On Thursday, CNN host Anderson Coopershone the spotlight on Republicans who voted against a U.N. treaty protecting people with disabilities, highlighting lawmakers who backed away from supporting the measure in response to conservative misinformation and opposition.
Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) featured prominently in Cooper’s “Keeping Them Honest” segment. He reported that Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), formerly a co-sponsor of the motion to ratify the treaty, suddenly backed out even after meeting with former GOP Presidential candidate Bob Dole, a proponent of the measure.
The lawmakers declined an invitation to come onto the show to explain themselves, leaving Cooper to condemn their dishonesty:
COOPER: And keeping them honest, they used arguments that just frankly did not square with the facts. They weren’t true. [...] We can only guess their motivations, and frankly, some of this is just so baffling that we’d be taking wild guesses, and we just don’t want to do that.
Watch Cooper’s full segment here:
Prominent conservative groups, rallied by Rick Santorum, denounced the treaty on the false premise that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) would strip parents with disabled children of their rights. As a result of their efforts, though, the treaty failed by a mere five votes.
The Republicans who changed their votes have drawn widespread criticism from disabilities rights groups and Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to bring the treaty up for a vote in the next session of Congress.
Republicans have consistently denounced President Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000 to expire at the end of the year. “We ought not raise taxes on anyone at the end of the year,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has said of the Obama plan, which would raise taxes on roughly 2.1 million high-income earners (while still preserving a piece of the tax cut for them).
A new Senate GOP tax plan released by McConnell and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), however, raises taxes on nearly 10 times as many Americans by allowing certain tax breaks signed into law by President Obama expire at the end of the year. Putting an end to those three tax breaks — the Child Tax Credit, a tax break on college tuition, and a more generous Earned Income Tax Credit — would raise taxes on 20 million families, as shown by this chart from Seth Hanlon, the director of fiscal reform at the Center for American Progress:
According to Hanlon, 13.1 million families would see higher taxes if the enhancements to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit are allowed to expire. Another 9.1 million benefited from the American Opportunity Tax Credit, a break on college tuition.
The Senate GOP claims it wants to prevent tax hikes on Americans at the end of the year. The McConnell-Hatch plan, however, is yet another example of the fact that the only tax hikes Republicans can stomach are those that only hit the poor.
Yesterday, we documented how the conservative media, following the release of a report by the Secretary of the Senate, covered up obstructionism by Senate Republicans in order to cast Democrats as "do-nothing" and "lazy." In fact, Republicans have routinely resorted to filibusters to try to block bills that would have otherwise passed the Senate.
But the right-wing media would not easily get away with this if not for the complicity of the mainstream media. On Monday, a majority of senators voted in support of legislation to enact the Buffett Rule, which would set a minimum effective tax rate for annual income in excess of $1 million. Fifty-one senatorsvoted in favor of the bill, while 45 senators opposed it. The legislation did not pass the Senate, however, because a Republican filibuster meant that a supermajority of 60 senators was needed in order to pass the bill.
But the mainstream media was noticeably derelict in reporting that the bill had majority support and was blocked by procedural tricks by the minority. For instance, The Boston Globe article on the subjectstated: "Monday night's Buffett rule vote, which blocked consideration of the bill in a 51-45 tally, was timed to coincide with Tuesday's IRS filing deadline." The article continued: "Republicans prevented the measure from receiving the 60 votes necessary to open debate. All Republicans but Senator Susan Collins of Maine voted against it. All Democrats except for Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted for it."
Unless a reader knew the number of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, the reporting makes it seem that 51 senators voted against the bill rather than in favor of it.
USA Today similarly failed to inform its readers that the bill received majority support.
USA Today noted that the bill failed "to reach a supermajority needed to pass a tax plan," but never made clear that the bill did have a majority or that a supermajority was necessary because Republicans used procedural tricks to prevent an up-or-down vote. Indeed, the most natural reading of the article makes it seem that 51 senators voted against the Buffett Rule. The article reported:
The Democratic-controlled Senate failed on Monday to reach a supermajority needed to pass a tax plan offered by President Obama to require millionaires to pay a 30% minimum effective tax rate.
The 51-45 defeat of the "Buffett rule," named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, fell mostly along party lines. The bill needed 60 votes to move forward. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was the only Republican to vote with Democrats, while Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor sided with the GOP.
And The New York Times reported the facts necessary for readers to know that the Buffett Rule got majority support, but still failed to straightforwardly report that 51 senators voted in favor of the Buffett Rule. Instead, the Timesstated: "[T]he fierce debate preceding the 51-45 vote -- the Democrats were nine votes short of the 60 they needed -- set off a week of political wrangling over taxes that both parties insist they are already winning."
With the mainstream media making it so difficult for readers to learn that Senate Republicans are using procedural tricks to block the will of the Senate majority on issues like the Buffett Rule, it's that much easier for the right-wing media to hide the obstructionism of Senate Republicans.
In a must-read article about the broken confirmations process in the Senate, Dave Weigel quotes former Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen explaining that conservative objections to her failed nomination had nothing to do with actual disagreements with her views:
“I’m not going to talk about any individual meetings with senators,” [Johnsen] says, “but the impression that I got was it wasn’t about me, that it wasn’t personal. It was political. And there were some senators who were very open about that. It wasn’t a difference in substantive views. The things I was attacked for saying about torture, for example—Lindsey Graham and John McCain have talked about that the same way.” (Neither publicly supported her nomination.) “You definitely need to look at how all the terrorism issues and nominees who dealt with terrorism issues were treated. The attempt was to describe President Obama’s approach as not sufficiently tough on terrorism, and make that a political issue.“
And Johnsen is hardly the only Obama nominee that became the focus of a smear campaign despite no legitimate objections to her fitness for public service. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) accused failed judicial nominee Goodwin Liu of wanting to use the courts to turn America into “communist-run China,” and a law review article that became the centerpiece of the conservative claim that Liu was a judicial activist was in many ways a call for judicial restraint. Similarly, while no one on the right has provided a plausible explanation for why Peter Diamond’s nomination to the Fed board needed to be blocked, Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-AL) claim that the Nobel Prize-winning economist was unqualified is obviously absurd.
Johnsen, Liu, and Diamond can at least say that their nominations were high-profile enough that people noticed the campaign of obstruction against them. The sad truth is that many nominees simply die a quiet death as senators delay their confirmation votes into oblivion. Indeed, this silent obstructionism caused Obama to have a lower percentage of his judicial nominees confirmed during his first two years in office than any other president in American history.
Weigel’s piece concludes with an uncharacteristically smart idea by Manuel Miranda, the disgraced former Senate staffer best known for hacking Democrats’ computer servers and stealing confidential documents. Miranda proposes allowing nominees at the rank of assistant secretary or lower to begin doing their job before they are confirmed by the Senate. Doing so would be a real step towards preventing the hollowing out of government we are currently witnessing.
By Zaid Jilani
Today, Senate Democrats tried to bring the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act, which would give “companies…that shift overseas jobs to the U.S.” a special payroll tax holiday, to the floor for a full vote. Yet thanks to a united Republican filibuster and the defection of a handful of Democratic caucus senators — Max Baucus (MT), Ben Nelson (NE), Jon Tester (MT), Mark Warner (VA), and Joe Lieberman (CT) — the Democrats failed to achieve cloture and were unable to bring the bill up for a vote.
Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce declared its opposition to the bill, claiming that “replacing a job that is based in another country with a domestic job does not stimulate economic growth.” The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) also came out against the bill, arguing it would “jeapordize” American job creation.
Today, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) answered questions from reporters about the legislation’s demise. He told them that, “of course,” NAM and the Chamber opposed the offshoring bill because they “much prefer paying people in Vietnam 20 cents an hour than American workers a living wage“:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday blasted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) for opposing legislation that attempts to in-source jobs by granting companies a payroll tax holiday that shift overseas jobs to the U.S. and limits the use of tax deferral. “Of course they are [opposed],” Sanders told reporters. “They much prefer paying people in Vietnam 20 cents an hour than American workers a living wage.” [...]
Sanders suggested that these organizations oppose the bill because it bolsters the bottom lines of their members. “It is to their advantage, in many cases, to shut down plants here and pay people a fraction of the wages that American workers lose by going to China,” Sanders said. “What’s the surprise about that?”
The Chamber has made passing legislation that makes it easier for its member corporations to offshore labor a centerpiece of their agenda. NAM also makes expanding U.S. hiring overseas a main part of their legislative plans.
Update Sanders appeared on MSNBC's The Ed Show last night to talk about the offshoring bill. Watch it:
The Wall Street reform bill may eventually pass in the Senate but not before it faces a filibuster Monday, according to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Fox News' Chris Wallace pressed Sen. McConnell (R-KY) Sunday on whether he would have the 41 senators needed to filibuster the bill when it comes up for a floor vote Monday. "It's my expectation we will not go forward with the partisan bill," answered McConnell.
"We don't have a bipartisan compromise yet but I think there is a good chance we're going to get it. What I'd like to see is an opportunity to prevent the Democrats from doing to the financial services industry what they just did to the health care of this country," said McConnell. "And Ironically, Chris, my view is very similar to that bastion of conservatism and tool of Wall Street, The Washington Post editorial page, which said this morning that this bill needs to be improved."
"The fifty billion dollar bailout fund needs to come out," continued McConnell. "We need to have a system in there under which the creditors can expect that they're going to be treated fairly somewhat similar to the bankruptcy laws and we need to have enhanced capital requirements. None of that is currently in the bill that the Majority Leader would try to have us take up on Monday, which came out of committee on a strictly party-line vote."
To pass the bill as is, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would need the support of at least one Republican senator.
The Hill reports that eyes are trained on Maine's two moderate senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Neither one has so far declared they would support the bill.
Last week, Sen. Reid (D-NM) dared Republicans to block financial reform, assuming the American people support Congress taking on Wall Street.
"Based on our reading of the bill that emerged from Mr. Dodd's committee, a bipartisan compromise on these points is well within reach. That is, unless Democrats and Republicans are more interested in scoring political points than fashioning policy."
This video is from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast April 25, 2010.
By Ryan Grim
With additional reporting by Sam Stein
When it comes to opposing the Democratic Wall Street reform plan, Republican leadership has a logic problem: If the Democratic idea to wind down and liquidate banks that are currently deemed "too big to fail" is no good, then what's the alternative?
The obvious answer, of course, is to break the banks down in size so that failure doesn't jeopardize the entire system. That might sound like an unusual position for the GOP to adopt but, slowly, Republican senators are beginning to embrace it.
The GOP faces an uphill battle to defeat the plan -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not have the votes to block Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) from going to the floor with reform legislation next week, because Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is refusing to sign a letter committing to block any bill Reid puts forward, reports The Hill.
A senior Senate Democratic aide confirmed the report to the Huffington Post. A top-ranking party strategist, meanwhile, relayed plans by the White House to make McConnell's position all the more untenable by launching a tough new attack accusing him of parroting talking points authored by noted GOP strategist Frank Luntz.
"We're not about to let them get away with planting the seeds of these bogus claims with the public the way they did for a time on health reform," the source said. "McConnell's arguments that the Democrat's plan for Wall Street reform will perpetuate bailouts is pure fantasy cooked up by Frank Luntz in a right-wing focus group... If Mitch McConnell wants to look foolish and to look like the bag man for big banks that he and his colleagues are - we're glad to help."
The first piece of "help" came Thursday evening when the Democratic National Committee put out a web ad titled "Luntz Led."
WATCH
Even earlier in the day, however, an onslaught against McConnell was taking place on the Senate floor, where Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) ripped Republicans who sign the Minority Leader's letter, saying they did so for purely political reasons without having read it.
Last week, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) met with 25 top Wall Street executives in New York City to hear their concerns regarding reform. Both say they oppose the Democratic plan as a perpetual bailout. "By creating a fund, that's an invitation to Congress to spend that money just as we have in the highway trust fund and the surplus in Social Security," Cornyn said.
HuffPost asked Cornyn what his alternative solution to the Democratic plan would be. "I think we need to look at the concentration of banking in just a handful of entities that threaten our economy if they go under," Cornyn said. "They need to be smaller in order to avoid that problem and I would support efforts to move in that direction."
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, McConnell described it as "a permanent taxpayer bailout of Wall Street banks," "an endless taxpayer bailout of Wall Street banks" and "a perpetual taxpayer bailout of Wall Street banks."
Making those banks smaller, said Cornyn, would reduce the risk. "Sixty percent of all the banking assets are concentrated in ten banks in the country," said Cornyn. HuffPost asked if he'd support what's known as the Volcker Rule, an administration plan to split off risky trading done by banks for their own gain from standard commercial banking activities.
"Yes," he said, "I think that's one approach."
Without prompting, he added: "Glass-Steagall, we need to look at that."
The repeal of Glass-Steagall in the late 1990s, which allowed banks to greatly expand in size and scope of operations, is often cited as a cause of the crisis, as banks used insured deposits for risky investments that went bad.
"We all -- I say we all, but almost all of us -- made the mistake of repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999," Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) told HuffPost. "Some of the problems of the big banks were brought about by the blurring of the restrictions on where they could go. And they went into brokerage and they went into derivatives they went into lots of other things. Maybe we need to look back to that, but it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle."
The GOP, in pushing for tougher bank regulation, should be careful what they wish for, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Thursday. "He wants to toughen up the provisions so the taxpayer isn't on the hook? Good. We welcome it," said Schumer of McConnell's objections.
Sen. Richard Shelby, the highest-ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, was asked to explain this week just how it is that the Democratic plan amounts to a perpetual bailout. He said that regardless of how the bill is written, if there is a perception that a big bank will be bailed out, then the "too big to fail" problem continues.
"Well, I could sit down with you if we had a couple of hours and had the sheets spread out you know, a lot of pages, but I think any perception -- not just reality, but the perception -- that you're creating a fund here to be used, could be used or misused for bailouts is a mistake," said Shelby of Alabama.
How do you eliminate that possibility as long as big banks exist, Shelby was asked. "I think as Dr. Volcker has said, if they're too big to regulate properly, maybe they're too big to exist. I know there's a lot of talk on both sides of the Atlantic to deal with that. I never thought that being too big by itself was bad but I believe that being too big and believing that you're going to be bailed out is horrible. And you've got to remember, the government never bails out the small and medium-sized banks or companies, it's always the huge" banks, Shelby said.
Sensing news in the water, reporters continued to circle: Should they be broken up? "That is an argument and I think they're talking about it. Merv King has talked about it on the other side of the Atlantic," he said.
Is it an argument Shelby agrees with?
Shelby smiled broadly. "You're looking at somebody [who was] the only Republican who voted against the repeal of Glass-Steagall," he said.
Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said that McConnell objects specifically to the creation of a $50 billion fund that would be used to wind down big banks. "Rather than letting banks know that they'll be bailed out no matter what, they need to be disincentivized from getting themselves in that position in the first place -- part of that is taking away the potential of a bailout," he said.
Stewart cited testimony from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner a few months ago:
The third element of effective reform is making sure that taxpayers are not on the hook for any losses that might result from the failure and subsequent resolution of a large financial firm.
The government should have the authority to recoup any such losses by assessing a fee on large financial firms. These assessments should be stretched out over time, as necessary, to avoid adding to the pressure induced by the crisis.
Such an ex-post funding mechanism has several advantages over an ex-ante fund. Most notably, it would generate less moral hazard because a standing fund would create expectations that the government would step in to protect shareholders and creditors from losses. In essence, a standing fund would be viewed as a form of insurance for those stakeholders.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Ala), who, with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), negotiated the provision that McConnell calls a permanent bailout, told HuffPost Thursday that he would be okay with eliminating the $50 billion pre-fund. "Whether it's a pre-fund or post-fund is not central to the resolution," he said. "What I've said is, 'Let's do away with it. Let's just post-fund everything if that's a problem, if that's what everybody thinks is problematic."
House Republicans, meanwhile, say their alternative to breaking up the banks is to make big institutions go through the bankruptcy code.
"Republicans are proposing a new chapter to the bankruptcy code to make it more efficient and better suited for resolving large non-bank financial institutions," said a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio.). "The proposed chapter will facilitate coordination between the regulators of these institutions and the bankruptcy system to allow regulators to provide technical assistance and specialized expertise about financial institutions. Bankruptcy judges would also have the power to stay claims by creditors and counterparties to prevent runs on troubled institutions."
While that may not be remarkably different than what Corker and Warner agreed to, it might not end the possibility of bailouts either.
"In ordinary bankruptcy you can get debtor-in-possession money if companies have assets, and through a bankruptcy court or through a resolution court, they can do that," Shelby noted.
Senate Republicans will find a receptive audience in Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) for their proposal to break up banks.
"Our hopes are that banks will be able to separate the risky aspects of what they do from the vulnerability [of the system]," Lincoln said Thursday, adding that she may have legislative language ready by Friday morning. Lincoln, chair of the Agriculture Committee, has jurisdiction over derivatives regulation. "I'm going to certainly make sure that people understand that when there's risky businessm, there's going to be regulation."
The White House is pushing hard. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, leaving the Capitol on Thursday, told HuffPost he is happy to have Republican support for a tougher bill.
"There's a bipartisan bill to be had here. And the fact is it's all about whether we're going to be comprehensive, even with the derivatives section," he said. "Warren Buffet spoke about it: 'This is where, in fact, future crises can occur.' And whether we're going to have a tough, comprehensive, transparent... section on derivatives, is where, in fact, the whole issue is at."
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) has been blocking important legislation that would temporarily extend unemployment and health benefits to laid-off American workers; these benefits expired on Sunday because Congress failed to pass an extension. Because of Bunning, 2,000 federal highway employees were furloughed without pay as of yesterday, and doctors are facing a 21 percent cut in Medicare fees, and more than a million people in rural areas may not be able to watch television.
Today, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) spoke up and asked for “unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of HR 4691″ — what Democrats have repeatedly requested in recent days. Collins said that she was supported by “numerous” other GOP senators who are tired of Bunning’s obstruction:
On my own behalf, and on behalf of numerous members of the Republican caucus who have expressed concerns to me, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of HR 4691 — with one of hour of debate equally divided between the leaders or their designees, and that following the use or the yielding back of time, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage. [...]
Madam President, I hope that we can act together for the American people, and again, I want to emphasize that this issue is so important on senators on both sides of the aisle. Many of my colleagues have expressed concerns to me that this was not done last week, when it should have been done. So Madam President, I do propose the unanimous consent request.
Watch it:
Collins’ speech reportedly had the “blessing” of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has refused to criticize Bunning thus far. In fact, after Collins’ move, McConnell decided not to follow her lead and instead just “launched into a speech criticizing Democrats on health care legislation.”
GOP senators have all largely stayed away from criticizing Bunning, and several have even wholeheartedly embraced his obstruction. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told reporters today that Bunning’s block is “not as big of a deal as some of you are trying to make it.” Yesterday on the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said of Bunning, “I respect him for the courage he’s showed.” Similarly, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) has said that Bunning’s move is something that the Senate should “honor” and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has said that he “admire[s]” the obstruction.
So if there are “many” GOP senators upset at Bunning, why don’t they speak out? Why are they all hiding behind Sen. Collins?
Transcript:
On my own behalf, and on behalf of numerous members of the Republican caucus who have expressed concerns to me, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of HR 4691 — with one of hour of debate equally divided between the leaders or their designees, and that following the use or the yielding back of time, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage.
Madam President, this is the House-passed bill that extends for 30 days the following expiring provisions: unemployment insurance, which is so important to those who are struggling –there are 500 Mainers whose benefits expired on Sunday — the COBRA health insurance extension subsidies for the unemployed, important flood insurance, highway funding, small business loans, the provisions of the American Recovery Act that included those small business loan provisions, the doctors fix. Madam President, if we don’t act, physicians all across this country are going to have a 21 percent cut in their Medicare reimbursement.
Madam President, I hope that we can act together for the American people, and again, I want to emphasize that this issue is so important on senators on both sides of the aisle. Many of my colleagues have expressed concerns to me that this was not done last week, when it should have been done. So Madam President, I do propose the unanimous consent request.
