue poses as congressional Democrats seek to pass a measure overhauling the nation’s health-care system with no Republican support. “It’s probably the biggest challenge we have,” said Representative Bill Pascrell , a New Jersey Democrat. The legislation passed the House on Nov. 7 with just 220 of 435 votes, and the potential loss of support over abortion may be enough to sink the bill. Some House Democrats who favor abortion rights have said their votes also may hinge on how the matter is addressed. Echoes of Past Abortion policy has delayed — or killed outright — past legislation ranging from a rewrite of bankruptcy law to foreign aid and military spending measures. To avoid that fate last year, Democratic leaders in both chambers let anti-abortion lawmakers attach tougher restrictions to the health legislation, President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority. Stupak took the lead in the House, while Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska provided Democrats in that chamber with the 60th vote needed to clear the health measure after he negotiated abortion language. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday the Senate language should satisfy those who oppose federal funding for abortions. “If you believe that there should be no federal funding of abortions and if you believe there should be no change in the policy and if you believe we need health care for all Americans, then we will pass the bill,” she told reporters. Democratic leaders say they’ll try to approve health legislation by first pushing the Senate bill through the House. Then each chamber would address a host of changes through separate legislation via a parliamentary maneuver called budget reconciliation, which would allow the Senate to pass it with just 51 votes, sidestepping Republican opposition. Up to Pelosi Democratic leaders said because reconciliation is designed for matters that relate to the federal budget, not social policy, it can’t be used to resolve abortion differences. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin , an Illinois Democrat, said it will be up to Pelosi to find the votes in her caucus for the Senate language. “She’s got to deal with this,” Durbin said. The broader legislation, which will cost about $1 trillion over 10 years, is intended to ratchet down health costs and extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, offering government subsidies to low-income people. The president, who this week called on Congress to have an up-or-down vote on health care in the next few weeks, met yesterday at the White House with members of the House Progressive Caucus to shore up their support. He pledged to push in the future for ideas championed by the group, including a government insurance option to compete with private insurers, said Representative Raul Grijalva , an Arizona Democrat, who co-chairs the group. Same-Day Signing “Down the road, we’ll continue to work on these issues,” Grijalva said. Grijalva said Obama told the lawmakers he intends to sign both the Senate-passed bill and the reconciliation bill on the same day. The abortion issue may get in the way. Richard Doerflinger, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops , agreed with Stupak that a dozen House Democrats will oppose a final measure if the Senate abortion language is in it. They include Representative Brad Ellsworth of Indiana and Representative James Oberstar of Minnesota, he said. “Those members are standing firm,” said Doerflinger. The House health bill restricts federal dollars from being used to pay for insurance plans that include abortion coverage. The Stupak amendment would bar the use of new federal subsidies to pay the costs of any plans covering abortion offered through a new insurance-purchasing exchange. ‘Ban on Abortion’ In the Senate bill, the federal Office of Personnel Management would oversee at least two multistate insurance programs in the exchange. At least one would provide abortion coverage and one wouldn’t. States could opt out of having any plan with abortion coverage. Groups such as the National Right to Life Committee say the Senate language is unacceptable because it would let one plan in each market allow abortion coverage. Pro-choice groups are lobbying against abortion provisions in both the House and Senate bills. Nancy Keenan , president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said the Stupak language would effectively block private plans on the exchange from offering abortion coverage for many lower-income women. “It is a ban on abortion in the exchange,” she said. To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

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Massa’s Departure Decision Improves Republican Chances for U.S. House Seat

March 4, 2010

By Jonathan D. Salant and Heidi Przybyla March 4 (Bloomberg) — Representative Eric Massa of upstate New York, who had raised more than $1 million for an expected tough campaign this year, announced yesterday that for health reasons he won’t seek re-election. Massa, a Democrat serving his first term, said during a conference call with reporters that he is retiring because he had his “third major cancer reoccurrence scare” in December. He also is the target of a House ethics committee investigation, according to a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer . Massa’s decision strengthens the chances for Republicans to take back one of the four New York House seats they lost in the past two years. When Massa won his seat in the 2008 election, he became the first Democrat to represent the state’s so-called Southern Tier in two decades. “Any time an incumbent steps down, the odds of an opposition victory goes up,” Democratic consultant Glenn Totten said yesterday. “In this case, with the history of the district being a Republican-leaning district and given the current mood of the electorate, the chances of it going Republican are probably pretty good.” Massa, 50, was rated one of the most endangered Democratic incumbents by the three Washington-based publications that gauge congressional races, Congressional Quarterly, the Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg Political Report. Republican Contender A potentially strong Republican candidate, Tom Reed , the former mayor of Corning, New York, was gearing up to run for the seat even before Massa’s retirement decision. Massa had raised $1.1 million through Dec. 31, according to campaign finance reports. He said on yesterday’s conference call that doctors advised him to slow down, prompting his decision not to seek re-election in November. “I will now enter a final phase of my life at a more controlled pace and remain fully committed to helping the families of the 29th District ,” Massa said. “I make this decision based on being a cancer survivor who, following the advice of my doctors in Washington and in New York, cannot and will not prevent others from serving in the Congress that I hold in such great esteem.” He dismissed allegations that he had harassed his staff, and said that wasn’t the cause for his decision. The Navy veteran did acknowledge he has “used salty language.” Misconduct Allegations Hours after Massa’s announcement, Katie Grant, a spokeswoman for Hoyer, said the House ethics committee is investigating “allegations of misconduct” against the freshman lawmaker. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, had told a member of Massa’s office in early February that he would bring the allegations to the committee if the lawmaker or his staff didn’t, Grant said in a statement last night. “Within 48 hours, Mr. Hoyer received confirmation from both the ethics committee staff and Mr. Massa’s staff that the ethics committee had been contacted and would review the allegations,” according to the statement. It didn’t specify the allegations against Massa. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today that Hoyer’s staff didn’t tell her about the allegations concerning Massa. “You know what this is, Rumor City,” she said. “I have a job to do and not be a receiver of rumors.” She said at her weekly news conference that her first inkling of Massa’s retirement came via a phone call yesterday from the lawmaker telling her he had been diagnosed with cancer. “That was the first I heard of it,” said Pelosi, a California Democrat. Massa is at least the sixth Democrat representing a district that could swing to the Republicans in November who has decided against seeking re-election. All told, 16 Democrats and 20 Republicans have announced they won’t seek re-election to House seats. To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant@bloomberg.net ; Heidi Przybyla in Washington at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net .

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