This week in the War on Workers
Daily Kos
Posted July 31, 2011
The debt ceiling is obviously the story of the week, and it's a class warfare story as much as anything else. It's kind of the class warfare story, really. The same people who pushed to defend tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires are turning the deficit created by those tax cuts into a financial crisis for the nation, one that can supposedly only be solved by major cuts to the programs working people have paid into through their lives and depend on. And if there's no resolution ... yeah, those same working people suffer again. Under the alternatives the Republicans deem acceptable, we lose no matter what.

Meanwhile, the FAA's partial shutdown, which under other circumstances would be a major story, is getting buried. Nearly 4,000 government employees and tens of thousands of private sector construction workers out of work, safety upgrades put on hold, and more than $200 million a week in lost tax revenue, all to force a standard on union elections by which no member of Congress would have been elected.

And of course second-quarter GDP growth was wretched.

Against those giant issues, the day-to-day little blows against workers seem like nothing, almost, but they're how we get to the place where the big stuff is possible, and stuff like Florida making it more difficult to file for unemployment or Detroit cutting pay and benefits for teachers and other school workers and the governor of Maine literally copying his regulatory agenda from lobbyist wishlists seems small in comparison.
Read the source story here.

Two Offices Central to Wisconsin Recall Efforts Destroyed By Fire. No Cause Yet Determined…
We Party Patriots
Posted July 31, 2011
Investigations are ongoing into a La Cross, Wisconsin fire that destroyed several buildings including one which housed the We Are Wisconsin headquarters and a second which was home to Democrat Jessica Shilling’s campaign. We Are Wisconsin is an organization central to the recall effort being levied against State Senate Republicans. From the La Cross Tribune:

The blaze, reported at about 9:30 a.m., claimed a warehouse at 118 Fifth Ave. and an adjacent structure, the Optical Fashion building, at 423 Jay St.

La Crosse Fire Department inspector Capt. John Helfrich said it will take days of investigation before a cause or point of origin can be determined.

No one was seriously injured, but several firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion.

The LCT notes the potential election impact:

The La Crosse headquarters for We Are Wisconsin, a left-leaning political action committee, was a total loss, said group spokesman Kelly Steele.

Staffers were in the office when the fire broke out and escaped safely, he said. It’s too early for Steele to say how the group will function without a local headquarters with just 10 days left before the recall election between Democratic challenger Rep. Jennifer Shilling and Republican Sen. Dan Kapanke.

Read the source story here.

Lawmakers cut state workers' pay; few took cuts themselves
The News Tribune
Posted July 31, 2011
Lawmakers cut most state workers’ pay by 3 percent this year, but few have taken pay cuts of their own, despite crafting legal language encouraging themselves and statewide elected officials to do so.

Four House members – out of 147 Senate and House lawmakers – have elected to cut their pay.

“You know, not everyone can afford to take a pay cut. I’m just really glad that I can,” said Rep. Ann Rivers, a first-term Republican from La Center, who works as a public-affairs consultant and elected to cut her $42,106 salary by 3 percent. She called it “a very personal decision” and said that after voting to cut public employees’ pay, she felt it was wrong not to reduce hers.

The three other lawmakers cutting their pay are Democratic Reps. Frank Chopp, Larry Seaquist and Troy Kelley; each is taking a cut of 5 percent or more. Chopp, as House speaker, earns $50,106.

A few state officials are donating money to charity or scholarships instead of waiving pay. As of Friday, Gov. Chris Gregoire, state Treasurer Jim McIntire and state schools superintendent Randy Dorn, all Democrats, were the only statewide elected officers to have signed up for pay waivers using a new form available through the state Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials’ website, www.salaries.wa.gov.
Read the source story here.

White House And Republicans Reach Tentative Deal To Raise Debt Ceiling
Think Progress
Posted July 31, 2011
Less than three days from potential default, the White House and Congressional Republicans reached a potential deal to raise the debt ceiling and lower the deficit late last night. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on CNN’s State of the Union today that both sides were “very close” to a deal that will cut $3 trillion over 10 years, saying negotiators have made “dramatic progress” over the weekend. Democrats appear less confident that the deal will hold, but still expressed optimism.

The deal is based on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) proposal, but includes a “trigger” mechanism which would make deep across-the-board cuts if the bipartisan committee created by the bill to look for ways to reduce the deficit fails to produce a proposal that can pass Congress. The deal includes other provisions aimed at gaining GOP votes, the Washington Post’s Felicia Sonmez reports:

The process would involve a “resolution of disapproval” by Congress that would allow the debt ceiling to be further raised next year if one-third of either chamber agrees – an idea first proposed by McConnell in a “Plan B” he unveiled several weeks ago. The move would shift the political burden of raising the debt ceiling to the White House from congressional Republicans.

Also included in the nascent proposal would be a provision calling for a vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution – an element that has become a rallying point for House conservatives. But one potential sticking point in any House vote is that the plan calls only for a vote on such an amendment, not the passage of one…

[...] Moreover, the deal includes zero revenue increases and no call for comprehensive tax reform, and achieving these things through the new bipartisan deficit commission will be almost impossible as Republicans are sure to reject it. Still, White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said today on State of the Union that the White House "fine" with the idea that the bill will be "only spending cuts." He added that Obama won't seek new revenues before the 2012 election anyway, and will in fact be pushing for a payroll tax cut.
Read the source story here.

On Meet The Press, Obama Adviser Plouffe Drops Some Pretty Big Hints About The Fate Of Our Retirement Programs
Crooks and Liars
Posted July 31, 2011
For those of you who came in during the third act, a guide to reading between the lines as Obama political adviser David Plouffe makes the rounds of the Sunday shows: First, despite what he says during this appearance on Meet the Press, there is no such thing as "a balanced deficit reduction package that doesn't harm the economy" during a prolonged recession. Nope, not gonna happen. (Just ask Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Dean Baker or Jared Bernstein.) Second, there's nothing "balanced" about a scenario where the public deals with the brunt of extensive cuts with no additional revenue and three, Social Security and Medicare are in the gun sights. Notice how he works that in there: "Our view is things like Social Security and Medicaid, you know, they can't be part of the solution here unless you've got a balanced package that includes tax reform." Whee!

David, please tell your boss: We don't see Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as "part of the solution" to a manufactured debt crisis. They already are a solution, one that's worked very well for us, and we want no part of your plan.
Read the source story here.

Krugman: Proposed debt deal will cost jobs and revenue
Crooks and Liars
Posted July 31, 2011
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman warned Sunday that proposed spending cuts in a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling would end up hurting the economy.

"From the perspective of a rational person, we shouldn't even be talking about spending cuts at all now," Krugman told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "We have nine percent unemployment. These spending cuts are going to worsen unemployment... If you have a situation in which you are permanently going to raise the unemployment rate -- which is what this is going to do -- that's actually going to reduce future revenues."

"These spending cuts are even going to hurt the long-run fiscal position, let alone cause lots of misery. Then on top of that, we've got these budget cuts, which are entirely -- basically the Republicans [saying], 'We'll blow up the world economy unless you give us exactly what you want' and the president said, 'Okay.' That's what happened."

"We used to talk about the Japanese and their lost decade. We're going to look to them as a role model. They did better than we're doing," he added. "There is no light at the end of this tunnel. We're having a debate in Washington which is all about, 'Gee, we're going to make this economy worse, but are we going to make it worse on 90 percent the Republicans' terms or 100 percent the Republicans' terms?' The answer is 100 percent."
Read the source story here.

Why any debt-ceiling deal will squeeze the states
The Washington Post
Posted July 31, 2011
No matter how the debt-ceiling fight is resolved in Congress, it’s going to end poorly for the states.

If the country defaults, the states will be plunged into an immediate financial crisis: Investor confidence in government assets across the board would plummet — including the municipal bonds that states and local governments have traditionally relied upon to pay for new schools, roads, utilities, sewage systems and other basic infrastructure.

According to Dan White, an economist for Moody’s Analytics, states and local governments would see their credit ratings drop and their borrowing costs rise, and they would be forced to abruptly slash services and employees for the near future.

What’s more, one out of every three dollars of state spending comes from the federal government — $478 billion alone in 2010, according to the Pew Center on the States. And if the federal payouts slowed under a default, the states would struggle mightily to pay their existing bondholders. National default could lead to state default.

But what’s been largely ignored is how the very solution to the debt-ceiling crisis could also squeeze state and local governments that are already strapped for cash.
Read the source story here.

Democrats will lose now. But they can win later.
Ezra Klein, in The Washington Post
Posted July 31, 2011
Democrats are going to lose this one. The first stage of the emerging deal doesn’t include revenue, doesn’t include stimulus, and lets Republicans pocket a trillion dollars or more in cuts without offering anything to Democrats in return.

The second stage convenes a congressional “Supercommittee” to recommend up to $2 trillion in further cuts, and if their plan doesn’t pass Congress, there’s an enforcement mechanism that begins making automatic, across-the-board cuts to almost all categories of spending. So heads Democrats lose, tails Republicans win.

It’s difficult to see how it could have ended otherwise. Virtually no Democrats are willing to go past Aug. 2 without raising the debt ceiling. Plenty of Republicans are prepared to blow through the deadline. That’s not a dynamic that lends itself to a deal. That’s a dynamic that lends itself to a ransom.

But Democrats will have their turn. On Dec. 31, 2012, three weeks before the end of President Barack Obama’s current term in office, the Bush tax cuts expire. Income tax rates will return to their Clinton-era levels. That amounts to a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years, three or four times the $800 billion to $1.2 trillion in revenue increases that Obama and Speaker John Boehner were kicking around. And all Democrats need to do to secure that deal is...nothing.
Read the source story here.

Why Voters Tune Out Democrats
The New York Times
Posted July 31, 2011
BARACK OBAMA can't catch a break from the American public on the economy, even though he prevented a depression and saved global capitalism.

Perhaps the president finds solace in knowing he's not alone. During this period of economic crisis and uncertainty, voters are generally turning to conservative and right-wing political parties, most notably in Europe and in Canada.

It's perplexing. When unemployment is high, and the rich are getting richer, you would think that voters of average means would flock to progressives, who are supposed to have their interests in mind — and who historically have delivered for them.

During the last half-century or so, when a Democratic president has led the country, people have tended to experience lower unemployment, less inequality and rising income compared with periods of Republican governance. There is a reason, however, that many voters in the developed world are turning away from Democrats, Socialists, liberals and progressives.

[...] Oddly, many voters prefer the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don't trust the Democrats to carry out those promises.
Read the source story here.

Machinists Leaders Met with Pope, Discuss Ties Between Faith and Labor
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Posted July 31, 2011
In a bid to reinvigorate the long-standing ties between labor and the faith community, a delegation of IAM leaders from the United States and Canada met recently with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in Rome.

In addition to the audience granted to the IAM delegation, the pope met privately with IAM President Tom Buffenbarger, who shared a concern of many that Catholic bishops are not as supportive of the labor movement as they once were.

The Catholic Church has a long history of inspiring and supporting labor, civil and human rights campaigns, from the pro-labor encyclical “Rerum Novarum” issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, to the activities of Dorothy Day, John Cort, George G. Higgins and hundreds of priests and bishops who marched with U.S. civil rights activists. Says Buffenbarger:  

For many years, the Catholic Church and the North American Labor Movement worked closely to promote a better life for their respective congregations. That alliance was an essential ingredient to the success of many social justice initiatives in the past and can provide the foundation for similar achievements in the future.

The recent meeting between Benedict XVI and Buffenbarger follows in the footsteps of a 1985 meeting between Pope John Paul II and former IAM President William Winpisinger. Both men supported Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement, which was a major factor in that country’s peaceful transition to democracy and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union.
Read the source story here.

Teacher bashing culture spawns SOS (Save Our Schools) rally in DC today
Daily Kos
Posted July 31, 2011
One of the many regrettable by-products of the Republican political victories in the 2010 midterms has been the wave of teacher-bashing initiatives emanating from GOP-led state legislatures from coast to coast.

However, if there is a silver lining to this tsunami of "reform" (much of it of dubious value, of course), it is the fact that there is a growing backlash among teachers, parents, and those who care about education.

A powerful symbol of that awakening among true education advocates is this weekend's Save Our School March and National Call to Action, taking place in Washington. The event has been months in the making, and has been inspired in no small part by the assault on public education being waged across the country.
Read the source story here.

GOP on verge of huge, unprecedented political victory
Greg Sargent, in The Washington Post
Posted July 31, 2011
By all accounts, it looks like a deal is about to be announced in which the debt ceiling is hiked in exchange for the promise of major spending cuts, including to entitlements, totalling at least $2.4 trillion.

Anything can happen, but it apppears the GOP is on the verge of pulling off a political victory that may be unprecedented in American history. Republicans may succeed in using the threat of a potential outcome that they themselves acknowledged would lead to national catastrophe as leverage to extract enormous concessions from Democrats, without giving up anything of any significance in return.

Not only that, but Republicans — in perhaps the most remarkable example of political up-is-downism in recent memory — cast their willingness to dangle the threat of national crisis as a brave and heroic effort they’d undertaken on behalf of the national interest. Only the threat of national crisis could force the immediate spending cuts supposedly necessary to prevent a far more epic crisis later.
Read the source story here.

GOP in DC Kills Jobs and Helps Squash Small Businesses
BuzzFlash
Posted July 31, 2011
John Boehner's alleged American/global corporation "job creators" are actually job killers in the United States.

It's another example of how the GOP uses Frank Luntz's focus group-molded message points that transform the opposite of the truth into "perceived reality."

As BuzzFlash has noted before, small businesses that do actually generate jobs in the US are actually on the decline. Why? Because large, global corporations, such as General Electric, use tax loopholes and global reach to ship jobs overseas. Many global corporations based in America see the US as a consumer market that has peaked - and they can get cheaper labor and expanded buyers overseas.

But the tax breaks that the US government gives to global corporations that move jobs and profits offshore hurt small businesses that can't compete and don't have the lawyers or size to take advantage of the loopholes.

Recently introduced legislation would cut down on offshore tax havens for global corporations, keeping funds in the US and taking one step to level the playing field for small businesses.
Read the source story here.

A Mobilization in Washington by Wall Street
The New York Times
Posted July 31, 2011
After a year of clashing with Washington over new financial reforms, the country's most powerful bankers have found common ground with regulators in the hard-fought effort to lift the debt ceiling and avoid a default.

Wall Street is no longer watching from the sidelines as the most polarizing political fight in years plays out on Capitol Hill. In the last few days, top executives have been in close contact with Washington in a last-ditch attempt to prod lawmakers toward a compromise by Tuesday, the administration's deadline to reach a deal.

[...M]ore than a dozen chief executives from the nation’s biggest financial services firms wrote a joint letter to President Obama and members of Congress on Thursday warning of “very grave” consequences for the economy and the job market if an agreement wasn’t reached.

It’s not just chief executives who are now doing the talking, either.

Bankers have deluged Congressional staff members with research reports outlining the bleak consequences of a default, or even a downgrade of United States government debt by the major rating agencies.
Read the source story here.

New Effort Aimed At Ending Unemployment Discrimination
The Washington Current
Posted July 31, 2011
A Washington-based advocacy organization launched an online petition campaign aimed at companies that refuse to consider hiring unemployed workers, a perverse form of discrimination in today's economy when long-term unemployment remains persistently high.

The campaign comes after the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a report showing that employers of all sizes, staffing agencies and online job posting firms are using recruitment and hiring policies that expressly deny employment to the unemployed -– simply because they are not working.

The online effort launched by USAction also follows legislation introduced by two House Democrats, Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Henry Johnson of Georgia, that would prohibit employers and employment agencies from refusing to consider job applicants solely because they are unemployed.
Read the source story here.