Censored Whig Letters

Beware of the Big Lie Bill

by Tula Connell, Feb 27, 2009

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/02/27/beware-of-the-big-lie-bill/

Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress made their Big Lie into a bill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) introduced the so-called Secret Ballot Protection Act.

Before we go further, let’s clear up the bill’s false implication right now:

The Employee Free Choice Act would not—repeat after me—would not, take away the secret ballot National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process if workers seeking to form a union wanted to use it. The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers made the decision of whether to select a union via majority sign-up (card-check) or via ballot process. Choice is good. That’s one reason why we called it Employee Free Choice—because it would enable employees, not management, to make the decision of how to form a union.

The official goal of S. 1312 is to:

amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.

But the real objective of the DeMint-Enzi—and, of course, the autoworker-hating senator from Tennessee, Bob Corker—crowd is to force senators to be on record in support of it before the Employee Free Choice Act is up for a vote and to get free PR for their lies.

In announcing the bill, DeMint put out this gem:

“Card check” is completely unacceptable and un-American, and we must pass the Secret Ballot Protection Act to safeguard workers’ rights for good.

Since Enzi brought up “un-American,” let’s take a look at that term. Seems actions like providing health care for low-income children, ensuring America’s workers are paid overtime and have a safe workplace where they are not paid less because of their gender or race are all-American standards. But not so for DeMint. A quick look at his Senate voting record shows:

DeMint voted at least seven times against expanding health care for children (the State Children’s Health Insurance Program).
DeMint voted three times against protecting overtime pay for millions of workers.
DeMint opposed workplace safety standards.
DeMint voted against Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which helps ensure workers are not paid less because of gender or race.
The same day the Big Lie bill was introduced, 39 economists, including two Nobel Prize winners, issued a statement supporting the Employee Free Choice Act as key to getting our nation’s economy back on its feet. Their statement says in part:

Indeed, from 2000 to 2007, the income of the median working-age household fell by $2,000—an unprecedented decline. In that time, virtually all of the nation’s economic growth went to a small number of wealthy Americans. An important reason for the shift from broadly shared prosperity to growing inequality is the erosion of workers’ ability to form unions and bargain collectively.

Yet as Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American Rights at Work, says:

At a time when more Americans are hurting financially than perhaps at any other time in our history, a small group of consistently anti-worker members of Congress are introducing legislation to make it harder for workers to negotiate for better pay and health care for themselves and their families. It is unconscionable that these Congressmen with six-figure salaries and guaranteed pensions choose to kick America’s workers when they are down. This ploy is no surprise, as they have voted against raising the minimum wage, expanding children’s health insurance and ensuring worker safety.

Here’s another lie the bill’s sponsors are pushing out, this via Think Progress:

DeMint took to Fox News to describe why he thinks his firewall is necessary. Amidst the usual false rhetoric about Employee Free Choice eliminating the secret ballot, DeMint also incorrectly claimed that the act would harm small businesses:

And this is not just for big auto companies, this is for small electrical contractors, companies with 10 or 15 people. It would change the business model of the United States to the same model the U.S. auto industry has in Detroit.

As Think Progress points out, DeMint has this all wrong. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) excludes non-retail employers whose interstate commerce is less than $50,000 and retail employers whose gross annual volume is less than $500,000; there are various other size exemptions for all sorts of industries, from newspapers to taxicab companies. These exemptions would not change under the Employee Free Choice Act.

The list of the Big Lie’s bill co-sponsors (all Republicans) reads like a who’s who of senators who will meet the wrath of working families in coming elections: Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Sam Brownback (Kan.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Jim Bunning (Ky.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Cornyn (Texas), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), John McCain (Ariz.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), John Thune (S.D.), Roger Wicker (Miss.) and David Vitter (La.).

Because this group doesn’t have enough votes to get the bill anywhere, it’s all about making noise. And spreading the Big Lie.

This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.

The Jindal Lesson: Keeping Those Republicans Out of Power

After listening today to the Louisiana Governor respond to Obama’s speech to Congress and the American nation on the economic crisis and healthcare, I suddenly realized that the Jindal-type of Republican should never, ever be placed in a position of governmental responsibility. Unfortunately, the Jindal-type dominates the national Republican power structure.

Governor Jindal simply does not believe in government. His references to the awful Bush Republican response to Katrina show that he just does not get it. Jindal seems to think that since Bush blew the federal government response to that disaster, therefore, government is inherently incompetent.

It is true that under Bush the personnel responsible for disaster relief were incompetent. Those individuals were selected for entirely political and ideological reasons. They did not believe in government. Essentially, they were Jindal-type Republicans! They were Bush Republicans!

If you believe government will always fail, you are very likely going to fail in the management of government. If politics, ideology and achieving power take precedence over implementing sound policy in your value system, you are a poor candidate for being good at managing government agencies or programs.

Jindal is certainly not alone in his contempt for using government to better the condition of our economically suffering citizens. Along with Jindal, the Republican Governors of Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Alaska have indicated that they would not accept federal money to extend and expand unemployment benefits for the citizens of their states. The reasons they gave are illogical and seem to be motivated by politics instead of real policy concerns.

The citizens of these states losing their jobs are going to suffer simply because these Governors do not really believe in helping citizens facing economic adversity not of their own making. Texas Governor Perry has never been concerned with helping the unemployed, in my opinion; because they do not write big campaign checks and Perry does not really believe in government. Governor Palin of Alaska along with Governor Jindal of Louisiana both seem to be more concerned with running for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination than in serving the citizens of their states.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford should be more concerned that in December his state was losing 830 jobs a day than scoring points with the Republican Right and Michael Steele’s Republican National Committee. Michael Steele is another Jindal-type Republican. In Jindal’s Louisiana, they were losing 430 jobs a day during the same time period. Instead of dealing with the crisis in a constructive manner, both Governors (along with Steele) went into full political spin mode.

Nothing stimulates the economy more than expanding and extending unemployment benefits. Basically, all that money gets spent as soon as it arrives unlike tax cuts for the wealthy.

The Jindal-type thinking is not limited to Republican Governors and the Republican National Committee. Senator Ensign of Nevada gave an amazing interview today on cable with Chris Matthews where he frankly stated that he did not believe in the key principles of Keynesian economics where governments run surpluses during good economic times.

According to Keynes, they should pay off government debts and build rainy day funds to use during bad times. The economic policies of the Clinton-Gore era were Keynesian. They were working until Bush changed our government tax and spending policies and began giving huge tax cuts to the wealthiest of the wealthy during good times while running huge deficits.

Under Keynesian economics, governments should run deficits during bad times to even out the boom-bust cycles in the economy. Ensign falsely stated that government spending did not help end the Great Depression. This historical misinformation has become a regular talking point among the Jindal-type Republicans, Right Wing talk radio and the Fox News crowd. The real lesson of the New Deal was that government spending was not large enough (largely because of Republican opposition) until just before World War II to end the economic crisis.

Ensign and Jindal both want more of the same policies that got us into the current economic crisis. They want to play the same obstructionist role under Obama that the Republicans played under FDR during the 1930’s. The Jindal-type Republicans are really Bush Republicans following in the tradition of Herbert Hoover.

If tax cuts for the wealthy actually created jobs, the last 8 years under Bush would have created the biggest, baddest economic boom in the history of mankind! Everyone would be working at huge salaries. It did not happen and will never happen on the basis of just more tax cuts.

We need spending. We need higher incomes for the majority instead of just the wealthiest of the wealthy! We need controls on predatory lending. We need a re-industrialization program for the American economy, higher taxes for the wealthiest of the wealthy, the end of poorly regulated international trade, limits on corporate executive compensation, stronger consumer protections against price-gouging, new anti-usury laws and enforcement of anti-monopoly laws.

We have an income crisis in America. In 1929, the top one percent of Americans in terms of income had 29% of the total national income for that year. In 1979, just before Reagan was elected, that number had declined to just over 10%. Currently, that number has risen to around the 1929 level.

The Republican assault on progressive taxation along with wealth destroying “free trade” deals were combined with halting anti-monopoly law enforcement and repealing anti-usury laws to concentrate wealth. These policies have weakened our economy. Excessive corporate compensation and excessive industry deregulation (especially in energy and finance) played important roles in destroying the buying power of the American middle class.

The Republican and corporate assault on labor unions severely weakened the economic position of all members of the middle class including those not in unions. The unionization process was rigged by law and government regulation against workers attempting to bargain collectively with employers. Enacting the Employee Free Choice Act is a key to real economic recovery along with healthcare reform for the vast majority of Americans. The Jindal-type Republicans stand strongly in opposition to both.

When income gets concentrated at the top, it destroys the market for goods and services. It additionally fuels unsound speculation and investment bubbles. There is excess investment money chasing opportunities that do not really exist because there is not sufficient customer liquidity available for the output of those investments. We get asset inflation followed by severe deflationary pressures.

Facing problems like these, we cannot afford public officeholders like Jindal, Palin, Perry, Sanford and Ensign. Their approach to government could turn this recession into a depression even worse than the Great Depression.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Senate Confirms Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary

by Mike Hall, Feb 24, 2009

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/02/24/senate-confirms-solis-as-labor-secretary/

Hilda Solis is the new secretary of labor. After Republicans backed away from an expected filibuster and agreed to stop their weeks of delaying tactics, the Senate this afternoon approved Solis’s nomination by an 80-17 vote.

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

The confirmation of Rep. Hilda Solis is a huge victory: Finally, Americans will have a secretary of labor who represents working people, not wealthy CEO’s. It is also a historic moment as Rep. Solis becomes the first Hispanic secretary of labor.

The delay of Rep. Solis’s nomination for partisan and ideological reasons was overcome by the grassroots support of millions of Americans who are struggling and desperately need a secretary of labor who will be their voice.

In today’s vote, 56 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted for confirmation. All 17 votes against were cast by Republicans. Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) did not vote.

Solis, a Democratic member of the U.S. House from California, was announced in December as President Obama’s choice to lead the Department of Labor, and her confirmation hearing took place Jan. 9. However, Big Business groups and some far-right Republican senators loudly complained about Solis’s long record of support for working families and unions and delayed the confirmation vote until today.

After a scheduled Feb. 12 vote was postponed because of Republican objections, the union movement created a Facebook page, Americans for Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor to build some e-roots support for Solis. Nearly 2,000 people signed on.

During the floor debate today, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said Solis’s working family background—both her mom and dad were blue-collar union members—gives her a real connection to the problems and trials those families face—something those on Capitol Hill might not be as close to. Dodd said:

We may be aware, but do we really understand? None of us are facing losing our jobs, our homes, our retirement security….We need a secretary of labor who understands what working families are going though.

During the past eight years, the Department of Labor has moved away from protecting employees to protecting employers and weakened the right to organize….I don’t believe that’s its role, and neither does Congresswomen Solis. It is essential that the Department of Labor recommit itself to protecting the rights of workers.

Sweeney said:

She understands that the Employee Free Choice Act is critical to rebuilding our economy because working men and women deserve the freedom to choose whether to form a union without employer harassment and intimidation.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said that in the past eight years, the voices of working families “haven’t been heard enough” and the voices of corporations and the powerful have been far too loud at the Labor Department.

President Obama, with the selection of Hilda Solis as secretary of labor, has given working families a voice back. Throughout her career, she has been a forceful advocate for working men and women.

In the U.S. House, Solis earned a 97 percent AFL-CIO working family voting record.

Before her election to Congress in 2000, Solis served in the California legislature, first in the Assembly and then in 1994 becoming the first Latina elected to the state Senate.

Solis’s confirmation is a boon for all of America’s workers and is supported by a range of groups nationwide. Says Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club:

Hilda Solis was a champion for workers’ rights, a champion for the environment and a tireless advocate for environmental justice during both her service in California and in the Congress.

In his statement, Sweeney added:

Rep. Solis is uniquely qualified to help struggling families through these difficult economic times because she knows firsthand what they are going through. She grew up in a working class family and understands what programs our nation’s workers need the most.

She will fight to improve skills development and job-creation programs, including development of “green collar” jobs. She will work to assure that workers get the pay they have earned and that they work in safe, healthy and fair workplaces. She’s ready to address the retirement security crisis and will work hard to protect every worker from job discrimination, regardless of race, sex, veteran status or disability.

Public Opinion Snapshot: Support for Economic Stimulus Package Increases
By Ruy Teixeira | February 16, 2009

Conservatives tried their best to derail President Obama’s economic stimulus package. They accused it of being a big government, big spending wish list loaded with pork that would do little to create jobs. And they found a few items in the House version of the bill to beat up on publicly and claim were representative of the whole wasteful package. But despite all their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, support for Obama’s package wound up increasing, not decreasing.

The latest Gallup poll shows that support for the stimulus package has reached 59 percent in favor and just 33 percent opposed, despite the fact that the question mentions a price tag of “at least $800 billion.” That’s up from 52-38 in favor on February 4.

What’s the explanation? Pretty simple: The public just doesn’t buy conservatives’ ideological hysteria about the bill and understands that it is necessary to pass the package as soon as possible.

A new Democracy Corps poll asked voters whether the economic recovery plan “mostly includes tax cuts and programs designed to help the economy and create or save jobs” or “mostly includes pork spending and political priorities that won’t do enough to help the economy or create jobs.” Voters rejected the latter, conservative argument by 60-37.

No wonder the public is giving President Obama such high approval ratings on handling the economic stimulus bill (67 percent). They agree with him! Perhaps the conservatives need to rethink their knee-jerk opposition to this administration’s priorities.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/opinion_0217.html

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will create or save 66,000 Maryland jobs by the end of 2010. The jobs will come from smart investments in the future of Maryland including.

 Children
$29 million child support enforcement
$194 million child tax credit
$ 24 million childcare access and quality improvement

http://clasp.org/publications/aara_childcarestatealloc.pdf

 Education
$ 198 million for Pell grants
$ 7.9 million for Head Start
$ 216.4 million for students with disabilities

http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/ARRAConferenceStateTable.pdf

 Rebuilding and Repowering America
$ 179 million in transit
$ 115 million for energy conservation
$431 million in highway funding
$124 million for clean water

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/compromise_map.html


$367 million in unemployment insurance
$ 223 million in food stamps
$ 1.3 billion for health care for low-income families and seniors
$222 million in aid to seniors and disabled veterans

http://www.cbpp.org/1-22-09bud.htm

————————————————————————–
EDITOR’S NOTE: A special thanks to my Congressman, Frank Kratovil for voting for the final bill. He had misgivings about some of the pork and compromises made to try getting House Republicans to support the bill. Unfortunately, the House Republicans put politics ahead of the economic needs of American citizens and universally opposed this badly needed legislation.

http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2009/02/revive_the_fair_1.htm

February 15, 2009
Revive The Fairness Doctrine
– by Dave Johnson

Let’s start a discussion about reviving the Fairness Doctrine to re-introduce the commons and the idea that we tell the corporations what to do!

A few years ago, in a popular post about the Fairness Doctrine, I wrote,

This “Fairness Doctrine” requirement was intended to protect the public from the possibility of moneyed interests buying up all of the information sources, leaving the public hearing only their viewpoint.
I think that this may be an opportunity - if done right - to reintroduce the public to the idea of the commons: that the public owns the resources of the country, and the laws, and has the power to tell corporations what to do instead of the other way around. If we can project that into the discussion, it leads straight to a discussion of the tight concentration of ownership of the media by a few corporations. What better issues than something called “Fairness” and that so clearly can be demonstrated. There just are no voices of labor and other non- corporate opinions on the airwaves. The public is ready to hear that.

The demise of the Fairness Doctrine paved the way for this media consolidation, because issues around media consolidation were no longer discussed in the media. And that’s the problem now, as well, because it will be very difficult to get a good, honest, all-sides discussion of the commons and the Fairness Doctrine and media consolidation started — because of media consolidation and lack of a Fairness Doctrine.

So do we let the corporations just win this? Reagan unilaterally scrapped public control of the airwaves, vetoed it when Congress voted to bring it back, and then the Republicans filibustered the majority in following years every time the Congress tried again. Does that mean the Congress should stop trying and we should all just let the matter drop, and leave the public thinking that corporations have the right to control the airwaves?

Or does renewing the fight revive public discussion and understanding of these issues, leading to increased understanding of the need for Net Neutrality so big corporations can’t just block the public from even seeing union and progressive websites?

So I think reviving this fight is strategic, preparing the public for upcoming fights on all issues of public vs corporate control of public resources and decision-making.

In 96 I wrote,

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine would open up America’s “marketplace of ideas.” It would help to restore civility to our public discourse. It would help restore our democracy.

I say it is time to restore the Fairness doctrine.

Comparison of House, Senate stimulus plans

Associated Press • February 9, 2009

A comparison of the $838-billion economic recovery plan drafted by Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans with an $820-billion version passed by the House. Additional debt costs would add almost $350 billion over 10 years. Many provisions expire in two years.

AID TO POOR AND UNEMPLOYED

Senate — $40 billion to provide extended unemployment benefits through Dec. 31, and increase them by $25 a week; $16.5 billion to increase food stamp benefits by 12 percent through fiscal 2011 and issue a one-time bonus payment; $3 billion in temporary welfare payments.

House — Comparable extension of unemployment insurance; $20 billion to increase food stamp benefits by 14 percent; $2.5 billion in temporary welfare payments; $1 billion for home heating subsidies and $1 billion for community action agencies.

DIRECT CASH PAYMENTS

Senate — $17 billion to give one-time $300 payments to Social Security recipients, poor people on Supplemental Security Income, and veterans receiving disability and pensions.

House — $4 billion to provide a one-time additional Supplemental Security Income payment to poor elderly and disabled people of $450 for individuals and $630 for married couples.
INFRASTRUCTURE

Senate — $46 billion for transportation projects, including $27 billion for highway and bridge construction and repair and $11.5 billion for mass transit and rail projects; $4.6 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers; $5 billion for public housing improvements; $6.4 billion for clean and drinking water projects.

House — $47 billion for transportation projects, including $27 billion for highway and bridge construction and repair and $12 billion for mass transit, including $7.5 billion to buy transit equipment such as buses; $31 billion to build and repair federal buildings and other public infrastructure; $12.4 billion in rail and mass transit projects.

HEALTH CARE

Senate — $20 billion to subsidize health care insurance for the unemployed under the COBRA program; $87 billion to help states with Medicaid; $22 billion to modernize health information technology systems; $10 billion for health research and construction of National Institutes of Health facilities.

House — $40 billion for more generous COBRA subsidies and to provide health care through Medicaid; $87 billion to help states with Medicaid; $20 billion to modernize health information technology systems; $4 billion for preventative care; $1.5 billion for community health centers; $420 million to combat avian flu; $335 million for programs that combat AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.

STATE BLOCK GRANTS

Senate — No provision
House — $25 billion in aid to states to use as they please to defray budget cuts.

EDUCATION

Senate — $39 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cuts in state aid to school districts; $25 billion to school districts to fund special education and the No Child Left Behind K-12 law; $14 billion to boost the maximum Pell Grant by $400 to $5,250; $1.1 billion for Head Start.

House — $54 billion for education-related state relief; $20 billion for school modernization; $26 billion to school districts to fund special education and the No Child Left Behind K-12 law; $16 billion to boost the maximum Pell Grant by $500 to $5,350; $2 billion for Head Start.

ENERGY

Senate — About $40 billion for energy programs, focused chiefly on efficiency and renewable energy, including $2.9 billion to weatherize modest-income homes; $4.6 billion for fossil fuel research and development; $6.4 billion to clean up nuclear weapons production sites; $11 billion toward a so-called “smart electricity grid” to reduce waste; $8.5 billion to subsidize loans for renewable energy projects; and $2 billion for advanced battery systems.

House — $28.4 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, including $6.2 billion to weatherize homes; $11 billion to fund a so-called “smart electricity grid” to reduce waste.

HOMELAND SECURITY

Senate — $4.7 billion for homeland security programs, including $1 billion for airport screening equipment and $800 million for port security.

House — $1.1 billion, including $500 million for airport screening equipment.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Senate — $3.5 billion in grants to state and local law enforcement to hire officers and purchase equipment.
House — $4 billion for state law enforcement grants.

NEW TAX CREDIT

House — About $145 billion for $500 per-worker, $1,000 per-couple tax credits in 2009 and 2010. For the last half of 2009, workers could expect to see about $20 a week less withheld from their paychecks starting around June. Millions of Americans who don’t make enough money to pay federal income taxes could file returns next year and receive checks. Individuals making more than $75,000 and couples making more than $150,000 would receive reduced amounts.

Senate — The credit would phase out at incomes of $70,000 for individuals and couples making more than $140,000 and phase out more quickly, reducing the cost to $140 billion.

EXPANDED CHILD CREDIT

House — $18.3 billion to give greater access to the $1,000 per-child tax credit for the working poor in 2009 and 2010. Under current law, workers must make at least $12,550 to receive any portion of the credit. The change eliminates the floor, meaning more workers who pay no federal income taxes could receive checks.

Senate — Sets a new income threshold of $8,100 to receive any portion of the credit, reducing the cost to $7.5 billion.

ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX

House — No provision

Senate — About $70 billion to spare about 24 million taxpayers from being hit with the alternative minimum tax in 2009. The change would save a family of four an average of $2,300. The tax was designed to make sure wealthy taxpayers can’t use credits and deductions to avoid paying any taxes. But it was never indexed to inflation, so families making as little as $45,000 could get significant increases without the change. Congress addresses it each year, usually in the fall.

EXPANDED EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT

House — $4.7 billion to increase the earned-income tax credit — which provides money to the working poor — for families with at least three children.

Senate — Same.

EXPANDED COLLEGE CREDIT

House — $13.7 billion to provide a $2,500 expanded tax credit for college tuition and related expenses for 2009 and 2010. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $160,000.

Senate — Reduces the amount that can be refunded to low-income families that pay no income taxes, lowering the cost to $13 billion.

HOMEBUYER CREDIT

House — $2.6 billion to repeal a requirement that a $7,500 first-time home buyer tax credit be paid back over time for homes purchased from Jan. 1 to July 1, unless the home is sold within three years. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $150,000.

Senate — Doubles the credit to $15,000 for homes purchased for a year after the bill takes effect, increasing the cost to $35.5 billion.

HOME ENERGY CREDIT

House — $4.3 billion to provide an expanded credit to homeowners who make their homes more energy-efficient in 2009 and 2010. Homeowners could recoup 30 percent of the cost up to $1,500 of numerous projects, such as installing energy-efficient windows, doors, furnaces and air conditioners.

Senate — Same.

UNEMPLOYMENT

House — No similar provision.

Senate — $4.7 billion to exclude from taxation the first $2,400 a person receives in unemployment compensation benefits in 2009.

BONUS DEPRECIATION

House — $5 billion to extend a provision allowing businesses buying equipment such as computers to speed up its depreciation through 2009.

Senate — Similar.

MONEY LOSING COMPANIES

House — $15 billion to allow companies to use current losses to offset profits made in the previous five years, instead of two, making them eligible for tax refunds.

Senate — Allows companies to use more of their losses to offset previous profits, increasing the cost to $19.5 billion.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS

House — Repeal a law that takes effect in 2011, requiring government agencies to withhold 3 percent of payments to contractors to help ensure they pay their tax bills. Repealing the law would cost $11 billion over 10 years, in part because the government could not earn interest by holding the money throughout the year.

Senate — Delays the law from taking affect until 2012, reducing the cost to $291 million.

ENERGY PRODUCTION

House — $13 billion to extend tax credits for renewable energy production.
Senate — Same.

BONDS

House — $36 billion to subsidize locally issued bonds for school construction, teacher training, economic development and infrastructure improvements.

Senate — $22.8 billion to subsidize locally issued bonds for school construction, industrial development and infrastructure improvements.

REPEAL BANK CREDIT

House — Repeal a Treasury provision that allowed firms that buy money-losing banks to use more of the losses as tax credits to offset the profits of the merged banks for tax purposes. The change would increase taxes on the merged banks by $7 billion over 10 years.

Senate — Same.

AUTO SALES

House — No similar provision.
Senate — $11 billion to make interest payments on most auto loans and sales tax on cars deductible.

On the Edge

Written by Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist - The New York Times

http://www.progressiveexchange.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3908&Itemid=479

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.

Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world.

Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving — a good thing in the long run, but a huge blow to the economy right now. Developers of commercial real estate, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, are slashing their investment plans. Businesses are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. And exports, which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the past couple of years, are now plunging as the financial crisis hits our trading partners.

Meanwhile, our main line of defense against recessions — the Federal Reserve’s usual ability to support the economy by cutting interest rates — has already been overrun. The Fed has cut the rates it controls basically to zero, yet the economy is still in free fall.

It’s no wonder, then, that most economic forecasts warn that in the absence of government action we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump. Some private analysts predict double-digit unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office is slightly more sanguine, but its director, nonetheless, recently warned that “absent a change in fiscal policy … the shortfall in the nation’s output relative to potential levels will be the largest — in duration and depth — since the Depression of the 1930s.”

Worst of all is the possibility that the economy will, as it did in the ’30s, end up stuck in a prolonged deflationary trap.

We’re already closer to outright deflation than at any point since the Great Depression. In particular, the private sector is experiencing widespread wage cuts for the first time since the 1930s, and there will be much more of that if the economy continues to weaken.

As the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out almost 80 years ago, deflation, once started, tends to feed on itself. As dollar incomes fall in the face of a depressed economy, the burden of debt becomes harder to bear, while the expectation of further price declines discourages investment spending. These effects of deflation depress the economy further, which leads to more deflation, and so on.

And deflationary traps can go on for a long time. Japan experienced a “lost decade” of deflation and stagnation in the 1990s — and the only thing that let Japan escape from its trap was a global boom that boosted the nation’s exports. Who will rescue America from a similar trap now that the whole world is slumping at the same time?

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

The 5 day delivery scheme is the dumbest idea ever proposed by the Postal Service. It will save very little money. It will cost jobs. It will totally screw consumers. Millions of us will end up paying late charges on bills and higher credit card rates by mail delays.

Raise first class postage to 50 cents for a letter. It is still a bargain.

Make your voice heard in support of 6 day mail service:

Click here to take action http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=12566596

Working Families Need Jobs; Senate Republicans Want Tax Cuts for Wealthy

by Mike Hall

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/02/03/working-families-need-jobs-senate-republicans-want-tax-cuts-for-wealthy/

With the nation’s economy sinking deeper and deeper into recession and more and more workers losing their jobs, Senate Republicans are playing a partisan game of ideological chicken over President Obama’s economic recovery package. They appear to be saying, “Give us even greater tax cuts for big business and millionaires, or we will do all we can to kill this bill.”

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a statement this afternoon:

Hardworking families across America are losing their jobs, their health care, their homes and their pensions. They desperately need an economic recovery plan that directly and quickly stimulates the economy—not a continuation of the failed policies of the past that gave tax cuts to millionaires. The future of our nation’s middle class isn’t a blue issue or red issue—it’s a jobs issue, plain and simple, and we need more of them fast.

It is time for those who are attempting to obstruct real change to step beyond ideology and partisanship and to think about the families and communities that need help now.

Senate debate on the bill is expected to last for several more days as Republicans offer a series of amendments that not surprisingly reflect the same failed polices that drove the economy into its steepest decline since the Depression—policies that voters soundly rejected in November.

Says Sweeney:

This past election offered voters a clear choice. President Obama strongly advocated a new direction that would help working families, including creating jobs with direct spending to repair our crumbling infrastructure, producing green jobs while addressing climate change and providing universal health care.

Voters overwhelmingly chose Obama and voted for policies that will help working people, create jobs and rebuild the middle class. They rejected special favors for moneyed interests and tax breaks for multinational corporations—and the Senate should, too.

The House passed its version of the recovery package last week.