Capitol Idea: Hurricane-Force Politics: Ron Paul Nostalgic For 1900, The Year a Big One Killed 8,000

By Scott Nance

We should be like 1900; we should be like 1940, 1950, 1960. I live on the Gulf Coast; we deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.
--Ron Paul

The Texas congressman and serial Republican presidential candidate uttered this comment just ahead of Hurricane Irene making landfall over the weekend on the East Coast.

Call it Ron Paul's "pre-buttal" against the storm, but there he was telling his fellow Americans anxiously waiting to face Irene that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) just wasn't necessary.

We should just be more like the year 1900, huh?

Paul ought to know better.

He brags of representing Galveston, so he should know that in 1900 a Category 4 hurricane hit the city full force. An estimated 8,000 or more people died in that storm. The death toll was so great that corpses were loaded onto carts for burial at sea. Other bodies were simply stacked and burned in funeral pyres. Of those who lived, 30,000 were left homeless.

Government assistance in those days amounted to handing out free whiskey to the men drafted into the effort to clear the dead bodies.

Compare that to the response to Irene. The agency which Paul deemed so unnecessary has been providing Americans in need with such supplies as fresh water, meals, and more.

The federal government deployed urban search-and-rescue and medical-assistance teams, as well.

Certainly, one has to go back just six years to recall the poor response FEMA and the federal government provided to those afflicted by Hurricane Katrina. But what most Americans want and expect is a competent response, not no response at all.

And, although Paul criticizes FEMA specifically, one has to wonder what he thinks about all of the other federal investments that helped Americans through the hurricane — investments that most probably took for granted and didn't give even a second thought to.

The National Weather Service, for instance, which led the way in predicting the storm -- just as it predicts our weather every other day of the year.

Or how about the satellites, GPS, and other advanced technologies which helped first responders, state and local officials, and others all respond to -- and mitigate — the effects of the storm? We have them only because the federal government invested billions of dollars the government spent over decades to develop them.

Perhaps in his nostalgia for the last year of the 19th century, Paul would do away with all of that, too.

To be sure, 48 deaths were attributed to Hurricane Irene — and each one represents a terrible tragedy.

But 48 dead compared to 8,000 or more? That's an easy call.

Unlike Ron Paul, I have a hard time waxing nostalgic for "good ol' days" when so many people died in a hurricane that their corpses had to be stacked like so much cordwood.

And unlike Paul, I understand that when our government has an obligation for the "common defense," that includes whatever defense it can provide against disaster.

They say the 2012 election will bring a stark choice over the role of the federal government. Ron Paul's attack on even a basic federal response to natural disaster certainly puts that choice in even clearer relief.

As someone who in the last week lived through both the East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene, I'll take 2011 over 1900 any day.

Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade. Capitol Idea is his regular column from Washington. This article was first published as Hurricane-Force Politics: Ron Paul Nostalgic For 1900, The Year a Big One Killed 8,000 on Blogcritics.



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Race and Beyond: New Study: Americans Ho-Hum About Changing Demographics

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sam Fulwood III

“Do you feel concerned or hopeful about the fact that racial minorities will soon make up a majority of the U.S. population?”

If your dinner table talk resembles some I’ve encountered recently, then you’ve experienced the passionate range of emotions—from head-hanging pessimism to button-popping optimism to shoulder-shrugging ambivalence—that this question usually sparks in private, just-among-friends debates. But rarely does such talk enter polite, public conversation. I suspect that’s because few people are daring enough to ask, fearing the backlash that almost always follows honest discussions involving race.

That’s a pity. Our nation’s failure to publicly and candidly grapple with the changing demographics only postpones a necessary conversation about what kind of country we will choose to become. For sure, change is coming. By 2050—possibly sooner—the nation’s combined populations of racial and ethnic Americans (blacks, Latinos, Asian-Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans) will outnumber white Americans.

So now, in 2011, how do most Americans feel about what’s to come in the future? Not much, according to a recent study conducted by the Applied Research Center, a think tank that researches issues related to racial justice. After surveying about 2,400 adults last spring in a nationwide study, ARC found that “the majority of people have no feelings one way or the other about the changing face of the U.S.”

When asked if they’re “concerned, hopeful or indifferent” about the changing demographics of the nation, a whopping 54.8 percent of the respondents said they’re neither concerned nor hopeful or have no opinion. “The vast majority of the people in the middle simply shrugged their shoulders,” Dominique Apollon, research director at ARC and author of a Colorlines.com report on the findings, told me in an interview.

In his blog post, Apollon quoted a man from Connecticut as saying he didn’t care a whit. “I will be dead in 10 years or so—I think the next generation has to deal with this garbage!”

Such a reaction is, at best, a bittersweet notion. After all, given the harsh and negative tenor of public policy debates over issues that have become highly associated (typically negatively) with race such as immigration, affirmative action, and crime, I consider it a victory that larger numbers of Americans aren’t more alarmed by the changing demographics of the nation.

Still, the ARC report uncovered a disturbing fact. The people who are most inclined to speak out on the subject of racial diversity are those who hold the most negative opinions. And, just as troubling, those who are most pessimistic tend to be conservative Americans.

Specifically, the ARC researchers said, 36.6 percent of the conservative respondents said they were concerned about the demographic changes, compared to 18.5 percent of moderate respondents and 11.9 percent of liberal respondents. Similarly, the converse is true as 36.6 percent of the liberal respondents were hopeful, compared to 20.5 percent of moderates and 11.1 percent of conservatives.

“Maybe this is just a part of human nature that people who are most concerned would be people who don’t want change and are the ones who are more likely to be vocal about it,” Apollon told me. “But demographic changes are transforming America and nothing is going to stop it from happening.”

In recognizing the inevitability of population shifts, my colleagues and I have spent the past year working on issues related to race and demography as part of Progress 2050, a project of the Center for American Progress that develops new ideas for an increasingly diverse America. Among our core goals is to increase awareness of the changing demographics of our nation and to spark optimistic conversations among progressive Americans about the benefits of the increased participation in our society by racial and ethnic groups. We are convinced that the nation’s future is bright because of the role and contributions that all citizens contribute to our democracy.

Indeed, the people who believe as we do—that America’s diversity is the strength of our republic—have an obligation to speak up and out in its defense. Failure to do so will concede too much of the public debate to the reactionary right and its futile fight to stop the forward march of progress.

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Director of the CAP Leadership Institute. His work with the Center's Progress 2050 project examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050.

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Nevada Wallops Bank of America With Sweeping Suit; Nationwide Foreclosure Settlement in Peril

by Paul Kiel, ProPublica

This post has been updated to reflect Bank of America's response.

The state of Nevada dramatically expanded its lawsuit against Bank of America today, turning the narrow case it filed late last year into a broadside that targets virtually all aspects of the bank's mortgage operations. Bank of America has previously denied wrongdoing.

The sweeping new suit could have repercussions far beyond Nevada's borders. It further jeopardizes a possible nationwide settlement with the five largest U.S. banks over their foreclosure practices, especially given concerns voiced by other attorneys general, New York's foremost among them. (You can read the suit here.)

In a statement, Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said reaching a settlement would bring a better outcome for homeowners than litigation. "We believe that the best way to get the housing market going again in every state is a global settlement that addresses these issues fairly, comprehensively and with finality."

The suit also weakens a separate, 2008 multistate settlement in which Countrywide promised to evaluate troubled homeowners for loan modifications.

Most broadly, Nevada's action signals that the banks' problems with home mortgages—the main cause of the financial crisis—continue to burden them and rattle investors. Bank of America, the nation's largest bank and company that services mortgages, has seen its stock plunge about 40 percent since March, in part because of its mortgage liabilities. Nevada's action won't help.

Nevada's attorney general charges that Bank of America and the now-defunct mortgage giant Countrywide acquired by the bank in 2008, deceived borrowers and investors at almost every stage of the process.

According to the suit, borrowers were duped into unaffordable loans and then victimized again through a misleading mortgage modification program that homeowners tried to use to avoid foreclosure. Finally, the suit alleges, the bank filed fraudulent documents to move forward with the foreclosures.

"Taken together and separately, [Bank of America's] deceptive practices have resulted in an explosion of delinquencies and unauthorized and unnecessary foreclosures in the state of Nevada," the suit alleges.

The state's suit had previously been confined to the modification issue. At that time, Bank of America also said homeowners would be best served not through litigation but through reaching a multistate settlement that would "broaden programs for homeowners who need assistance."

By expanding the suit, Nevada's Catherine Cortez Masto joins New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in stepping up investigations of the bank. In addition to initiating a broad investigation of banks' securitization practices, he recently filed a suit charging that Bank of America had fraudulently foreclosed on homeowners.

A coalition of all 50 state attorneys general has been seeking a settlement with the five largest banks to address their foreclosure practices, such as the filing of thousands of false sworn statements with state courts. Some critics have said the states were speeding to an agreement without thoroughly investigating the banks' abuses.

Last week, fissures in the coalition became public when Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who leads the 50-state coalition, removed New York's Schneiderman from the group's executive committee because, he said, Schneiderman had "actively worked to undermine" its efforts by opposing any quick settlement. As part of any settlement (reportedly in the range of $20 billion to $25 billion), the banks have been seeking a wide-ranging release from future legal claims, not just those related to foreclosure practices. Schneiderman has publicly rejected that idea and pushed ahead with his investigation.

Masto's suit signals that Nevada may also reject any settlement in the near future on the foreclosure issues. Two other attorneys general, notably those from Massachusetts and Delaware [10], have also voiced concerns recently about any broad waiver of claims.

Geoff Greenwood, the spokesman for Iowa's attorney general, declined to comment on Nevada's suit.

Nevada's newly expanded suit also undermines a previous settlement between Countrywide and numerous attorneys general. In 2008, as part of that settlement, Bank of America agreed to implement a mortgage modification program to address charges that Countrywide's marketing and lending practices had defrauded borrowers. That promised wave of modifications never came, however, so Nevada alleges Bank of America has breached the agreement. The expanded suit revives those allegations.

In its new claims, Nevada also charges that Countrywide bungled the process of bundling loans into securities by not properly documenting the transfer of assets. Despite the lack of documentation, Bank of America has fraudulently pursued foreclosure on these homes anyway, the suit charges.

New York's Schneiderman made similar charges earlier this month when he sued Bank of New York Mellon, which, as trustee for several pools of Countrywide loans, was supposed to oversee the securities for investors. Countrywide's failure to transfer complete mortgage loan documentation "impair[ed] the value of the notes secured by those mortgages" and "triggered widespread fraud, including Bank of America's fabrication of missing documentation," the suit charges.

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Education Department Backs Away From Fix to Help Disabled Student Borrowers

by Sasha Chavkin, ProPublica

This story was co-published with the Chronicle of Higher Education.

After suffering from panic attacks and episodes of psychosis, Donita McDonald was diagnosed with a severe mental illness in 2009. She was unable to work or attend school, so the Social Security Administration declared the 21-year-old disabled. After the ruling, McDonald’s family turned to the Department of Education, appealing to also have her thousands of dollars in student loans forgiven. The department is supposed to forgive the loans of former students who develop severe and lasting disabilities, such as McDonald.

But rather than accept the Social Security Administration’s ruling, the Education Department has forced McDonald to go through a separate, arduous and largely duplicative review that has left her facing continuous collection efforts, even though she is unable to handle her own finances.

McDonald’s experience is far from unique. As ProPublica, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Center for Public Integrity detailed in an article in February, the department’s dysfunctional process for evaluating disability is keeping many genuinely disabled applicants in debt. Internal reports by the department’s own ombudsman found that the program has suffered from “fundamental deficiencies” including “no written medical standards for determining disability,” “no formal appeals process” for denials and “undue burden and costs” on borrowers.

Following the article, the government acknowledged the shortcomings and said it was considering making a fundamental fix that experts say would both cut spending and help borrowers in need. Instead of requiring all borrowers to go through the Education Department’s cumbersome, opaque and often redundant system, the agency could accept disability findings from Social Security and other federal agencies.

But now nearly six months later, the department says it can’t and won’t do it.

The Education Department said it was still making good on a pledge to write new regulations for the program and that the resulting reforms would be substantial. It said it was focused on streamlining its system, for example by eliminating the initial reviews by loan holders and guarantors that many borrowers must undergo.

The new rules should create “a process that will result in superior treatment for borrowers even when compared to the best practices of any other federal agency,” said David Bergeron, of the department’s Office of Postsecondary Education.

But experts say the department is shelving the most significant potential change—accepting Social Security decisions—before the process of writing the new rules even begins.

“It seems like there will mostly be small incremental improvements with none of the major changes that are really necessary,” said Mark Kantrowitz, an author and consultant on student financial aid.

No Way Forward?

Deanne Loonin, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center and the director of its Student Loan Borrower Assistance program, estimated that fully two-thirds of her clients who apply for loan discharges to the Education Department already have Social Security determinations. Loonin said accepting those decisions “would be the most important change by far” for her clients.

Before February, the department had maintained that it could not accept disability findings by other agencies without new legislation by Congress. It had said that Social Security designations, which are for temporary disability benefits, are far different than the standard of “total and permanent disability” required for forgiving a student debt.

Experts disputed that interpretation, saying legislation passed by Congress in 2008 opened the door for the Department of Education to accept certain Social Security rulings. And the department eventually appeared to agree, saying in February it believed it had the authority to write new rules that would allow it to accept disability findings by other agencies, as long as their standards paralleled its own.

It said a department working group was considering the “promising option” of accepting Social Security findings as part of the new rules it would write for the disability discharge program.

“This system must work better for borrowers that become totally and permanently disabled,” said Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the Education Department.

Now the department says it simply cannot find a way to accept other agencies’ disability findings while obeying the guidelines set out by Congress.

When asked what part of the statute constrained them, Bergeron, the department official, cited its requirement that borrowers must be unable to work because of “a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that can be expected to result in death.”

“We just can’t find a comparable determination that the Social Security Administration or other agencies are making to the one we’re making,” Bergeron said.

Yet the revisions by Congress from 2008 state that discharges should also be granted for disabilities expected to cause at least five years of being “unable to engage in any substantial gainful activity”—the same standard and time period that is used by Social Security to designate disabilities that aren’t expected to improve.

Kantrowitz, the student-aid expert, said that with the new standards established by Congress, the Education Department has the power to accept Social Security designations and should use it. “If an individual has one of those statuses, why not short-circuit the process since the two are equivalent?” he said.

The Education Department is still planning on writing new rules, a process that began with public meetings in May. The content of the rules will be hashed out in negotiating sessions between department officials and representatives of colleges, student-loan companies and borrower advocates.

Bergeron said the sessions will probably begin in October and last three or four months. He said the department was open to considering alternative approaches presented during the negotiations.

But following the department’s recent about-face on the question of whether it can accept other agencies’ disability findings, experts are skeptical that the new regulations will substantially change the program. However significant the obstacles to accepting these determinations may be, experts say the reforms now on the table will not be able to fix the program’s principal shortcomings.

Loonin, the attorney for borrowers, said “it would just be procedural changes” if accepting Social Security designations is not considered at the negotiated rule-making. “We would be very disappointed,” she said.

In Limbo

While the Education Department considers reforms, borrowers like Donita McDonald and her mother, Deborah, have still faced harassment from debt collectors, even as the family struggles to manage Donita’s disability. Two areas the department indicated in February that it planned to reform—its refusal to accept Social Security determinations, and problems with its process for proving financial hardship—have been sources of particular frustration for the McDonalds.

In the fall of 2006, Donita started her freshman year of college. But she soon began experiencing severe bouts of anxiety and visited the school’s mental health services. The panic attacks turned out to be early signs of a serious mental illness. In her sophomore year, she suffered a psychotic break and had to be hospitalized and withdraw from college.

In 2009, Social Security found that Donita was fully disabled and incapable of working. McDonald’s mother, Deborah, assumed power of attorney to handle Donita’s finances, which included paying off her daughter’s roughly $24,000 in student loans. In 2010 she applied to the Education Department to forgive her daughter’s loans on the grounds of her disability. Since the department does not accept Social Security’s findings, Donita had to undergo another medical review, and Deborah had to submit applications to each of Donita’s loan holders.

“I have to show over and over that she’s not capable, which is personally painful,” Deborah McDonald said.

Most of McDonald’s loans are under review, and the payments have been suspended. But McDonald has still had to deal with about $7,900 in government-backed Stafford loans. This May she started getting collection letters and daily phone calls about these loans from her loan servicer, Sallie Mae.

The most troubling incident for McDonald occurred in June, after she applied to Sallie Mae for forbearance due to economic hardship. Sallie Mae responded with a letter that said a “forbearance request form” was enclosed.

But the enclosed form was actually an automatic debit authorization form, which would have authorized Sallie Mae to deduct payments from Donita’s bank account. And instead of sending the form to Deborah McDonald, Sallie Mae sent it directly to Donita.

“Basically they bait and switched,” Deborah McDonald said. “My daughter’s not able to make that determination.”

“To me it’s almost illegal, it’s so misleading.”

When contacted by ProPublica about Ms. McDonald’s case, Sallie Mae’s director of customer advocacy, Amanda Holt, personally looked into the situation. McDonald’s discharge application was approved within two business days—ending the collections efforts by Sallie Mae—and sent on to the Education Department for a review. “This has been a unique and unfortunate case of miscommunication,” Holt said.

McDonald is now in limbo until a final review by the government determines if her debt can be wiped off the books.

The department declined to comment on the case of an individual borrower but said that the changes it is making with the new regulations are intended to fix these types of problems.

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Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Shows No Love for Tea Party, Bush

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Ruy Teixeira

It’s no secret that President Barack Obama has taken some serious hits to his popularity that are chiefly due to the poor economic situation. But that doesn’t mean that the public has changed its mind about his predecessor or embraced the ideas of his opponents. Consider this recent evidence.

In the latest AP/Roper/GfK poll, 51 percent still say George W. Bush deserves almost all or a lot of the blame for the country’s current economic problems. That’s followed by 44 percent who blame Republicans in Congress, 36 percent who blame the Democrats in Congress, and just 31 percent who blame President Obama.

It’s particularly noteworthy how public views of the hardline conservative Tea Party movement are shifting. Back in February 2010, 33 percent reported a favorable opinion of the Tea Party, compared to 25 percent who were unfavorable. Today, the favorable/unfavorable relationship is reversed: 43 percent report an unfavorable view, compared to 36 percent who are favorable.

So conservatives shouldn’t assume that negative feelings about President Obama are turning into love for them and their brand of politics. That clearly isn’t happening.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website.

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Hedge Funds Sold Stocks Quickly During Financial Crisis – Leaving Ordinary Americans Who Rely on Mutual Funds To Suffer Larger Losses

A new study of stock trading during the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 found that hedge funds sold their stocks much more aggressively than mutual funds at the first signs of poor performance.

These selloffs occurred in response to falling stock values, the study found. Hedge fund investors withdrew almost three times as much of the money they invested as compared to mutual fund investors.

As a result, the total returns of mutual funds were much worse during the crisis than were those of hedge funds.

That means ordinary investors – who are more likely to own mutual funds – were hit hardest by the drop in stock prices, while hedge fund investors were able to limit their losses. Millions of average Americans rely on the performance of mutual funds for their 401(k) and other retirement plans.

Hedge funds are private investment vehicles meant for wealthy investors who seek higher than average returns through sophisticated and often aggressive tactics.

Hedge funds have been a focus of federal investigators probing wrongdoing which led to the 2008 financial collapse. Since the crisis, Republicans have blocked Democrats from stripping wealthy hedge fund managers of tax loopholes which favor them.

“Hedge fund investors rushed to the exits when stock prices started falling. As a consequence, hedge funds heavily sold their stocks. That left mutual fund clients to bear the full brunt of the falling market,” says Itzhak Ben-David, co-author of the study and assistant professor of finance at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.

Ben-David conducted the study with Francesco Franzoni of the Swiss Finance Institute and University of Lugano and Rabih Moussawi of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

The findings, which are included in a forthcoming paper in the journal The Review of Financial Studies, were a surprise to the researchers.

“When we think of hedge fund investors, most experts see them as the people who rush in whenever there is a stock crash or economic crisis to find a way to make money. They are seen as sophisticated investors who find a way to exploit a bad situation for their own benefit,” Ben-David says. “But we found that they did the exact opposite during this crisis. They got out of the stock market quickly -- and that certainly didn’t help to stabilize the market. It was something we did not expect to find. At least we did not expect the phenomenon to be so pronounced!”

This study relied on a new data set that originates from matching the institutional ownership of U.S. stocks from Securities and Exchange Commission filings to a proprietary list of hedge funds available to the researchers. These data are then matched to proprietary data to draw information on hedge fund characteristics, performance and ownership structure. In addition, the researchers used other databases that provided information on mutual funds.

They especially focused on the period from the third quarter of 2007, when the financial crisis began, through the first quarter of 2009.

The results showed that hedge funds sold stock quickly at the first sign of losses. During the last two quarters of 2007, hedge funds reduced their stock holdings about 10 percent. Then, during the last two quarters of 2008, hedge funds sold about 30 percent of their portfolios.

Meanwhile, mutual funds’ sales of stock were about 10 times less during the crisis than were those of hedge funds, according to the study.

The quick exit from the stock market helped hedge fund investors to limit their losses when compared to mutual fund clients, Ben-David says. The quarterly returns for hedge funds were down only about 1.82 percent during the time of the study, compared to 7.22 percent for mutual funds.

Why did hedge fund managers sell so quickly during the crisis?

Ben-David says that one reason was that hedge funds typically borrow money to make their purchases, and their lenders asked for their money back as stock prices started falling.

The other reason is that hedge fund investors just pulled their money out of the funds. This behavior was exacerbated by some of the practices and regulations of individual hedge funds. Some funds limit the amount of money investors can take out of the fund at any one time, or after a certain date. These rules are designed to allow the hedge funds to complete long-term, often risky, transactions.

“These restrictions give investors an incentive to run more quickly for the exit if they are losing money. We found that hedge funds that had these restrictions saw more investors pull their money out,” Ben-David says. “Investors in these types of funds are very jumpy. For every bit of bad news, they start to think about getting their money out while they still can.”

The fact that institutional investors are heavily involved in hedge funds also played a role, he says.

Institutional investors are managing other people’s money – it is not their own. That means they may be extra careful in their investments. They don’t necessarily get rewarded if their investments make more money than expected, but they could be fired if they lose money, Ben-David says.

Overall, the results suggest that, at least during this crisis, hedge funds operated much differently than expected.

“Hedge funds are often seen as providing some social benefits because they buy stocks when other people are avoiding the market. But we didn’t see that during this crisis,” Ben-David says.



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Eric Cantor Becomes New Target For American Dream TV Spot

A prominent progressive advocacy group says it will next target House Majority Leader Eric Cantor with its new TV ad which calls for the defense of the American Dream.

Democracy For America (DFA), which first launched the spot last week, says its supporters have voted to air the ad in the Republican leader's Virginia district.

"On Friday, we asked DFA members to vote on which Republican to target next with our new TV ad exposing the Republican attacks on Medicare, Social Security and education. It was close, but the winner was clear: Republican Eric Cantor," DFA Political Director Charles Chamberlain says in an email sent Sunday. "Now, we'll hit him hard across his Virginia district before he heads back to Washington after Labor Day."

Second-in-command in the House GOP hierarchy, Cantor has been a strong force for carrying out tea party demands to slash federal spending and reduce the size of the federal government.

Despite the fact that in the last week his district has been hit by a major earthquake and Hurricane Irene, Cantor more recently has suggested federal disaster relief be contingent on further federal budget cutting.

Established out of former Vermont governor Howard Dean's 2004 unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for president, DFA says it first began airing its TV ad last week with buys on such programs as NBC's Meet The Press.

In his email, Chamberlain says DFA is soliciting contributions from supporters to air the ad in Cantor's district.

First elected to Congress in 2000, Cantor hasn't dipped below 59 percent in any of his re-election campaigns.



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Nurses To Converge on 60 Congressional Offices Sept. 1, Calling for Wall St. Tax

From Maine to California, nurses, joined by others angry over the ongoing economic crisis, will call on members of Congress in their local district offices on September 1 to support a tax on Wall Street financial speculation to pay to, in their words, "heal the nation."

The nurses -- members of the National Nurses United (NNU) labor union -- will visit the home offices of Republicans and Democrats, with a common message: Everyday Americans are hurting, and they need jobs, healthcare, housing, quality education, nutrition, and a secure retirement, not more cuts, as has been the recent obsession of Congress.

Among the lawmakers nurses want to meet with are members of the leadership of Capitol Hill, including House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

The meetings with lawmakers will be joined with other events, from soup kitchens to help feed the hungry and homeless, to community speak outs to street theater are planned in major urban centers like Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Orlando, to smaller cities and towns, such as Corpus Christi, Texas; Marquette, Mich.; Bakersfield, Calif.; Dayton, Ohio; and Worcester, Mass.
The nurses will call on Congress members to sign a pledge to "support a Wall Street transaction tax that will raise sufficient revenue to make Wall Street pay for the devastation it has caused on Main Street." The visits follow a letter sent by certified mail to all 535 members of the House and Senate last week asking them to back the pledge and help "make the promise of the American dream...a reality," according to a statement from the union.

A tax on Wall Street trading of stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, credit default swaps, and futures –- the speculative activity linked to the 2008 financial meltdown and resulting recession –- could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for the programs that "are desperately needed to reduce the pain and suffering felt by so many families who feel abandoned in communities across this nation," says NNU Co-President Deborah Burger.

NNU, which says it is the nation's largest union and professional association of nurses, has sponsored other protests in recent months, including in Washington, outside the headquarters of the powerful pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and in New York City, across from the Stock Exchange, to advance its campaign.

"America's nurses see every day the broad declines in health and living standards that are a direct result of patients and families struggling with lack of jobs, un-payable medical bills, hunger, and homelessness. We know where to find the resources to bring them hope and real solutions," says NNU Co-president Karen Higgins.



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Billions Meant for Struggling Homeowners May Pay Down Deficit Instead

by Lois Beckett, ProPublica

With housing prices dropping sharply, and foreclosure filings against more than 1 million properties in the first half of this year, the Obama administration is scrambling for ways to help homeowners.

One place they won't be looking: an estimated $30 billion from the bailout that was slated to help homeowners but is likely to remain unspent.

Instead, Congress has mandated that the leftover money be used to pay down the debt.

Of the $45.6 billion in Trouble Asset Relief Program funds meant to aid homeowners, the most recent numbers available show that only about $2 billion has actually gone out the door.

The low number reflects how little the government's home loan modification and other programs have actually helped homeowners deal with the foreclosure crisis.

The programs have been marked by poor oversight and consistent under-enrollment. Homeowners have been forced to navigate an often bewildering maze at banks marked by slow communication, lost documents and other mistakes.

The amount of money spent is also low because the government pays out its incentive over a number of years. As of July, according to a Treasury spokeswoman, the government is on track to eventually spend $7.2 billion helping homeowners enrolled in its main loan modification program. That number doesn't factor in other homeowners who may enter the program before it ends in December 2012, but it does assume that all homeowners currently in the program will be able to continue making payments.

In November, the Congressional Budget Office lowered their estimate of the total amount of money the government would spend on its foreclosure relief programs from $22 billion to $12 billion. (The New York Times reported today that the government has "spent or pledged" $22.9 billion of the TARP money so far, a figure that's dramatically higher than ours and that the Treasury spokeswoman said was the Times' own number.)

According to the original TARP legislation, unused funds should be returned to the Treasury and used to reduce the debt. While Congress has the power to re-route those funds into new programs, Republicans seem unlikely to endorse such a plan.

An Obama administration statement noted that they were continuing to look for ways to "ease the burden on struggling homeowners" through new proposals and reconsidering old ones.

The other ideas the administration is looking at have received mixed reviews. Among them: turning foreclosed homes into rental properties or allowing homeowners to refinance their mortgages at today's lower interest rates, an old idea that may not actually help a large new segment of homeowners.

"We have no plans to announce any major new initiatives at this time," the statement noted.

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Think Again: Kochs: Life Is Good

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Eric Alterman

Warren Buffett pays taxes on a smaller percentage of his billions in income than his cleaning lady. He thinks this to be both morally wrong and practically misguided, and he said so in a New York Times op-ed recently, complaining that he and his fellow gazillionaires have been “coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.”

Buffett’s argument was refuted by the right-wing billionaire and funder of extremist organizations, Charles Koch, who justifies his puny tax rate with the argument that government spending often “does more harm than good,” and adds, “my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington.”

Well, they are certainly more beneficial to Koch personally. His fortune not only benefits from the low taxes he pays but also from significant public subsidies. ThinkProgress points out:

According to Forbes, the Koch brothers have seen their wealth rise $11 billion in recent years, making the Koch brother[s] among the richest in the country by being worth around $22.5 billion each. Much of those profits, however, are due to soaring gas prices and the fact Koch Industries has avoided compensating the public for one hundred million tons of carbon pollution the company produces each year. Other Koch companies also receive significant taxpayer subsidies, despite Koch’s supposed opposition to government spending.

Koch naturally thinks his money better spent as he sees fit, and I don’t blame him. The very money he should be paying in taxes goes into tax-deductible organizations designed to increase his wealth and influence.

For instance, as I noted in this column in December of last year, when President Barack Obama noted in 2008 that the science underlying man-made global warming was “beyond dispute,” the libertarian Cato Institute took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to attempt to undermine what was then a statement of fact—just a warning shot in a campaign that has resonated with considerable success throughout the mainstream media.

The Cato Institute, it turns out, was begun 34 years ago with a grant from Charles and David Koch. According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Kochs gave Cato $11 million alone in the seven-year period between 1986 and 1993. Cato now enjoys over 100 full-time employees, “and its experts and policy papers are widely quoted and respected by the mainstream media. It describes itself as nonpartisan, and its scholars have at times been critical of both parties. But it has consistently pushed for corporate tax cuts, reductions in social services, and laissez-faire environmental policies.”

Jane Mayer notes in her profile of the Kochs in The New Yorker that Cato scholars have been particularly energetic in promoting the Climategate scandal. Last year, private emails of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, in England, were mysteriously leaked, and their exchanges appeared to suggest a willingness to falsify data in order to buttress the idea that global warming is real.

In the two weeks after the emails went public, one Cato scholar gave more than 20 media interviews trumpeting the alleged scandal. In fact, the researchers have since been exonerated as has the data. (One wonders, however, if the recent Murdoch empire's wiretapping and email-hacking scandals might have had something to do with feeding these conspiracy mongers. Certainly it would not be the first time Murdoch employees conspired with criminals for the purposes of what Rupert and Co. call “journalism.”)

Meanwhile, the phony Climategate controversy led to significant questioning of the worldwide scientific consensus on global warming and led more Americans than any time since 1997 to question its reality. The Kochs promote this statistic on their company’s website, Mayer noted, but fail to come clean about their own role in creating it.

Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego, and the co-author of Merchants of Doubt, explains that the brothers, who lead an enormous industrial concern “with refineries and pipelines,” have “a lot at stake.” She adds, “If the answer is to phase out fossil fuels, a different group of people are going to be making money, so we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re fighting tooth and nail.”

Mayer also reports that during 1980s the Koch family foundations contributed more than $30 million to George Mason University, much of which went to the Mercatus Center, a nonprofit organization they helped to set up in order to promote “market-oriented ideas.”

According to an environmental lawyer Mayer quotes, the plan is to “take corporate money and give it to a neutral-sounding think tank,” which “hires people with pedigrees and academic degrees who put out credible-seeming studies. But they all coincide perfectly with the economic interests of their funders.”

Of course these are just a couple of the myriad areas in which wealthy folks like the Kochs use the tax code to not only to avoid paying their fair share of the costs of keeping this nation going—protecting it, defending it, and the like—but enriching themselves and their friends at the rest of our expenses.

It surely is no coincidence that during the period in which all this investment in right-wing ideological argumentation has taken place, rich people have been asked to pay a smaller and smaller percentage of their wealth as it has piled higher and higher in their coffers.

In 1974 the top 0.1 percent of American families earned 2.7 percent of all income in the country. But by 2007, this same tiny slice of the population, aided in part by significantly lower rates of taxation legislated by Congress, had increased its holdings to fully 12.3 percent—roughly five times as great as it had been three decades earlier. Half of the U.S. population owned barely 2 percent of its wealth, putting the United States near Rwanda and Uganda and below such nations as pre-Arab Spring Tunisia and Egypt in terms of income inequality.

And the problem is only getting worse. By the end of 2010, as corporate profits rose by fully 14 percent, workers’ wages dropped to their lowest level ever measured in American history, falling below 50 percent of national income.

Is it any wonder that folks like Charles Koch like their own “business and non-profit investments” better than, say, allowing the government to pay for roads, parks, national defense, and Medicare? Again, I don’t blame him. But the real question is: How in the world did we come up with a tax program that allows him to get away with it?

Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a columnist for The Nation, The Forward, and The Daily Beast. His newest book is Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama. This column won the 2011 Mirror Award for Best Digital Commentary.

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All the President's Men (and Women): Electing a Cast of Thousands

By Scott Nance

At this point in a presidential campaign, our sense is dominated by images of candidates shaking hands at a diner in New Hampshire, or working a crowd at the state fair in Iowa. Given the kind of retail politics that power these early days in the road to the White House, our view of the candidates can be highly personal.

To be sure, come next November we'll be pulling the lever for the one man or woman we want to lead our country for the next four years. The truth is, though, that whomever wins on Election Day actually will sit atop a massive federal government, and that winner will bring in an army of professionals to Washington, to help him, or her, in that task.

The hiring that a new president will undertake is not limited to a White House staff and a cabinet of advisers. Those appointments only lead to deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy assistant secretaries, commissioners, and so on and so forth, all across the federal government.

Other than perhaps our quadrennial "veepstakes," the chatter of whom the eventual Republican nominee will select as his or her running mate (and maybe some peripheral rhetoric about the kinds of Supreme Court justices he or she might choose), not much attention usually is paid to this cast of thousands until after the election. Yet, since in some real sense we are electing not only an individual, but an entire population in government, who these folks could be, and where they come from, ought to get more thought and discussion during the campaign.

Washington has established a sort of unofficial revolving-door system which has helped with solving the staffing issue. When a presidency of one political party ends, many of those appointees go across town to fill posts at the various think tanks, institutes, and other such various and sundry political and policy organizations which exist here, all the while waiting for their next turn at bat. Simultaneously, those of the incoming party who had been so hibernating during the previous administration, come back into government to fill so many of these politically appointed posts. So it is that the Obama administration is filled with so many familiar faces from the Clinton era, for instance, or that George W. Bush and his team reached back to so many alumni from his father's administration.

And, the door could swing once more next year, if Barack Obama is defeated for a second term. This crosstown pattern could well re-emerge, particularly if an establishment Republican like Mitt Romney were to win the presidency. So many former Bushies, waiting in the wings as they are at the conservative policy shops around town, could be recalled to active duty, with some of the usual playing of musical chairs which also occurs. A former Bush deputy Treasury official, for example, wouldn't necessarily just go back to his old job, but might move up to a White House economic adviser's post; that sort of thing.

This pattern could be broken, however, depending on who the Republican victor turns out to be. Rep. Michele Bachmann has taken such a hard anti-government line as to call for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Given that stance, were she to become president, who would Bachmann nominate to lead the EPA? Would she perhaps, symbolically or otherwise, simply not name anyone to be her EPA administrator and leave the post vacant?

More significantly, what if Texas Gov. Rick Perry finds himself president-elect? We've been told that there's some animosity between Perry's team and the old Bush crowd, for instance. If that's true, would Perry be less inclined to reach back to former Bush appointees to fill his government? If so, who does he pick instead? Would he simply fly in his state-level team en masse from Texas and try to get them through Senate confirmation for federal jobs? Does he turn to tea party activists (and to be kind, I'll call them "lightly qualified") to fill federal posts? (Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express for Treasury Secretary, anyone?)

Given the power the tea party wields within the GOP generally, that begs the question of what jobs tea partyers would be asked to fill in any new Republican administration. We Americans deserve to know just what role the tea party might play, and the influence it would exert, if allowed for the first time into the executive branch.

As of now, these are all somewhat hypothetical questions. But they are important questions for which voters ought to be demanding answers.

Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade. Capitol Idea is his regular column from Washington. This article was first published as All the President's Men (and Women): Electing a Cast of Thousands on Blogcritics.

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Dean Group Launches New TV Ad In Defense Of The American Dream

A prominent progressive group associated with former Vermont governor Howard Dean says it has launched its latest television ad, a spot aimed at preserving the embattled American Dream against Republicans.

Democracy For America (DFA), built from Dean's campaign apparatus from his failed 2004 bid for the White House, sent the ad as an online video to supporters Wednesday.

"We hear a lot of talk from Washington about compromise these days, and if you are anything like me, it makes me furious. Why should I have to compromise my values and the investments that I made for my future, so that millionaires and billionaires can get a free ride?" DFA Communications Director Levana Layendecker says in the email.

"Maybe in Washington you have to tolerate fools who want to kill the American Dream, but Democracy for America members won't let them get away with it out here in America.

"The truth is that Republicans in Congress aren't giving an inch on their plan to destroy all of the investments that made America great," Layendecker adds. "They are killing the American dream by kicking the legs out from under everything that supports the middle class -- education, Social Security and Medicare, and infrastructure we need for jobs.

"That's not what America voted for and we can't let them slink away back to their in district fundraisers without answering for those votes. That's why we made this TV ad to hit Republicans hard and send Washington a message," she says.

DFA already has locked down time to run the ad, targeting popular Sunday political TV shows like NBC's "Meet the Press" and "Inside Washington" as "a shot across the bow that members of Congress won't miss," Layendecker says.

"The next step is to take it directly to the districts of vulnerable Republicans nationwide, like Allen West and David Rivera in Florida," she says. "Both Republicans are tied to scandals and each will face challenges next November by progressive Democrats ready to fight for the American Dream."

In her email, Layendecker solicits online contributions to keep the TV spot running on the air.



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Our Guide to the Best Coverage on Rep. Michele Bachmann and Her Record

by Marian Wang, ProPublica

This is the latest installment in a series of reading guides on 2012 presidential candidates. We’ve also covered Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Congressman Ron Paul.

The basics:

Though she certainly has a challenger in Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has held the title of Tea Party favorite thus far in the presidential race, touting her opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, support of "intelligent design," and rejection of the scientific consensus that human activity is a leading cause of global warming.

A detailed profile in The New Yorker tracks both her career steps and her deeply religious background. Bachmann's first job after law school was working for the IRS, an agency she once called "the most heartless organization that anyone knows of." As both The New Yorker and the Star Tribune note, she mostly worked on cases that settled and rarely litigated. (The Star Tribune says two minor cases; The New Yorker says one.) She recently said on a campaign stop that she went to work at the IRS "because the first rule of war is 'Know your enemy.' "

Many of her major career and life decisions have been made, she says, according to visions, prayer and directions by God. Bachmann said that God gave her and her husband, Marcus Bachmann, a vision of marrying each other. She's said that God "called us to take foster children," and went on to take in 23 in addition to the couple's five biological children. As she was running for Congress, Bachmann said that "God then called me to run for the United States Congress." And in May, she said in an interview with Iowa Public Television that she'd also "had that calling" from God to run for president.

Her record:

Bachmann spent six years in the Minnesota state Senate and is currently serving her third term in Congress. In July, then-presidential-contender Tim Pawlenty, a fellow Minnesotan, criticized Bachmann's legislative accomplishments in Congress as "non-existent."

PolitiFact checked Pawlenty's attack and found it to be mostly true

—Bachmann has never sponsored anything that became law. The congresswoman "seems to prefer offering legislation that makes a bold statement" and "does not have many legislative victories under her belt," PolitiFact concluded.

You can check GovTrack for Bachmann's recent proposed legislation, including bills to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and repeal the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs (the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act).

In recent days, Bachmann has touted her role in the debate over raising the debt ceiling. "I've been the leading voice, almost the lone voice in the wilderness of Washington, fighting against raising the debt ceiling," she said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

Bachmann's role mainly consisted of breaking with GOP leadership, denying that default was a possibility, and saying she would refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless President Obama's health care law was repealed.

When rating agency Standard & Poor's subsequently downgraded the U.S. credit rating, she called the president "AWOL," "missing in action," and said, "It happened on your watch, Mr. President," arguing that S&P's downgrade decision proved her right.

PolitiFact rated that assertion false. In fact, S&P had cited "political brinksmanship" and failure to compromise as a primary reason for the downgrade.

Despite her hawkish stance on fiscal issues and her criticism of government spending, many news reports have noted that she's benefitted from such spending. Bachmann proposed more than $60 million in earmarks while serving in Minnesota's state Senate and more than $3.7 million since joining Congress, the Daily Caller noted. While she supported the GOP's supposed earmarks ban, she also argued that "advocating for transportation projects for one's district in my mind does not equate to an earmark," the Minnesota Star Tribune noted.

And while criticizing the Obama administration's stimulus spending in public, Bachmann often sought those funds in private, writing letters repeatedly to administration officials seeking funding and support for projects in her district, the Huffington Post reported.

At the same time, Bachmann has received what may be questionable criticism for introducing a bill to build a $700 million bridge to replace an aging bridge connecting Minnesota and Wisconsin. While some have criticized the proposal as destructive to the environment /span>, others have labeled it an earmark—even though Bachmann's proposal sought no federal funds for the bridge.

Bachmann and her husband also have a stake in a family farm that's received nearly $260,000 in farm subsidies over the years. Though she's asserted that she hasn't received income from the farm, the Los Angeles Times notes that her financial disclosures show otherwise.

Her recent promises:

Bachmann has become known for making sweeping promises. "Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 per gallon again," she vowed this week.

She has also been creative with them.

"President Bachmann will be canceling barbecues if we see the markets going down," she recently said when the Dow plunged on the same day as Obama's birthday.

Still others advance her social agenda. "The 'don't ask, don't tell' policy has worked very well," she told CNN recently, noting that if made president, she'll consult with military officials but "probably will" reinstate the policy.

Bachmann has also promised to shutter the Environmental Protection Agency, which she's decried as the "job-killing organization of America." The New York Times quotes a line she said in Iowa: "I guarantee you the E.P.A. will have doors locked and lights turned off, and they will only be about conservation."

Controversies—and unfair criticisms:

Bachmann has been involved in her fair share of controversies, but not all were all her making. A report last month by the Daily Caller noting that Bachmann has severe migraines and alleging that she "takes all sorts of pills" for them got played up in the D.C. press—until Bachmann released a letter from a doctor verifying that the migraines were infrequent and controllable.

Newsweek recently put an unflattering photo of her on their cover, prompting a torrent of complaints that the cover was sexist.

Bachmann also often makes headlines for her minor gaffes, such as mixing up Elvis' birthday and death-day, confusing John Wayne the actor with John Wayne Gacy the serial killer, and otherwise botching references to American and World history.

Her husband's clinic, as many have noted, has been a center of more significant controversy. Former patients have come forward alleging that the clinic practices "reparative therapy" to change the sexual orientation of gay men and women. Marcus Bachmann, who runs the clinic, has previously denied his clinic does that, though he's also compared gay people to "barbarians" who "need to be educated," notes CNN. The Bachmann campaign has refused to comment on the matter in recent days, citing patient-client confidentiality.

Following the money:

Bachmann's campaign has largely been funded through small donations—at least when compared with her GOP rivals. You can check some of her top contributors on OpenSecrets.

Earlier this month, her supporters launched a super PAC, Citizens for a Working America, which would be able to accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations but must be spent independently of her campaign.

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Elizabeth Warren Picks Up Union Support For Mass. Senate Bid Against Scott Brown

Elizabeth Warren, the consumer champion who advised the Obama administration with the set-up of the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), has picked up the support of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) as she considers taking on Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in next year's election.

A prominent consumer advocate, Warren helped the administration set up the CFPB, established in last year's Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, which is designed to help protect Americans from the sorts of abuses of the financial industry which helped lead to the 2008 economic meltdown.

Due to political opposition from Republicans, President Obama passed Warren over as his nominee as the first permanent director of the CFPB. That job went to former Ohio state Attorney General Richard Cordray. His nomination remains pending before the Senate.

Instead, she recently founded an exploratory committee for a potential U.S. Senate run in Massachusetts. Brown stunned the political world last year with an upset victory for his Senate seat, in which he earned the right to serve the remainder of the term of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). Brown, the first Republican elected to the Senate from the liberal-leaning Bay State in 30 years, next year will be running for his first full six-year term.

In a statement, the MNA says it is the first labor union to endorse Warren, and its 23,000 nurse members combined with 147,000 additional members of its national affiliate, the National Nurses United (NNU) from across the country helps provide the potential Senate candidate with strong motivation to enter the race.

"Even though she is not yet an official candidate, the MNA Board has taken the unprecedented step of voting to support her," says Donna Kelly-Williams, registered nurse and president of the MNA. "Her dedication to the nation's middle class, which she has demonstrated through her work as a faithful consumer advocate both locally and nationally, reflects one of the MNA's key goals: Restoring a basic standard of living for working people by creating financial remedies that hold Wall Street accountable while protecting those who live and work on Main Street USA."

The MNA, in conjunction with the NNU, has started a national campaign called "The Main Street Contract." The campaign, the unions say, is dedicated to many of the same issues that Warren has focused on resolving through her work as a Harvard University professor and bankruptcy attorney, as well as in her role at the CFPB, including:

•Providing jobs at living wages for everyone
•Creating a secure retirement system that allows everyone to live out their lives with dignity
•Establishing a just taxation system where corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share

"For too long now we have seen the results of Wall Street controlling the economy," says Karen Higgins, registered nurse and co-president of the NNU. "It is time for the 'Main Street' values of financial equality and fairness to take precedence, and Elizabeth Warren is the person to lead us in that direction. She will go to Washington D.C. not to serve the interests of Wall Street, but to serve the interests of working people in Massachusetts and across America."

Warren has spent years fighting for working-class families and highlighting the need for financial reform and meaningful consumer protection, the nurses union notes. Following the financial crisis of 2008, she became the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was created to oversee the U.S. banking bailout.

The creation of the CFPB was a brainchild of Warren's.

Warren is not the only Massachusetts Democrat looking to oppose Brown. Others include Alan Khazei, the co-founder of the City Year youth program; Rep. Michael Capuano; Rep. Stephen Lynch; first-term Newton Mayor Setti Warren; businessman Robert Pozen; and Robert Massie, a former candidate for lieutenant governor.



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Dems Push Back On GOP Tax Hike

Democrats are pushing back against an upcoming tax increase on low- and middle-income Americans which the usually anti-tax Republicans appear willing to allow.

Unless Congress acts, the payroll tax will rise on those making up to $106,800, reportedly to the tune of $1,000 on those making $50,000 and $2,000 on those earning $100,000 annually. Republicans, who have fought tooth-and-nail against any tax hikes on the richest Americans, appear to be standing back with no plan to avoid this pending increase.

That increase will affect nearly 160 million U.S. families, according to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which wants to fight the increase.

Missouri Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Montee and Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) planned to hold a press call on Wednesday, to discuss the GOP's willingness to raise taxes on the middle class.

The expiring payroll tax reduction was the brainchild of President Obama, who also wants to maintain the payroll tax cut for another year.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, a member of the House GOP leadership team, tried to explain Republican inconsistency on tax increases by saying: ""It's always a net positive to let taxpayers keep more of what they earn, but not all tax relief is created equal for the purposes of helping to get the economy moving again."

Another top Republican, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, argues an extended payroll tax cut "would simply exacerbate our debt problems." However, Ryan and other conservatives were content late last year to finance an extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the richest taxpayers with deficit spending.



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Race and Beyond: Rededicating Ourselves to Dr. King’s “Dream”

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sam Fulwood III

I plan to be among the thousands of people who will celebrate Sunday's dedication of the national memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. And how could I avoid it? It's taking place in my adopted hometown and on my birthday.

For most of my life, I have shared my birthday with a special moment in American history. On August 28, 1963, Dr. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. It's always irked me that my parents didn't take me to celebrate my day with those 250,000 people who came out on a swamp-sweltering Wednesday to hear what would become Dr. King's iconic sermon.

I remember that day vividly not because of the King speech but because I turned 7 that summer, and I was the guest of honor at the only birthday party I ever had. My folks never made much of a fuss about such celebrations. But we happened to be visiting relatives in Baltimore. They couldn't believe I'd never had a party with bunting and the like. So Aunt Anne, Uncle Frank, and Cousin Frankie took it upon themselves to invite the neighborhood kids to a party in my honor. About the precise time that Dr. King's booming bass thundered the closing line "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last," a gaggle of Frankie's friends, all strangers to me, were singing "Happy birthday, dear Sam. Happy birthday to you."

This year, my birthday will be memorable for a different reason. As I turn 55, President Barack Obama will deliver remarks at the official unveiling of the 30-foot, 8-inch granite sculpture of Dr. King.

The $120 million memorial took 14 years to become a park-like setting nestled among the cherry trees on four acres on the northwest shore of the Tidal Basin. The memorial started out as an outrageously impossible idea by some members of my fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, who thought our most famous brother deserved a statue on the mall. They lobbied Congress, took the lead in raising the needed money, and helped create the commission that ultimately built the only national monument in the nation's capitol that marks the life of a person who wasn't elected president.

Now that the monument has become reality it's a perfect time to celebrate. But it's also appropriate to reflect on what King's memory represents in our nation's history. In the sweep of my lifetime, this country has freed itself from the most egregious vestiges of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow, to electing a black man as the most powerful leader in the free world. It's an ironic and fitting twist of history proving just how much this nation has evolved that President Obama will dedicate the only monument on the Washington Mall honoring an African American.

Not to be lost in the hoopla and celebration, however, is the recognition that so much of Dr. King's work remains undone. When he died in 1968, Dr. King was denouncing war and urging his fellow countrymen to find ways to deal with poverty, joblessness, and injustice at home. Much of what he preached in the last year of his life could be lifted up as a sermon appropriate for audiences to hear today.

“The dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial has been long-awaited, and people from around the world are coming to experience this historic moment,” Harry E. Johnson Sr., president of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, told The Washington Post. “We are excited to welcome them all.”

So am I. But as the crowds gather in Washington for the swirl of swanky activities leading up to the 11 a.m. unveiling of the monument on my birthday, the one wish I have is that Americans pause long enough to reflect on the progress made and rededicate ourselves to the work left undone. I believe that's what Dr. King would want, and I can't imagine a better birthday gift.

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Director of the CAP-Leadership Institute. His work with the Center's Progress 2050 project examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050.

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FAQ: Key Questions on Libya’s Coming Transition

by Marian Wang, Nicholas Kusnetz and Lois Beckett, ProPublica

Developments are still unfolding quickly in Libya, and there's a lot that's still unclear. We're laying out some key questions along with what we know so far. We're updating this feature as we go. And we want you to be part of it: Email us or tweet @ProPublica with questions you'd like to see answered.

Will Qaddafi and his cohorts be brought to justice?

(This section has been updated to reflect that Seif al-Islam Qaddafi was spotted, apparently free, in Tripoli.)

It's likely that some of them will be tried, but it's not clear by whom. The international community seems to want one thing, but the rebels want another.

The International Criminal Court, the global war crimes court, is currently negotiating with rebels to get them to hand over Qaddafi's son Seif al-Islam, whom the rebels said they captured but was spotted Monday in a hotel full of Western journalists. The court issued arrest warrants earlier this year for Muammar Qaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam Qaddafi, and intelligence chief Abdullah Al Sanousi, having found "reasonable grounds to believe" that the three men had committed crimes against humanity in the form of murder and prosecution. (Read the decision [PDF].)

The rebels have insisted on trying Qaddafi at home. A rebel spokesman told Sky News Monday: "We want to see him be tried in Libya and not in any other place in the world." They have promised to give him a fair trial.

It's worth noting that it's not clear whether Libya is actually obligated to hand over Qaddafi. Along with the United States, Libya is one of a few countries that hasn't signed on to the ICC's founding treaty. But ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has said that as a member of the United Nations, Libya and "any future government" in Libya is obligated to execute the warrants and turn over Qaddafi.

If the rebels do execute the warrants, an ICC trial would shield Qaddafi and his cohorts from the death penalty, which a trial in Libya would not.

Nonetheless, the United States and other countries cheered the news of the warrants when they were issued. It was the first time the United States had voted to refer an issue to the war crimes court, and as we noted, the United States only did so after including a carve-out that would shield Americans from investigation or prosecution by the court.

How much help have the United States and allies been giving the rebels?

A lot. NATO's stated mission was simply to protect Libyan civilians, but its actual role appears to have gone well beyond that.

While NATO has denied that it has any "boots on the ground" in Libya, British and American officials speaking anonymously have said that there are "dozens" of British Special Forces soldiers, as well as American CIA operatives, working in Libya. An Al-Jazeera film crew captured images of armed Westerners in the rebel frontlines west of Misrata, and a rebel source told Al Jazeera in April that he had received training from American and Egyptian special forces.

In April, France and Italy also announced they would be sending a "small number" of military officers to "be mentors" to rebel forces.

NATO has also coordinated closely with rebels in directing air strikes against Qaddafi's forces. Since its U.N.-approved operations began in March, NATO forces have conducted nearly 7,500 strike missions.

Rebel forces took advantage of this support, "selecting targets and transmitting their location, using technology provided by individual NATO allies, to NATO's targeting team in Italy," the New York Times reported.

"The rebels certainly have our phone number," an unnamed diplomat told the Times.

Over the past few weeks, the Times reported, NATO's strikes became increasingly sophisticated, "establishing around-the-clock surveillance over the dwindling areas that Libyan military forces still controlled, using armed Predator drones to detect, track and occasionally fire at those forces."

NATO's air strikes may have been particularly crucial in the hard-fought rebel recapture of the city of Zawiyah, which is only 30 miles from Tripoli, Libya's capital.

Strikes over the weekend appeared to be closely integrated into the rebel offensive on the capital, as the New York Times reported:

NATO warplanes had flown overhead for days, bombing targets in the capital and its surroundings to clear the path to Tripoli…An uprising in Tripoli on Saturday night also laid the groundwork. At the "zero hour," as the rebels called it, residents took to the streets and held demonstrations that were met with deadly force by Qaddafi soldiers — who also further exposed their heavy artillery to NATO surveillance, one rebel leader said.

The Post reported that these efforts were part of a "pincer" strategy created with the help of British, French, and Qatari special forces on the ground.

What's been the rebels' record on rights so far?

The track record of rebel groups on human rights isn't comparable to the bloody massacres by Qaddafi's forces, but it's still been far from stellar.

Qaddafi's forces have planted thousands of land mines to thwart the rebels, but advocacy group Human Rights Watch also accused rebel fighters of planting some roadside mines in April. Rebel leaders subsequently pledged not to use mines and to adhere to the Mine Ban Treaty in the future. (The Los Angeles Times notes that neither Libya nor the U.S. have signed that treaty.)

Then in July, Human Rights Watch accused some rebel forces in the western mountain regions of burning and looting hospitals, homes, and businesses in several towns they managed to overtake. They were also accused of beating people suspected of being Qaddafi loyalists. One rebel military commander admitted some of the abuses but said they were in violation of orders, according to Human Rights Watch. The rebels later issued a statement condemning the abuses and pledging to investigate.

Questions about the rebel groups' unity and adherence to the rule of law resurfaced again in late July, when the top rebel military leader was mysteriously shot dead. Rebel leaders later acknowledged that a group of rebel soldiers had assassinated Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, who had been close to Qaddafi prior to his defection to the rebels.

The incident also underscores the fact that the rebels are fundamentally a loose coalition made up of various factions whose actions aren't always in sync -- so it's unclear at times which faction was responsible for accused abuses.

The rebels also once placed tough restrictions on journalists and banned access to the front lines, but they seem to have loosened up a little. At least one Sky News correspondent, Alex Crawford, has been freely reporting live in recent days from within the rebel convoy.

Where is Qaddafi's money, and what happens to it now?

Qaddafi and his now fallen government invested tens of billions of dollars around the world, which will likely make their way to an incoming Libyan government, though it'll take time and won't be easy.

After the United States and other countries lifted a previous round of sanctions on Qaddafi in 2003 and 2004, the Libyan government established a sovereign wealth fund that became one of the largest in the world, worth $53 billion last year. Qaddafi's managers bought stakes in an Italian bank and soccer club, a Russian aluminum company and a British publishing house, to name just a few, according to the Wall Street Journal. The fund also had billions invested in public stocks like Halliburton and also in more complicated financial products managed by Western banks.

Western governments froze most of those assets after the United Nations Security Council passed sanctions against Qaddafi in February. The U.S. alone froze more than $30 billion in Libyan government assets. President Obama could free up that money by unilaterally lifting the block on the government's assets once a new regime is in place.

The rebels have succeeded in convincing France and the United Kingdom to do just that with several hundred million dollars (they may have wished for the same from several celebrities, including Beyonce and Mariah Carey, who donated money they had earned performing for the Qaddafis to causes like Haitian relief). But for now, the vast majority remains tied up in shares of everything from London real estate to private companies.

But even if the money is given to the new government, a former Treasury Department official told NPR recently, the rebels may not be able to cash in too quickly. Most of Libya's money isn't sitting in a bank account, the official said, but is invested in shares of property or nonpublic companies. Turning those stakes into cash is difficult. One option, the former official said, would be for governments to donate or lend money to the new government, using the assets as collateral.

Or the rebels may want to look closer to home. Back in March, the Financial Times reported that Qaddafi had more than $6.5 billion worth of gold in the country's central bank. It's unclear what if anything happened to that gold, or where it is now. As the Times reported, it would have been difficult for Qaddafi to sell the gold to international banks or trading houses, but he could have moved it to neighboring countries to be traded for currency. The New York Times also reported on what was likely tens of billions of dollars in cash that Qaddafi had stashed within Libya as a rainy day fund. Again, it's unclear how much of that may be left or where it might be.

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