Greg Kaufmann | The Nation
Predatory Lending: New Cop on the Beat
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, held a hearing yesterday on Combating Predatory Lending Under the Fair Housing Act.
In his opening statement, Chairman Nadler spoke of “redlining” in the past, when people of color were denied credit based on race rather than creditworthiness, and the practice was “simply drawing a red line around a minority neighborhood and refusing to lend in that area.”
“What we witness today, however, is reverse redlining--a mortgage brokerage or bank’s practice of systematically singling out minority borrowers and neighborhoods for loans with inferior terms like high up-front fees, high interest rates, and lax underwriting practices,” said the Congressman. “It seems that everything old is new again. Here we are again looking at the impact of discriminatory lending practices on families and communities…. And what is most disgraceful is that it didn’t have to happen. Many could easily have qualified for conventional mortgages.”
Nadler called on Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General who runs the previously embattled and politicized Civil Rights Division to testify on how the DOJ is “attempting to address the harm.”
Perez clearly gets it. He cited a New York Times investigative report that showed African-Americans in New York City earning over $68,000 annually were “almost five times more likely to have a subprime loan than whites with similar or lower incomes.” He also noted a Center for Responsible Lending study which “concluded that African-Americans and Latinos received higher-priced subprime loans than white borrowers, even after controlling for creditworthiness and other factors.”
In 2007, before he came to the DOJ, Perez was Secretary of the agency that oversees financial regulation in Maryland. He said they passed reforms--recognized as the toughest anti-predatory lending laws in the country--to extend the foreclosure process, crack down on fraud, require lenders to verify a borrower’s ability to repay, and require brokers to offer the best product a borrower is eligible for rather than the one that pays the highest broker fees.
But Perez said “our reach was limited, because large, national players are not subject to state regulation….The Federal government was decidedly absent.” The Assistant Attorney General described how that’s changing now.
He said a new “Fair Lending Unit”--initially made up of more than 20 staff members including career attorneys and new hires--will examine “the entire range of abuses seen in the market, from traditional access to credit issues, such as redlining, to reverse redlining, discrimination and other areas.” He set a high bar when he promised “a series of cases, each one targeted at specific discriminatory lending practices.”
Perez touted a settlement last month with two subsidiaries of AIG in a lawsuit alleging that “African-American borrowers nationwide were charged higher fees on wholesale loans.” He said the $6.1 million won in damages for the victims is the largest amount ever secured by the DOJ in a fair lending settlement. Perez called this and two other cases “just the beginning.”
“We currently have 39 matters open, including 17 investigations,” he said. “We have identified seven national lenders as targets of enforcement efforts.” (One piece of legislation that would devote even more resources to this effort is Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur’s Financial Crisis of 2008 Criminal Investigation and Prosecution Act.)
It’s worth noting that not a single Republican attended this hearing. That comes as little surprise, however. Last year, many did attend the Chairman’s hearing examining the enforcement readiness of the Civil Rights Division after two extensive Government Accountability Office reports shed light on the divisions’ problems under the Bush Administration. Literally the only issues Republicans wanted to discuss at that time were (it turns out bogus) allegations against ACORN and (also bogus) allegations of massive voter fraud. Human Trafficking? Whatever. Hate Crimes? Forget about it. Employment, housing, or lending discrimination? Who has the time.
“It was quite disappointing that no Republicans participated in today’s hearing,” Ilan Kayatsky, communications director for Congressman Nadler, told me. “Predatory and subprime lending, and the massive housing foreclosures that followed, are at the heart of our national recession, and we would have thought that GOP Committee members were also interested in exploring the roots of our current crisis. We were disappointed that by refusing to participate in the hearing, the Republicans demonstrated an utter disregard for ongoing housing discrimination that we have been working to eliminate ever since Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.”
Indeed the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was enacted in the immediate aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination--primarily in response to widespread racial discrimination in housing sales and rentals around the country. Look for Nadler to introduce legislation updating it in the coming months, with predatory lending and enforcement a key focus.
As for the Civil Rights Division’s new effort, it’s still too early to tell if it will have the teeth and reach that is needed, but it’s good to see Chairman Nadler continuing to keep a close watch.
“Congressman Nadler has [seen] a significant transformation of the Department of Justice since the Obama Administration came on board,” said Kayatsky, “particularly within the Civil Rights Division, which is now actually concerned with enforcing civil rights.”
Sick and Tired of No Sick Leave
Fifty million workers in America--including 40 percent of the private workforce--lack paid sick days. In workplaces with fewer than 100 employees, nearly 50 percent don’t have access to that benefit. This despite the fact that in 2009 the average cost for sick leave per employer-hour worked in the private sector was just 23 cents.
In the 21st century, where women make up the majority of the American workforce, and most kids have parents who are employed, to have so many workers choosing between keeping their job and caring for a family member, or going to the doctor versus getting a paycheck--is simply unacceptable when it comes to the well-being of our country.
“As we seek a more efficient and fair health care system, we have to remember that the workplace has changed enormously,” said Ellen Bravo, Director of Family Values at Work (FVAW), a network of 14 state coalitions working for family-friendly policies like paid sick days. “We need to update workplace policies to meet the needs of today’s families.”
President Obama said as much last month when he called for greater workplace flexibility and called out a “disconnect between the needs of our families and the demands of our workplace.” The Administration backed up this sentiment with $50 million in its proposed budget for competitive grants to help states launch paid family leave programs. California and New Jersey have already launched such programs. San Francisco, Milwaukee and Washington DC have also passed local paid sick days laws and policymakers in at least 15 states are considering similar legislation.
Earlier this week on Capitol Hill, small business owners and workers traveled from eighteen states, including Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington state, and Wisconsin--joining advocates from FVAW, Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), and the National Partnership for Women and Families--to lobby for passage of the Healthy Families Act. The legislation would allow employees to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave per year at businesses with fifteen or more employees--covering more than 30 million working families.
“Health reform was a giant step forward, but working people need to be able to access health care,” said Debra Ness, President of the National Partnership for Women and Families. “The best system in the world does no good to a worker who can’t take time off to visit a doctor or get a test. That’s a problem for women in particular because we are both bread-winners and caregivers for our families.”
While the Chamber of Commerce and like-minded individuals will no doubt react by saying a recession is no time for these reforms--that it will cost jobs, jobs, and more jobs (as they say with any significant pro-labor reform)--advocates argue that this recession is exactly the right time and that in fact it makes good business sense. (The Chamber has gone so far as to push bogus numbers about the costs of paid sick days--in NYC, they are claiming the price tag would be nearly $9 billion to the city, totally contradicting the evidence compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
“Nothing has brought home the need for paid sick days more than the recession,” said Kevin Miller, senior research associate at IWPR. “Now more than ever, families need flexible workplace policies that allow them to take a day off when they or their child is sick. Every paycheck counts--particularly for women, low-wage and minority workers, who are the least likely to have access to paid sick days.”
Aside from the moral imperative, the costs and benefits of paid sick days and family leave are also very convincing. According to IWPR, passage of the Healthy Families Act would result in workers saving over $100 million per year in out-of-pocket expenses for the seasonal flue alone; paid family leave to care for elderly parents or other relatives could save over $700 million annually by avoiding temporary placement in care facilities. Allowing workers time to seek preventative care for things like immunizations, counseling, and cancer screening would also reduce health care costs. Paid sick days would give workers the opportunity to seek primary care and reduce emergency room visits--we currently spend $20 to $32 billion annually on non-urgent emergency care and it can cost two to five times as much as primary care, according to the New England Healthcare Institute. Finally, paid sick days reduce job turnover and improve productivity, potentially producing billions of dollars in annual savings for employers and the broader economy.
Monday evening at a conference cosponsored by FVAW and the National Partnership for Women and Families, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis addressed the advocates and praised their effort to fight on behalf of workers.
“I am a person who believes that the federal government was designed to equalize the importance of all people and all voices,” said Solis. “I’m talking about equalizing the rights for working class people--for people who at the end of the day don’t have the opportunity to come up here to Washington to lobby.”
She expressed confidence that these organizations “will keep that message going on the Hill--that we need flexibility, that we need pay equity in the workplace, and we need to cut down on all those barriers that push us back. And just because we’re in a recession, doesn’t mean you get to get away with it again. No.”
Solis added that “when we talk about being competitive” it means “helping to level the playing field [so] that we are not disadvantaging good businesses.”
One person who appreciated that perspective and spoke after Solis is Rob Everts. He’s the owner of Massachusetts-based Equal Exchange which has 105 employees and takes in $34 million in annual revenue. His employees receive twelve paid sick days every year which they can use to care for a sick child, partner, or parent, or use for a medical appointment.
“We are a business first and foremost, and we have a bottom line,” said Everts. “We don’t see a conflict between doing the right thing and earning a profit. We’ve never regretted our policy, and believe it contributes to our growth, our profitability, and for sure the high retention rate of employees. We can have policies that respect our workforce while providing minimum labor standards, that put all businesses on equal footing. It’s right, it’s fair, and it strengthens communities across the country.”
Everts told me his average worker probably uses only two to three days of their paid sick leave annually and it’s also led to “quite a bit of loyalty from our employees.” He said on “a pure self-interest level” he doesn’t want workers coming in when they are sick or are distracted or worried about a sick loved-one.
“It really takes its impact in terms of productivity,” he said.
I also spoke with Kim Chester, a mother of three whose ten-year old daughter was born with cerebral palsy. She and her husband both have paid sick leave and flexible workplaces. It allows them to manage the hospital visits and weekly therapy visits. But Chester also works as a parent mentor and sees the negative impact not having that kind of flexibility has on parents and children--and not just for kids with special needs.
“My son has asthma. I need to hear from the doctor--how many puffs, how do you do the inhaler? There are so many reasons why we need to be there to be able to assist,” she said. “If parents have a sick child, if no parent is with them they’re not going to get the services they need, the care they need at home. They tend to only get care from the school nurse--which is very limited and some schools don’t even have school nurses.”
Solis closed her speech by urging the crowd to remain steadfast on this issue.
“That energy that we have inside of us, that drives us, whatever it is--to help women, to help the environment, to help our families--is something very special. It can help move nations. Right now people are counting on us,” she said. “Are you fired up? Are you fired up? God bless all of you. God bless the women’s movement. And God bless all of you for fighting for our working families.”
Friedmanism at the Fed II
Earlier this month, The Nation reported on questions being raised by the House Committee on Government and Oversight Reform regarding former New York Federal Reserve Bank Chair Stephen Friedman’s purchase of Goldman Sachs stock at a time when he was prohibited from even owning it.
The fact that Friedman nearly doubled his Goldman holdings in December 2008--while the public was still in the dark about which banks were benefiting from the AIG bailout and Goldman was the greatest domestic beneficiary to the tune of $13 billion in taxpayer money--not only led to his resignation from the Fed, it also put the incestuous and murky relationship between the Federal Reserve and Wall Street on full display.
Now Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns and Congressman Stephen Lynch have taken the investigation a step further, asking Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for “all documents related to Mr. Friedman’s purchase of Goldman stock” and the granting of a waiver that allowed him to simultaneously serve on the Goldman and New York Fed boards.
“At a time when Mr. Friedman was prohibited from owning Goldman Sachs stock, he bought over a million dollars more of it without notifying the Federal Reserve,” said Chairman Towns. “This raises serious questions about transparency, fairness and the appearance of a cozy relationship between Wall Street and the government.”
“Normally, regulators are not allowed to personally invest in companies that they are regulating,” said Congressman Lynch. “This arrangement at the Federal Reserve raises major conflict-of-interest concerns. In addition, our committee will need to determine if Mr. Friedman capitalized personally and financially, at the expense of the taxpayer, based on information he obtained as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.”
Hopefully the Committee is also looking at what information Friedman might have capitalized on from his role on the Goldman board too, since an attorney for Friedman confirmed to The Nation that Goldman board members were briefed regularly in late 2007 and early 2008 regarding how much money AIG owed Goldman.
The letter to Bernanke also indicates that Towns and Lynch are interested in looking beyond the case of Friedman. They have asked for copies of all waiver requests--over the past ten years--by regional fed bank board members in connection with ownership or purchase of stocks, and the decisions that were made on those waivers. (There are actually a lot of good questions laid out in the letter--you can check it out in its entirety here.)
Kudos to Towns and Lynch for staying on top of this. In this casino economy where the rules seem rigged so the house always wins, their oversight offers the potential for a measure of accountability.
Bernie Tells It Like It Is
One thing I love about covering Senator Bernie Sanders is that I feel little need to write much exposition. The man is a truth-teller--just let him talk and post it. It’s that simple.
Yesterday, at the Senate Democrats Progressive Media Summit on Capitol Hill, Sanders offered that kind of opportunity.
Other Senators indeed made valuable contributions. Senator Sherrod Brown in essence said that there will be political payback on conservative Caucus members who stood in the way of healthcare reform when Committee Chairmen are chosen in the next Congress. He also argued that despite some setbacks we are “in the midst of a progressive era now.”
Senators Charles Schumer and Harry Reid suggested filibuster reform is on the horizon. Schumer also said there will be jobs bills “every couple of weeks” coming out of the Senate and that their cumulative impact will be similar to what progressives are fighting for. And Senator Debbie Stabenow deserves kudos for a rather thankless job as a liaison between a pissed off progressive media and a Democratic Caucus which is more conservative than she is.
But it was Senator Sanders, with his usual candor and fearlessness, who provided the most valuable insights for progressives’ ongoing work.
For one thing, he offered an update on his work to make sure the healthcare bill allows states to explore single-payer systems, which I previously wrote about in December. This is something we should all be contacting our legislators about and telling them to support--including moving the start date from 2017 to 2014, which Sanders noted is important. Canada’s healthcare system evolved from a program first established in Saskatchewan, Vermont or California or another state should have the option of jumpstarting a similar system here.
Sanders’ assessment of where we are one year into the Obama presidency is what made me just want to run the tape recorder and transcribe. So here’s what he had to say:
“A year ago at this time, the American people were in amazement about a brilliant, charismatic guy named Barack Obama who had run the best campaign in our lifetimes--elected President. Democrats gained more seats in the Senate, Democrats gained more seats in the House.
A year later, we are in a very, very different place. How did that occur?
I think one of the reasons that it occurred is that we have wasted month after month after month negotiating with people who are not interested in serious reform. So from Day One the understanding should have been--we have 50 votes, let’s do it, let’s move quickly, let’s take on the Republicans, let’s rally the American people around a real strong healthcare bill.
Well, it’s only been a year and apparently the White House now has that message. And we are going to go forward with reconciliation.
But let me tell you something, when our Republican friends get on the floor and they say, ‘Reconciliation--it is undemocratic! It’s just pushing things through. It’s unfair.’ Of the 22 times that reconciliation has been used since 1980, 16 of those 22 times were done by Republicans. And when people say, ‘Well, you can’t get a comprehensive bill through.’ Do not forget that the Contract with America--a 2400 page bill which covered almost every aspect of American life--was passed by reconciliation, to be vetoed by Bill Clinton thank God. They managed to get a broad bill through.
So I think the understanding has got to be, ‘I think we’ve got 50 votes to do something serious, let’s do it.’
The last point that I would make is, I happen to have the belief that Obama ran the best campaign that I’ve seen in my lifetime. I think a mistake was made after the election, that we forget about the grassroots in this country, we forget about the trade unionists, and we say to them ‘Oh, we campaigned telling you that we were opposed to McCain’s tax on your healthcare benefits, but by the way we changed our mind.’
I think what we have got to reengage in is a progressive, clear agenda. I think we’ve got to go out and rally the American people once again--get the young people involved once again that we had during the campaign. Talk to our trade unionist friends, because we gotta work on their issues. Talk to our senior friends who for the first time in 36 years are not getting a cost of living adjustment. And engage the grassroots of this country in a significant political battle as we bring forward simple, straightforward progressive legislation, prepared to take on the big money interests that exist.
Last point that I would make is the issue of Wall Street. You cannot underestimate how furious the American people are at the greed and recklessness of Wall Street, and how much they want us to take these guys on. And I think we lose faith with ordinary Americans when we have not yet done that and that’s an issue we’ve got to deal with as well.”
Bernie--telling it like it is.
Who Should Run the Fed?
If you weren't convinced before that Ben Bernanke should be replaced as Chairman of the Federal Reserve you might be now. Wall Street's Humble Servant--Secretary Timothy Geithner--has warned that if Bernanke is replaced, "I think the markets would view that as a very troubling thing to the economy as a whole."
Geithner and Bernanke's subservience to "the markets" at the expense of the public interest is key to why there is growing opposition to Bernanke serving a second term. His Senate reconfirmation vote was already delayed once, and according to The Hill, "no less than 13 Democratic and Republican senators" have now announced that they will vote against him----including Senators Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Byron Dorgan, Barbara Boxer, and Jeff Merkley. Many more are on the fence.
No one has been more vocal in his opposition than Senator Sanders who placed a hold on Bernanke's nomination. In a statement released on Sunday, he said: "The issue for Democrats is whether they will allow Republicans to pretend to be the populist, anti-Wall Street party, or whether they will have the courage to stand up to Wall Street and bring in a Fed chairman who will represent the needs of working families rather than huge financial institutions… Ben Bernanke was the top economic advisor to George W. Bush. He was in lockstep agreement with Alan Greenspan, who has now endorsed him. These are the people who let Wall Street run amok."
I also spoke with University of Maryland Law Professor Michael Greenberger for his take on Bernanke. Greenberger served as the Director of the Division of Trading and Markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) back when Chair Brooksley Born and her colleagues were calling for regulation of derivatives.
"Bernanke is constantly playing shell games," Greenberger said. "Now he's trying to get out of the criticism for having too lax a monetary policy by saying, ‘It wasn't monetary policy it was lax regulation.' But Bernanke was vigorously fighting regulation of hedge funds, for over-the-counter derivatives, up to the point of the meltdown. And, in fact, one of the biggest sponsors of this current swap exemption is the Fed--it's a $50 trillion exemption. So when he's attacked for monetary policy he says, ‘Oh, it's regulation. But he led the charge for deregulation and fighting re-regulation."
It's absurd to think that there aren't plenty of other highly qualified candidates who could run the Fed. It's equally absurd to think we shouldn't hire any of them because of temperamental markets. Worship of "the markets" is what got us in this mess to begin with.
Below are some of the names being floated by various Democratic, progressive and labor sources--in no particular order. They are an impressive group--worth passing along to your Senators with a message that Bernanke simply isn't the right person for the job in these times.
Elizabeth Warren: Harvard law professor, chair of the Bank Bailout oversight panel. A Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers against predatory lenders and other toxic financial products was her idea.
Paul Volcker: Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Carter and Reagan from 1979-1987. Chairman of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Has been fighting to regulate the scale and scope of TBTF financial firms while Geithner, Summers, and Bernanke have taken a passive approach.
Brooksley Born: Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Clinton. Fought for regulation of derivatives but was ignored, setting stage for the economic meltdown. Born is currently a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Joseph Stiglitz: Chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers from 1995-1997, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, 2001 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Nouriel Roubini: professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University and chairman of Roubini Global Economics. In September 2006 he warned the IMF: "The United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence, and, ultimately, a deep recession." He also foresaw "homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt." Recently named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
Warren Buffett: in March of 2003, Buffett called derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction" that could pose "a mega-catastrophic" risk to the economy.
Simon Johnson: former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and currently an economics professor at MIT. Writes the invaluable Baseline Scenario.
Robert Reich: served as Clinton's Secretary of Labor. Currently Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jared Bernstein: Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser for Vice President Biden. Worked as senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute.
William Black: an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Black was the litigation director for the Federal Home Loan Banks during the Savings and Loan crisis. He served as Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision.
Nomi Prins: Senior Fellow at Demos and author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. Former managing director at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns.
Paul Krugman: the New York Times columnist is a Professor of Economics at Princeton University and a Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics. In 2008, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Dean Baker: co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. He has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank, and for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.
Lawrence Mishel: President of the Economic Policy Institute.
The Ensign Healthcare Loophole
Taken at face value, Senator John Ensign's amendment which was included in the final Senate healthcare bill sounds pretty decent: by meeting "wellness" standards people can receive discounts on their employer-based healthcare premiums. Stop smoking--pay less. Hit a certain weight--pay less. Meet a cholesterol target--you get the idea.
Dems probably should have stopped and realized since the amendment was offered by Ensign it probably wasn't motivated by "wellness" at heart.
In fact, it allows premiums to be raised from current levels, and then "discounts" would reduce the premiums to current rates. People who don't meet the insurance companies' targets could pay up to 30 percent more for coverage, roughly $4000 based on the average cost of family coverage. The amount could increase to 50 percent which is over $6,600 for a family.
There is also the problem that this is biased against people with a genetic predisposition to high blood sugar, hypertension, high cholesterol, being overweight and a host of other often hereditary conditions. It's also biased against a lower-income person working two to three jobs to pay the bills, who has to stop and chow down some fast food between jobs rather than get to the gym where he or she can't afford a membership anyway. It's even biased against communities that don't have grocery stores where they can find fresh fruits and vegetables.
So what does this all mean? Remember a central promise of healthcare reform--even the watered down version--how people with preexisting conditions weren't supposed to be denied coverage or forced to pay more for their insurance? That all sounded pretty good, right? Well, guess again.
"Incentives quickly become penalties for those who cannot meet the target," said Sue Nelson, vice president for federal advocacy at the American Heart Association (AHA). The AHA has led a coalition of more than 200 health and consumer organizations who oppose this Senate provision, including the National Organization for Women, American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, and many mental health groups. "A wellness program could consist solely of a premium surcharge based on a blood cholesterol count over 200. [There] are significant potential unintended consequences such as burdening sicker employees and their families with significant increases in healthcare costs thereby making coverage unaffordable for those who need it the most."
Andrew Kurz, former chief financial officer of Wisconsin Blue Cross-Blue Shield, probably knows as well as anyone what the loophole means for Big Insurance.
"Wall Street demands focus on the bottom line, and insurers comply," he said. "Insurers can spot profits miles away and this is a loophole they will drive right through on Day One. As drafted, this provision will not only harm millions of Americans who will be forced to pay higher premiums. It will harm other efforts to bar insurance companies from discriminating against customers."
Ultimately it's Democrats, not Senator Ensign, who bear the responsibility for the inclusion of this insane provision. (And apparently Chairman Max Baucus spoke against this amendment in Committee before he voted for it in "the spirit of bipartisanship"--thanks again, Max.) Now is the moment to contact your legislators and tell them to rid the final healthcare bill of this gift to insurance--found in Section 2705 of the Senate bill.
Single-Payer’s Last Stand?
The Progressive Caucus (CPC) is the largest caucus in Congress with 82 members--it dwarfs the often-hyped Blue Dog Democrats with its 52 yapping pups.
Yet the CPC has struggled to get the respect and attention it has strived for--prior to this Congress, it seemed like the mainstream media wouldn't even refer to it by name, instead using vague descriptions like "the liberal wing of the party."
That's because getting the talented but diverse Caucus to unite and show its legislative muscle has often been described--even by its own members--as herding cats.
This might be the moment for the Caucus to change all that in dramatic fashion.
The House healthcare bill passed by just five votes--220 to 215. Surely the CPC's 81 House votes (the 82nd member is a Senator, CPC founder Bernie Sanders) should be viewed as just as powerful as the votes of Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman in the Senate.
But will a strong majority of the CPC unite around a single provision and insist that it be included in the final bill exchange for their support?
One item worth rallying around--and it hasn't received a lot of attention--is waiver language that would permit states to implement alternatives to insurance market exchanges, including single-payer systems.
The Senate bill allows states to apply for such waivers in 2017, but that's arguably too late. States would be required to establish (and invest in) the insurance market exchanges in 2014, making it difficult to develop and provide resources for any alternative model. The House bill doesn't have any waiver language at all, though CPC members--including CPC co-chairs Raúl Grijalva and Lynn Woolsey, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich--fought successfully for similar language in the House Committee on Education and Labor version.
Canada's healthcare system evolved from a program first established in Saskatchewan. Will states in the US have a similar opportunity to serve as incubators and prove that single-payer can provide comprehensive coverage and reduce costs? The CPC has the power to insist on it--if it chooses to do so.
$75 and a Bus Ticket
Donald Gates spent the last 28 years in prison, convicted of a rape and murder he said he didn't commit.
Yesterday, he was released from jail by the same judge who originally sentenced him to 20 years to life, as new DNA evidence pointed to a different man.
Gates is now 58 years old, and for his three lost decades the government gave him some winter clothes, $75, and a bus ticket to Ohio. He had to pay his $35 cab fare to get from jail to the bus station.
The FBI analyst who testified against him was discredited--along with 13 other analysts--by a Justice Department review in 1997 for having "made false reports and performed inaccurate tests," according to the Washington Post. The judge has now ordered a review of every conviction in which this analyst testified.
Given the 1997 review, what the hell took so long?
And how many more men and women sit in jail awaiting DNA testing?
Even worse, how many innocent people have wrongly been put to death because they didn't have the benefit of DNA evidence that might have cleared their names?
There have been 246 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the US--180 since 2000--and 17 of those individuals had served time on death row.
You can read the full Washington Post article on Gates here, and get involved in the fight against the death penalty here.
Deficit Hawks Spin
The sub-headline for the Washington Post's article Friday on the White House Jobs Summit claims: "With deficit soaring, role of private sector pushed."
"Obama says he does not have the money for the plan many of his liberal supporters say packs the biggest employment punch--direct federal investment in job creation," the Post writes.
And a New York Times headline declares: "Obama Turns to Job Creation, but Warns of Limited Funds."
"While liberals are calling for ambitious job-creating measures along the lines of the New Deal," the Times reports, "Mr. Obama talked at the White House on Thursday of limited programs [like] the weatherization program… That relatively modest proposal underscores the limits of the government's ability to affect a jobless recovery."
To read these accounts one would think that when it comes to job creation we are in for another round of post-Yes We Can disappointment.
But economist Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute, attended the summit and has a decidedly different take.
"I know the Administration is thinking beyond [what the coverage suggests]--to infrastructure and providing more relief to the unemployed," Mishel told me. "I think politically it is wise to acknowledge limits while proceeding to do what's possible and necessary. And, that can mean doing some very significant things to move the dial on jobs. Also, the administration won't be driving this debate, Congress will."
Mishel pointed specifically to "a terrific answer" Obama gave to a question about the deficit posed by economist Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect.
"I hope the concern about the deficit in the long run doesn't crowd out the need for additional spending in the short run," Kuttner said to Obama. "Some of these programs that increase jobs and increase GDP are probably the fastest way to get the economy back on a track that will reduce the deficit over time. It's certainly a better way to reduce the deficit than putting ourselves into a debtor's prison."
"I think this is an important point," said President Obama. "If we can't grow our economy, then it is going to be that much harder for us to reduce the deficit. The single most important thing we could do right now for deficit reduction is to spark strong economic growth, which means that people who've got jobs are paying taxes and businesses that are making profits are paying taxes. That's the most important thing we can do. The last thing we would want to do in the midst of what is a weak recovery is us to essentially take more money out of the system either by raising taxes or by drastically slashing spending."
Obama also spoke on how it will be crucial for the federal government to continue helping state and local governments facing deficits that are forcing them to slash jobs and services, and to make "investments in infrastructure, in education, in clean energy."
"Now's the time actually to make sure that we're prioritizing properly and pushing even harder on that front," said Obama.
It's in vogue in DC these days to treat the deficit as if it is a sign of the End of Days. It seems the President was, in fact, significantly more rational in taking on job creation than the media coverage would have you believe.
But check out the Summit transcript and decide for yourself.
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