Michigan Oil Spill Damages Wildlife, Forces Residents To Evacuate
Michigan Oil Spill Damages Wildlife, Forces Residents To Evacuate
On Monday, a disastrous leak in one of the world’s largest pipeline systems gushed over 1 million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, located in southwest Michigan. Already, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has declared the area a disaster zone, quickly activating State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) to ensure all state resources are devoted to oil spill response. “From my perspective, the response has been anemic,” Granholm said. Spill workers and volunteers have been hard at work, cleaning the horrifyingly oily water:
This is not the first failure of Enbridge Inc., the Canadian energy company responsible for the spill. Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood reports that, “documents from the agency show that Enbridge Energy pipelines have leaked oil on 12 different occasions in Michigan since 2002.” Furthermore, documents obtained by the Detroit Free Press and other news outlets indicate Enbridge Inc. was “notified twice this year of potential problems involving old pipe prone to rupturing and an inadequate system for monitoring internal corrosion.” While this is one of the biggest threats to a pipeline, it is currently unclear whether Enbridge addressed the notices or if “the concerns played any role in the leak.”
Although Michigan’s spill represents only 32 percent of the amount of oil spilled per day in the ongoing BP oil disaster, the environmental implications of the leak are already clear. Not only has wildlife — including geese and muskrats — been coated in oil, but fears also remain high that the oil will contaminate local water supplies. The Calhoun County Health Department has advised residents around the area of the Kalamazoo River oil spill to evacuate, due to “‘higher than acceptable levels of benzene’ in air quality studies.” Benzene, notes the press release from the health department, is a “highly flammable” organic chemical that can lead to a series of symptoms from dizziness to tremors. The long-term effects of benzene exposure, however, are more dire and are linked to excessive bleeding and even cancer in human beings. Enbridge has agreed to reimburse affected families for the cost of hotel stays.
Yesterday, Enbridge spokeswoman Terri Larson said “no fresh oil is leaking from the leak site itself.” Moreover, as the Michigan Messenger reports, “Despite claims by Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel that the company would reopen the leaking oil pipeline ‘in a matter of days,’ the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has issued a Corrective Action Order directing the company not to reopen the pipeline until a comprehensive safety assessment can be completed.”
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Megan McArdle Has No Idea What She’s Talking About, Global Warming Edition
Megan McArdle Has No Idea What She’s Talking About, Global Warming Edition
Megan McArdle, the Atlantic Monthly blogger fond of making up nonsensical arguments about the economy, health care, and education policy, has waded into climate policy with similarly catastrophic results. In a critique of a Kevin Drum piece about new research on a warming-induced decline of global stocks of phytoplankton, McArdle claims he misses the point:
I actually think that Kevin misses the point a little: if this is true, 2% of GDP isn’t going to cut it. We’d better get back to an emissions level around 1940, or earlier, and stay there. Being that we now have about 2.5 times as many people in the country, and the world, as we did then, that’s going to be tricky.
Notwithstanding McArdle’s staggeringly ignorant post, climate policymakers have already considered this “tricky” challenge. The 2006 Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change estimated that stabilization at safe greenhouse levels would require investments of approximately one percent of GDP. In 2008, review author Sir Nicholas Stern argued the estimate should be raised to two percent of GDP because signs of increasing climate change necessitated faster action. Other economic estimates are in line with Stern, some even finding the investments could increase GDP growth.
So what emissions targets was Stern using? The Stern Review assumes eventual reductions of “more than 80% below current levels.” In 1940, global carbon dioxide emissions were about 4.8 gigatons. They’re now approximately 30 gigatons. So to get to “an emissions level around 1940″ would require an 85% reduction — in line with the Stern analysis (and every other serious economic analysis of global climate policy). McArdle’s supposed insight that deep cuts are needed is nothing new.
A blogger who had spent any effort understanding climate policy would recognize that the emerging challenge is not reaching an eventual low emissions level, but increasing the speed that emissions are cut while ensuring that natural carbon sinks and stores (like phytoplankton, the rain forests, and the permafrost) are not radically disrupted by the unavoidable warming of the coming decades.
In McArdle’s defense, her pseudo-expert folderol isn’t much worse than that being produced by the Congressional Budget Office.
By the way, McArdle’s insight that the population has increased since 1940 is also not news to climate policy makers. Just in case she’s wondering, the Stern analysis recognizes that “global population growth is likely to remain positive at least to 2050.”
McArdle also displays ignorance about China’s decision to institute a carbon cap-and-trade system and offers arguments against mass hysteria that are so dumb that they might encourage rational people to panic. But let’s leave those monumental works of mindless contrarianism as exercises for the reader.
Schlafly: Obama Wants ‘Big Brother Government’ To ‘Subsidize Illegitimacy’
Schlafly: Obama Wants ‘Big Brother Government’ To ‘Subsidize Illegitimacy’
Over the past two months, many Republican pundits and members of Congress have been calling for the end of unemployment benefit extensions for the millions of Americans who can’t find work. Meanwhile, GOP Senators held the unemployment insurance (UI) extension bill hostage for weeks as 2.5 million Americans were left without the “desperately needed lifeline” of UI benefits. Even as five workers fight for every one job opening, Republicans are still calling the unemployed “spoiled” and suggesting that blocking benefits is fine because it only affects a “small amount of people.”
Last week at a fundraiser for Michigan GOP congressional candidate Rocky Raczowski, conservative pundit Phyllis Schlafly added her voice to the chorus crying out against government assistance for the poor or unemployed:
One of the things Obama’s been doing is deliberately trying to increase the percentage of our population that is dependent on government for your living. For example, do you know what was the second biggest demographic group that voted for Obama? Obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic, y’all know what was the second biggest? Unmarried women. 70% of unmarried women voted for Obama. And this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have Big Brother Government to be your provider. And they know that. They’ve admitted it. And they have all kinds of bills to continue to subsidize illegitimacy…
The Obama administration wants to continue to subsidize this group because they know they are Democratic votes.
Listen:
Schlafly’s argument is specious. She talks about “subsidizing illegitimacy,” but not all single women are mothers. Less than 20 percent are mothers to young children. The rest include millions of widows, millions of young never-married women, and plenty in between — some of whom have kids, but most of whom do not.
The fact that programs like UI and food stamps help unmarried women is only a byproduct of the system designed to help everyone in need – men and women alike. In fact, men are receiving more UI benefits than women – the unemployment rate for men is a full 2.2 points higher than it is for women.
That didn’t stop Schlafly from doubling down on her falsehoods in an interview with TPM yesterday. “All welfare goes to unmarried moms,” she claimed. “They are trying to line up their constituency for Obama and Democrats against Republican candidates.”
Of course, government assistance goes to both genders. But moreover, considering that 84 percent of custodial single parents are mothers and a quarter of American children are being raised by unmarried mothers, supporting single women is critical for supporting children. As the Center for American Progress’ Liz Weiss puts it, “When single mothers lose their home, suffer from hunger, or can’t find a job, their children also lose their home, go hungry, or suffer from greatly reduced household resources.”
Meg Whitman Believes Arizona Law ‘Should Stand For Arizona’
Meg Whitman Believes Arizona Law ‘Should Stand For Arizona’
In June, California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R) reminded California Latino voters of her opposition to Arizona’s controversial immigration law in an ad that aired on the Spanish-language broadcast of the Mexico-France World Cup game. A few weeks ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Whitman had also put up billboards throughout the state saying she (would have) opposed Proposition 187 and opposes the controversial Arizona immigration law, SB-1070:
[No to Proposition 187 and no to SB-1070 in Spanish]
However, despite touting her opposition to SB-1070, Whitman told English-language talk show hosts this Wednesday that the law should be able to stand in Arizona. Whitman explained that the only reason she opposes implementing the Arizona law in California is because it is a “much bigger state with much bigger geography”:
You know, I’m running for the governor of California so I had to make a decision, does the Arizona law make sense for California? And I have said no, I don’t think the Arizona law makes sense for California because we have a much bigger state with much bigger geography. [...] Hey I understand that immigration is a federal issue, but I would say that the states have got to be able to decide what is right for the state, so I would let the Arizona law stand for Arizona. [...] My view is you gotta let the states do what they gotta do until the federal government proves they can secure these borders.
Listen here:
Whitman likely understands that she will have a hard time winning the general election without significant Latino support. However, she also built much of her tough primary campaign around an image that portrayed her as a tough immigration hawk. The catch is that most Latino voters in California understand Spanish and English. In fact, 33.4 to 73.5% of California’s foreign born Latino population is proficient in English.
Whitman’s stance on Proposition 187 is also a contradiction in itself. During her primary campaign, Whitman released an ad featuring former Gov. Pete Wilson (R-CA) who affirmed that Whitman will be “as tough as nails” on immigration. Wilson’s endorsement might have scored some points with right-wingers, but it also meant a lot to California Latinos who remember him backing Proposition 187 — an Arizona type law that was ultimately deemed unconstitutional. The law never really went into effect, but Republicans are still hurting from it. After 1994, Latino voters helped California Democrats win every presidential, U.S. Senate, and gubernatorial election until 2003. Allan Hoffenblum, a longtime Los Angeles-based GOP strategist is worried about the potential fallout from Whitman’s primary campaign. “This is bringing back all the fears that the Republican Party is a white man’s party,” Hoffenblum told Politico. “It’s depressing.” Wilson now serves as campaign chairman for Whitman.
In her interview, Whitman also claimed that the stimulus package has not created jobs and bragged that the tea party “likes” her “fiscal conservatism.”
RNC Conveniently Forgets GOP’s Anti-Medicare Stance, Wishes Medicare A Happy Birthday
RNC Conveniently Forgets GOP’s Anti-Medicare Stance, Wishes Medicare A Happy Birthday
Today is Medicare’s 45th anniversary, and the Republican National Committee is celebrating the occasion by trying to attack “Obamacare” and by pretending the GOP has been a defender of Medicare. The RNC posted an online research briefing called “Happy 45th Birthday Medicare!” alleging President Obama used the Affordable Care Act to take money out of Medicare: “THANKS TO OBAMACARE,” they write, “DEMOCRATS HAVE SLASHED MEDICARE FUNDING.”
Even though the GOP likes to position itself as a guardian of Medicare, the party virulently opposed its creation at the time, as the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky outlined in a post last year:
Ronald Reagan: “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961]
George H.W. Bush: Described Medicare in 1964 as “socialized medicine.” [1964]
Barry Goldwater: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” [1964]
Bob Dole: In 1996, while running for the Presidency, Dole openly bragged that he was one of 12 House members who voted against creating Medicare in 1965. “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare . . . because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” [1965]
Beyond historical hostility to Medicare’s existence, conservative politicians are still actively trying to de-fund and eliminate the program. In 1995, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) tried to justify his idea to cut 14% from Medicare over seven years as a way to make the program “wither on the vine.” And, as recently as last summer, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), chairman of the GOP Health Solutions Group, said “you could certainly argue that government should have never have gotten in the health care business.”
In 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to cut $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid if he became president. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), called “one of the party’s most influential voices on the economy” by Ezra Klein yesterday, has released a budget plan that would privatize Medicare by 2021.
Instead of hiding the party’s history on the issue, the RNC’s birthday message could have mentioned positive aspects of Medicare. For example, according to Health Affairs, “the health of the elderly population has improved, as measured by both longevity and functional status” since Medicare passed in 1965. In addition, a Commonwealth Fund survey found “elderly Medicare beneficiaries reported greater overall satisfaction with their health coverage, better access to care, and fewer problems paying medical bills than people covered by employer-sponsored plans.”
McCain And Kyl Propose Using $701 Million In Stimulus Funds To Secure A Border That’s Already Safe
McCain And Kyl Propose Using $701 Million In Stimulus Funds To Secure A Border That’s Already Safe
Today, Time magazine reports that the border is “one of America’s safest places,” pointing out that the Arizona’s overall crime rate dropped 12 percent last year and 23 percent between 2004 and 2008. However, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) seem fixated on the right-wing myth that the bloody Mexican drug war has spilled over the border and that violence is, as McCain puts it, “the worst I have ever seen.”
In that vain, Kyl and McCain proposed legislation last night that would direct $701 million towards 1,200 additional Border Patrol agents, 500 more Customs and Border Protection officers, three new border-enforcement bases, grants to support local law enforcement, two drones, and additional resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Kyl and McCain’s proposal is almost identical to the legislation recently pushed and passed by Democrats in the House, however, the troubling difference is that they’re proposing to use unspent stimulus money to pay for it:
The legislation we introduced today will provide additional resources to help gain control of our border, without impacting our nation’s deficit. It is our hope that Democratic majority will swiftly work with us to ensure passage of this bill. We also look forward to working with the Administration toward the adoption of our 10-Point border plan, which will provide the additional resources that are so desperately needed by so many living along the border in Arizona.
Repealing what is left of the stimulus translates into taking away money that’s dedicated to middle class tax cuts. The stimulus cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans, and there are still $55 billion in tax benefits that have yet to be expended. Pat Garafolo explains that “repealing the stimulus to pay down the deficit amounts to raising taxes on all of those people.”
It would be one thing if Arizona’s economic woes were over and the stimulus funds dispensable. However, the state is still on the road to economic recovery. Though University of Arizona economist Marshall Vest recently declared the recession officially over in Arizona, he also noted that “it will be months before a recovery is evident and years to repair all the damage that’s been done.” Indeed, Arizona is now $10 billion in debt. The unemployment rate is slightly below the national average, hovering at 9.7 percent. Arizona is one of the four states responsible for the top 20 metro foreclosure rates. Meanwhile, CNN reports that the state’s new immigration law, SB-1070 — which McCain and Kyl support — is furthering economic woes. “[A]necdotal evidence from business owners, real estate agents and community leaders indicates the mere specter of the bill [SB-1070] has created a culture of fear among Hispanics in Arizona that’s slowly paralyzing sectors of the economy,” wrote CNN correspondent Emanuella Grinberg.
McCain initially dubbed the stimulus bill “generational theft” in 2009 and criticized it for being “full of unnecessary spending.” Kyl has been on a crusade since 2009 to scrap unused stimulus money, arguing that it’s not working. He’s also fought tooth and nail against extending unemployment benefits because it would supposedly be a “disincentive” to those who can’t find jobs. Both senators criticized the stimulus for containing too much pork. “It doesn’t stimulate, it just spends,” said McCain.
However, while Kyl and McCain appear to think that the stimulus is a failure and a lost cause, economists Alan Blinder and Marc Zandi believe it “probably avert[ed] what would have been called Great Depression 2.0.” The Congressional Budget Office further estimates that the stimulus’ effects on “output and employment are expected to increase further during calendar year 2010″ and predicts that it’ll start fading away in 2012.
If Republicans Were Serious About Spending, They’d Look To Cut Tax Expenditures
If Republicans Were Serious About Spending, They’d Look To Cut Tax Expenditures
Our guest blogger is Roneal Desai, Economic Policy Intern at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Republicans have recently spent a lot of time complaining about the budget deficit. But rather than make any attempt to address the causes of the structural deficit, they have chosen to obstruct short-term spending aimed at helping those still feeling the effects of the Great Recession.
For instance, leaders of the GOP wanted to cut the TANF Emergency Assistance Fund (which is on pace to create 240,000 jobs by September), repeatedly stalled an extension of unemployment benefits to help millions of jobless Americans, and filibustered a bill that provided tax credits to small businesses. At the same time, Republicans have been unwilling to allow the expiration Bush tax cuts for the rich, giving the wealthiest two percent of Americans, those most unlikely to be out of a job, an easy break.
And despite all the concern Republicans have voiced over the deficit, they have failed to even mention a section of spending which will make up nearly 25 percent of the federal budget this year: tax expenditures. Martin Feldstein, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and professor of economics at Harvard, has noted that tax expenditures impact the government’s bottom line in the same way as spending, and as a result are “equivalent to direct government expenditures.”
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimates that tax expenditures will increase the federal budget by $1.2 trillion this year. And tax expenditures have been increasing at an exponential rate for decades now.
The amount the government spends on tax expenditures in real dollars has grown from $294 billion in 1977 to $981 billion in 2009 — an increase of more than 230 percent since 1977. And even though tax expenditures are double the amount of non-military discretionary spending, they face far less scrutiny.
Conservatives can’t even say that they didn’t see this coming, as the most radical changes have been during the years 1980 and 1985, when the country was led by conservative leader Ronald Reagan, and between 1996 and 2001, an era which began with the Senate and House both being led by Republicans for the first time since the 1950’s.
President Obama has proposed scaling back tax expenditures given to oil and gas companies, which would save $45 billion over ten years. If Republicans are serious about lowering the deficit, they’d be wise to follow his lead, and start targeting an area of spending they won’t be able to ignore for much longer.
Countdown to Zero: Nuclear Weapons ‘Inconvenient Truth’
Countdown to Zero: Nuclear Weapons ‘Inconvenient Truth’
Today, Countdown to Zero – a new documentary from Lawrence Bender and Participant Media – opens in many cities throughout the country. The documentary has gotten rave reviews and may be for nuclear weapons what Bender’s other documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was for climate change – a massive national wake up call.
The film is in many ways a real-life horror movie. One reviewer described it as “smart, swift and scary as hell.” Sometimes the truth is terrifying and being awoken to it is unsettling. Nuclear weapons issues have faded from national consciousness. The Cold War is two decades gone and now many college students were actually borne after the Berlin Wall fell. Yet the dangers from nuclear weapons and nuclear materials remains.
Watch the trailer:
The film effectively goes through each of the four baskets of nuclear dangers – nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, nuclear war and a nuclear accident. On nuclear terrorism it walks the viewer through how easy it is to acquire nuclear materials and how easy it is to smuggle into the US – acclaimed Harvard national security expert Graham Allison mockingly notes that a terrorist could hide it in smuggled shipments of marijuana. On nuclear proliferation, it explains that there no longer is any “magic” to developing a nuclear weapon and that should the nuclear non-proliferation regime collapse their could be a cascade of nuclear proliferation.
But the threat of a nuclear accident is perhaps the most unsettling due to its inherent randomness. As the movie so vividly exposes, accidents happen. Mistakes happen. And most troubling these things have happened in the past, but fortunately we as a world have gotten lucky. While a nuclear incident caused by accident is unlikely, who would have thought that the biggest news story of this year would be a massive catastrophic oil spill. Well you might say environmentalists have for years been warning of the potential dangers of oil extraction but no one paid attention. The same applies to nuclear weapons. Experts for years have been warning of the dangers of a nuclear accident and nuclear terrorism yet the sense of urgency has been lacking – until perhaps now.
President Obama outlined the visionary goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. Thus far he has gotten the US back in the arms-control business with the New START treaty and has worked to strengthen and bolster the nuclear non-proliferation regime at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. He has also vitally prioritized the issue of securing loose nuclear materials and stopping nuclear terrorism and held the largest numbers of head of states in Washington since the founding of the UN at the Nuclear Security Summit in April.
Yet there is much much more to do and this agenda has fierce opponents some who are stuck in their attachment to the nuclear bureaucratic legacies of the Cold War and others who want to build and test more nuclear weapons, are clueless when it comes to addressing the transnational challenge of nuclear terrorism and securing loose nuclear materials, and even want to rekindle a new arms race with Russia. Countdown to Zero exposes the absurdity of such views and demonstrates that the status quo as it exists today is immensely horrifying.
Thune Doesn’t Understand His Own Deficit Reduction Plan, Wants To Extend Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich
Thune Doesn’t Understand His Own Deficit Reduction Plan, Wants To Extend Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich
Recently, a spate of Republicans (and a few Democrats) have been complaining about the deficit while simultaneously advocating a budget-busting extension of the Bush tax cuts, which will add more than $800 billion to the deficit once all the debt servicing costs are factored in. Republicans have even created a fantasy world in which tax cuts increase government revenues, in order to justify their two irreconcilable positions.
Last night, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) appeared on CNBC to promote his new “deficit reduction” plan, which creates a new congressional committee tasked with reducing the deficit, only on the spending side, by 10 percent every year. After spending the first portion of the segment griping about the deficit, Thune then turned to tax policy, where he emphasized that, in his view, the Bush tax all need to be extended or we will “imperil our economy’s ability to recover”:
I hope that we can get a vote before the election on extending those tax cuts from 2001 and 2003. If we don’t do that, I think it’s going to really imperil our economy’s ability to recover and our small businesses and investors opportunities to create jobs.
Watch it:
Neither Thune nor CNBC’s Larry Kudlow noted how much such an extension will cost, of course. In fact, Kudlow called Thune’s plan “a roadmap for recovery.” But extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, according to the Congressional Budget office, is the least effective step that Congress could take in terms of boosting the economy with tax or spending policy.
Plus, it’s clear that Thune really doesn’t understand the ramifications of his own deficit plan. After all, he told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that reducing the deficit by ten percent a year will lead to the deficit being eliminated in ten years. But as TPM’s Brian Beutler pointed out, “because the deficit would decrease yearly, the actual returns on 10 percent annual savings would diminish over time, such that it would take decades to reduce the deficit to one percent of its current level.” And, technically, the deficit would never be fully eliminated.
In the meantime, Thune’s favored tax policy would blow a hole in the budget, requiring even more draconian spending cuts if his deficit reduction plan were ever put into place. But we shouldn’t be expecting anything more coherent from Thune, considering that he doesn’t grasp how marginal tax rates work and measures economic initiatives in terms of how many times the required money could be wrapped around the Earth.
Report: Obama’s Judges Confirmed At Half The Rate Of Past Presidents
Report: Obama’s Judges Confirmed At Half The Rate Of Past Presidents
Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) single-handedly blocked the confirmation of 19 of President Obama’s judicial nominees, a power any single senator possesses under the Senate’s outdated rules. Sessions’ obstructionism is part of a concerted right-wing strategy to keep any of the president’s nominees from taking the bench. As a new Center for American Progress issue brief explains, judicial confirmations have fallen off a cliff since Obama took office:
Sessions attempts to dismiss this unambiguous data by claiming that Bush’s nominees waited longer than Obama’s for confirmation, but the data rebuts any claim that Bush’s judges were treated worse than the present president’s.
Judicial confirmations were unusually slow during the first two years of Bush’s presidency for reasons that are completely unrelated to Senate obstructionism. The Supreme Court didn’t install Bush until mid-December, giving the newly appointed president less time to plan for confirmations during his transition than prior presidents. Additionally, the Senate flipped from Republican to Democratic hands during Bush’s first year, forcing it to delay all business while it reorganized. Despite these two very unusual events, judicial confirmations at this point in Bush’s presidency were still nine percentage points higher than they are under Obama, and Bush’s confirmation rate spiked much higher during his next two years in office.
There’s a simple explanation for why Obama’s confirmation rate is so low: abuse of the filibuster and similar tactics such as holds. As CAP’s issue brief explains, the Senate Rules are practically designed to create a confirmation crisis:
The Senate’s arcane rules require nominees to clear several procedural hurdles before they can be confirmed. Most importantly, the Senate must agree to a “motion to proceed” to debate that nomination, and they have to take a confirmation vote at the conclusion of debate. Senators can filibuster either the motion to proceed or the confirmation vote itself.
Once a filibuster is broken, Senate rules still permit up to 30 hours of floor debate before taking a vote. The minority can therefore filibuster both the motion to proceed and the confirmation vote itself, and require up to 60 hours of floor debate before confirming a single nominee.
Forty-eight of President Obama’s judicial nominees await confirmation. At 60 hours per nominee, the Senate would have to spend 2,880 hours—120 entire days—to act on each of these nominations. If Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) were to cancel all recesses on August 1 and require the Senate to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, doing nothing but considering judicial nominees, the last nominee would not be confirmed until several days after Thanksgiving—and that’s assuming that the Senate passed no bills, confirmed no other nominees, and took up no other matters for this entire period!
Indeed, given such dysfunctional Senate Rules, the real surprise isn’t the fact that Obama’s nominees are being obstructed — it is that it took this long for such a confirmation crisis to emerge.
The WonkLine: July 30, 2010
The WonkLine: July 30, 2010
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 9:30 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security, immigration and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below. You can also follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
Immigration
Yesterday, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) filed an expedited appeal to Wednesday’s court ruling that blocked the most significant and controversial provisions of the state’s new immigration law.
Corey Stewart, chairman of Virginia’s Prince William Board of County Supervisors, introduced legislation that “outlines how Virginia can crack down on illegal immigration yet avoid the pitfalls Arizona has faced.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), an ardent opponent of SB-1070, was forced to close his district office in Yuma after a bullet shattered a window and was discovered inside.
Economy
The SEC charged Sam and Charles Wyly, billionaire Texas brothers who gained prominence spending millions of dollars on conservative political causes, with committing fraud “by using secret overseas accounts to generate more than $550 million in profit through illegal stock trades.”
Citigroup agreed yesterday “to pay $75 million to settle federal claims that it failed to disclose vast holdings of subprime mortgage investments that were deteriorating during the financial crisis and ultimately crippled the bank.”
Mike Elk reports that an international coalition of unions, led by SEIU, is trying to unionize capitalism’s core: the banks.
Health Care
“The law Congress adopted this spring to reshape the nation’s health-care system will be especially beneficial to women, because they traditionally have relied on health care more than men.”
“Congressional Democrats may water down or repeal new tax-reporting rules that are supposed to raise $16 billion for health-care legislation, facing a chorus of criticism about the rules.”
“As millions of Californians continue to cope with surging costs for health insurance, state lawmakers, consumer advocates and lobbyists in Sacramento are haggling over how tough to get with companies seeking large rate increases.”
Environment
Flooding from extreme rains has killed at least 313 people in Pakistan and killed 29 people and displaced more than 254,000 in northeast China, as forest fires caused by Russia’s worst heatwave in history killed 18 people, and Japan’s extreme heatwave has killed 66 people.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has smacked down petitions by conspiracy theorists who argue global warming is a hoax.
Republicans, with the potential support of Democrats dependent on oil money, are gearing up to block oil disaster reform bills in the House and Senate.
National Security
Neoconservative hawk Robert Kagan calls on Senate Republicans to support the New START treaty: “Republicans can and should take the high ground and set a better standard. The treaty has its problems…and so did the treaties negotiated by the two Bush administrations. But New START is not so badly flawed as to warrant rejection.”
“Almost unnoticed, this strategic northern province is slipping away from government control… Baghlan Province contains two of the crucial north-south routes in Afghanistan…Deprived of jobs and local government services, people here are turning to Taliban courts for speedy justice and drifting toward those who will pay them.”
“Shipping officials said Thursday that they were examining the hull of a Japanese oil tanker that was mysteriously damaged this week as it traversed a strategically vital waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. The ship’s owner has said that it may have been attacked.”
Reports Of BP Disaster’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
Reports Of BP Disaster’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
In a contrarian take today, Time Magazine’s Michael Grunwald wrote a preemptive post-mortem impact of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, saying that it “does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage. Grunwald believes that Rush Limbaugh “has a point” because the right-wing radio host spent weeks dismissing the disaster. New York Times reporters Justin Gillis and Campbell Robertson wrote that the “oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected.” The Associated Press’s John Carey believes “the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared.” The narrative of the disappearing disaster has been promoted by Politico’s Mike Allen and the Drudge Report.
Meanwhile, the oil blowout has been contained but not killed, oil continues to wash ashore, and the haphazard scientific effort to understand the 100-day disaster is hobbled by BP’s interference and governmental lassitude. It’s fair to point out, as Grunwald does, that the oil disaster’s impact on Louisiana’s shoreline is likely to be meaningless if the marshlands continue to disappear. Fringe rumors of global eco-collapse — never promoted by major environmental groups — continue to be as baseless as the nonsense spouted by conservative activists, media, and politicians on behalf of the oil industry.
However, the only honest take on the BP disaster right now is that this is a calamity, the true scope of which will take years to discover, with many impacts impossible to ever know. No one knows how badly this disaster will affect the dying marshlands of Louisiana. No one knows how badly the toxic oil plumes will affect the spawning grounds of the bluefin tuna, the feeding grounds of the threatened Gulf sturgeon, or the future of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, whose corpses have been found at 15 times the historical rate this summer. No one knows what the long-term physical and mental health impacts will be on the tens of thousands of cleanup workers.
Moreover, it is undoubtedly premature to announce that the vast oil slick has largely disappeared from the ocean’s surface. Thick oil, vast slicks, and tar balls continue to wash ashore along Louisiana’s coastline. Satellite imagery from July 27 and 28 — as the stories of disappearing oil were being filed — show a vast region still discolored by slicks and sheen, little diminished from previous weeks:
 Composite of MODIS visible satellite imagery from July 27 and July 28. Analysis of spill extent by Brad Johnson, Center for American Progress Action Fund. |
Scientists have found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of tiny blue crab larvae in the Gulf of Mexico, the first clear indication that the unprecedented use of dispersants in the BP oil spill has broken up the oil into toxic droplets so tiny that they can easily enter the foodchain.
"A lot of our eggs and larvae are in the top 100 meters, so as this cloud of toxins spreads upward, we're making an assumption that its killing all of them," he said. "I absolutely hate the use of dispersants at depth. I think that was the most huge of mistake in the process of containment."Last week, a group of prominent marine researchers released a statement calling for the end of the use of dispersants in the Gulf, saying, "Corexit dispersants, in combination with crude oil, pose grave health risks to marine life and human health."
This Has Been An Equal Opportunity Recession When It Comes To Job Losses Across Industries
This Has Been An Equal Opportunity Recession When It Comes To Job Losses Across Industries
Our guest blogger is Heather Boushey, Senior Economist at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Economist Paul Krugman highlights Raghuram Rajan arguing in today’s Financial Times that the Federal Reserve should begin raising interest rates because “the US had far too much productive capacity devoted to houses and cars, because consumers could obtain financing for them easily.” Essentially, Rajan is arguing that monetary tightening is necessary to shift resources out of the too-large housing and car sectors. Krugman points out that this makes no sense because most of the job losses during the Great Recession haven’t been in the construction sector:
OK, I actually haven’t taken cars into account; someone with more time can do that. But let’s look at the role of job losses in construction versus other sectors, since December 2007. It looks like this:
If high unemployment were largely about shifting workers out of an overblown construction sector, wouldn’t you expect job losses to be concentrated in that sector? Wouldn’t you expect employment elsewhere to be, if anything, rising? In fact, however, the vast majority of job losses have occurred in parts of the economy with little direct connection to the housing bubble. Yes, as a percentage job losses have been much larger in construction; but nothing in Rajan’s argument explains why we shouldn’t be using policy in an attempt to prevent vast job losses in parts of the economy that aren’t overblown.
Let me add a bit more meat to this story. In fact, the Great Recession has been more of an “equal opportunity” recession than other recent recessions (click here for a larger image):
Certainly, construction has lost a significant chunk of jobs, but other industries — manufacturing, professional and business services, transportation and warehousing, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and information services — have all lost a larger share. Much of financial activities could be considered tied to the run-up and bust of the housing market, but all the others? This Great Recession has had fairly broad, widespread job losses across industry, which contradicts the idea that there’s one or two sectors that U.S. workers need to transition out of.
LGBT Advocates Pressure Senate To Hold Vote On Repealing DADT In September
LGBT Advocates Pressure Senate To Hold Vote On Repealing DADT In September
With just 12 days before Congress leaves for a month-long recess, two LGBT advocacy are pressuring the Senate to hold a vote on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in September. Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) are urging supporters in 10 states to contact their representatives and “tell them to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and follow the lead of Chairman Carl Levin who will be managing the defense bill on the floor.” Levin had previously told supporters that he had hoped to vote on the defense authorization bill before the August break and later predicted that it would go to the floor last week.
The groups’ campaign, called Countdown 2010, hopes to “mobilize grassroots supporters of equality across the country through in-district meetings as well as a call-in and email campaign” and will also focus on passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the House:
HRC and SLDN’s efforts will be specifically focused on 10 states with key lawmakers whose votes on DADT repeal are critical: Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Virginia. HRC will also engage the LGBT community and our allies in those states on ENDA in addition to on-the-ground work for ENDA in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. Supporters of equality are encouraged to meet with Representatives and Senators while they are in their districts and states for the August Congressional recess.
To participate, individuals can sign up at countdown2010.hrc.org . There, they’ll find downloadable meeting toolkits, videos on in-district meetings and information on how to schedule a meeting and report back on how it went.
Advocates fear that pushing the vote past September, closer to “when the Pentagon’s working group study on implementation is due to be released,” would “provide an opening for detractors of repeal to scuttle support for the measure, whether through an overt effort to strip it from the bill or through a secondary amendment to broaden the certification requirement beyond the president, Defense secretary, and chairman of the Joint chiefs.”
Indeed, it’s still unclear if Democrats have enough votes to defeat a measure that would expand the certification process to chiefs who have publicly expressed support for the ban on open service. Yesterday, the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson reported that Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), widely considered a swing vote on the issue, said that she would support the existing DADT repeal amendment, but “wouldn’t commit to a position on a possible floor amendment that would strip the language from the bill.” Lincoln actually has a surprisingly positive record on LGBT issues. She did not register a vote on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, supported DADT in 1993, but voted for the hate crimes bill 2009, and against cloture on a measure that would have prohibited individual states from recognizing marital status and/or legal benefits from any other unions other than that of a man and woman.
Last week at Netroots Nation, the group GetEqual stopped traffic to protest Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) failure to pass ENDA and Lt. Dan Choi presented Reid with his West Point ring, urging the Senator to repeal DADT.
As Obama Praises Race To The Top’s Success, Congress Cuts Its Funding In Half
As Obama Praises Race To The Top’s Success, Congress Cuts Its Funding In Half
Earlier this week, a coalition of civil rights groups blasted the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program — which provides competitive grants to states that implement education reforms — saying that “by emphasizing competitive incentives in this economic climate, the majority of low-income and minority students will be left behind and, as a result, the United States will be left behind as a global leader.”
Today, Obama responded at the National Urban League Centennial Conference:
I know there’s a concern that Race to the Top doesn’t do enough for minority kids, because the argument is, well, if there’s a competition, then somehow some states or some school districts will get more help than others. Let me tell you, what’s not working for black kids and Hispanic kids and Native American kids across this country is the status quo…So the charge that Race to the Top isn’t targeted at those young people most in need is absolutely false because lifting up quality for all our children — black, white, Hispanic — that is the central premise of Race to the Top. And you can’t win one of these grants unless you’ve got a plan to deal with those schools that are failing and those young people who aren’t doing well. Every state and every school district is directly incentivized to deal with schools that have been forgotten, been given up on.
Of course, closing the achievement gap between white and minority students is a huge part of making the education system more effective. The College Board has set the goal of having 55 percent of 27-34 year olds holding a college degree by 2020 (currently 40 percent do), and “by eliminating the severity of disparities between underrepresented minorities and white Americans, it is estimated that more than half the degrees needed to meet the 55 percent goal would be produced.”
But Race to the Top has been a key driver for education reform across the country. So far, 32 states have implemented reforms in order to compete in the program. “While Race to the Top has only been in existence for a short time, it has yielded some of the most dramatic state education reforms the country has seen in many years,” said CAP’s Cindy Brown. “These changes include a new law in Colorado that ensures all teachers receive a meaningful evaluation, a raise in standards for teacher tenure, and measures that ensure that ineffective teachers who don’t improve are not teaching students.”
So it’s completely baffling that the Senate has seen fit to slice the program’s funding in half for 2011, after the administration itself requested far less than it had in 2010. The House cut the $1.4 billion request down to $850 million, and the Senate reduced it further to just $675 million. This year’s program had $4.3 billion, and with the country’s economic future at stake, it makes little sense to slice a program that’s showing tangible results.
The Right Thing To Do? HHS Issues Regulations Prohibiting States From Covering Abortion In High Risk Pools
The Right Thing To Do? HHS Issues Regulations Prohibiting States From Covering Abortion In High Risk Pools
This morning, following GOP allegations that states would be able to use federal dollars to cover none-Hyde abortions in the temporary high risk insurance pool programs, HHS issued regulations prohibiting states from covering the procedure. “The (high-risk pool) program,” the regulation states, “is Federally-created, funded, and administered (whether directly or through contract); it is a temporary Federal insurance program in which the risk is borne by the Federal government up to a fixed appropriation. As such, the services covered by the PCIP program shall not include abortion services except in the case of rape or incest, or where the life of the woman would be endangered.”
The controversy that sparked the new rules originated in a press release from the National Right to Life Committee, which claimed that the Obama Administration “has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of Governor Edward Rendell (D) under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.” The charge bounced around conservative circles, despite the administration’s swift promise to issue new guidance preventing states from covering abortion services. House Republicans wrote a letter HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking her “to supply them with the applications from all the states administering their own high-risk pools” and yesterday, 13 Republican Senators penned their own missive urging Sebelius to do what the administration had already promised.
Meanwhile, progressive pro-choice advocates felt betrayed. Since there is no over-arching law that prevents states from using federal dollars to fund abortion services, the administration was not required to alter the state’s proposals. It had already promised to segregate abortion funds within the exchanges and to prohibit community health centers from using federal funds to provide abortion services, but it had said nothing of shielding funds elsewhere — including high risk pools. Writing at RH Reality Check, CAP’s Jessica Arons accused the administration of applying the Stupak amendment to the high risk pools and going beyond the bargain it struck:
It is understandable that the Administration might now feel the need to honor the “spirit” of the compromise that resulted in the Executive Order. But the whole point of the compromise was to preserve the status quo, which included both restricted and unrestricted spheres of abortion funding. Moreover, the terms of the agreement were carefully negotiated. Abortion opponents who participated in the bargaining did not raise concerns about high risk pools or other specific potential sources of federal funding, and they should be able to live with the deal they made.
Indeed, rather than developing a compromise that would have either allowed states to decide whether to cover abortions with federal funding or required them to segregate funding and use private or state money to pay for the abortion services, the administration prohibited abortion coverage almost instantly. White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle insists that “no new ground has been broken” and that “the program’s restriction on abortion coverage is not a precedent for other programs or policies” — and hopefully that’s true. But it’s hard to understand why the administration felt so compelled to make this decision so quickly and reactively. If it was hoping to score points with conservative pro-life voters, then it overestimated the GOP’s willingness to recognize its concessions and may be surprised when Republicans continue to send fundraising letters about the abortion issue.
After Arresting Over 20,000 Undocumented Immigrants, Arpaio Says He’ll Arrest ‘Rich White Guys’
After Arresting Over 20,000 Undocumented Immigrants, Arpaio Says He’ll Arrest ‘Rich White Guys’
Yesterday, on his radio show, Thom Hartmann challenged Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s strategy of going after poor, undocumented immigrants rather than focusing on the wealthy business owners who hire them. Hartmann urged Arpaio to become an advocate for “going after rich white guys” who are “making all this happen.” Arpaio wouldn’t exactly commit to lobbying for immigration laws that target employers, but he did say he would arrest anyone who breaks the law — including “rich white guys”:
HARTMANN: By and large the people who are the most energetic, the most outspoken, and the most active like you are…are gung-ho to go after poor brown people. But when it comes to talking about laying their hands on the rich white guys — the guys who own the companies, the guys who own the companies that own the companies, the guys who are creating the demand — I’m not hearing your governor out there yelling and screaming about that. I’m not hearing you talk much about that. [...] Why aren’t you and Jan Brewer advocates for laws against the rich white guys that are making all this happens?
ARPAIO: I’m the only one grabbing the people and raiding these businesses! [...]
HARTMANN: I know, but my point is, you’re doing a lot of media, you’re out there, and you could be a voice for “Hey, let’s go after these rich white guys.”
ARPAIO: I say that!
HARTMANN: Will you go on the record right now and say “the rich white guys should be in jail?”
ARPAIO: Of course, I’ll go after anybody. Give me the evidence and I’ll go after them.
Listen here:
However, Arpaio doesn’t just go after “anybody.” For the most part, the Sheriff has gone after low-hanging fruit. Arpaio has raided businesses 37 times. He has been responsible for 26,146 deportations, but has only arrested a business person under the state’s employer sanctions law once. Earlier this year, Arpaio even admitted that his deputies were arresting “very few” non-Hispanics.
In his interview with Hartmann, Arpaio argued that he had “weak, Mickey Mouse” employer sanction laws to enforce. However, the problem isn’t necessarily that laws targeting employers are weak, it’s that they’re rarely enforced. Immigration lawyer David Kotick notes that “[e]mployers who hire undocumented aliens face steep fines and the loss of their business licenses. Some laws even mandate jail time for repeat offenders.” If an employer is shown to have engaged in a “pattern and practice” of violating the immigration employment laws, that person could face a prison sentence of up to six months. Arizona recently passed even tougher employer sanction laws that are being challenged in the Supreme Court by the Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile, working in the U.S. without authorization is considered a civil violation. However, Arpaio has been creatively interpreting the law in a way that allows him to arrest and jail thousands of undocumented immigrants for being “co-conspirators” in their own smuggling. Arpaio and his former accomplice, the ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, were the only state officials in Arizona bringing charges of conspiracy to commit human smuggling against individuals paying to be smuggled.
In all fairness, while unscrupulous employers that hire and exploit undocumented labor should be punished to the full extent of the law, abiding by immigration employment laws isn’t an easy task. It is often difficult to distinguish between a valid Social Security document and a fake one. And while Arizona’s new laws require employers to electronically verify the status of their workers, studies have shown that the E-verify program fails to catch half of all undocumented workers.
Republicans Claim To Be The Defenders Of Small Business, While Filibustering Small Business Lending Bill
Republicans Claim To Be The Defenders Of Small Business, While Filibustering Small Business Lending Bill
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times today have articles on Democrats and Republicans vying for to be seen as more supportive of small businesses. “At the core of some of the major policy fights in Washington these days is a ferocious competition between Republicans and Democrats over which party is the champion of America’s small businesses,” the Times wrote.
Republicans loudly claim that Democrats have “hit small business with a sledgehammer,” but when given the opportunity to provide tax credits and lending capacity to small businesses today, they instead chose obstruction. The Senate failed to invoke cloture on a bill creating a lending fund for small businesses and providing those businesses with a series of tax credits, on a 58-42 vote. All Republicans voted against the bill (and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) switched his vote at the last moment as a procedural matter, which allows him to bring the bill up again later).
For months, Republicans in the Senate have been bogging down this particular bill by threatening to attach a cut in the estate tax to it, which would benefit just the richest 0.25 percent of households in the country. And at the same time, the GOP has been waging an intense campaign to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, because they falsely claim that a failure to do so would be a blow to small businesses.
But as Dylan Matthews pointed out, IRS data shows that “the filers reporting small business income who would be affected by letting the tax cuts expire come disproportionately from the ranks of the super-rich.” In fact, the Tax Policy Center has made the case that the Bush tax cuts actually harm small businesses, because their cost of capital goes up as the deficit increases, and the cuts made the tax code more corporation-friendly:
While the 2001-2003 tax cuts were described as “pro-entrepreneur,” a recent study found that the majority of taxpayers would see their tax burden rise, once the eventual financing of the cuts was taken into account. Specifically, the study found that 72 percent of taxpayers with business income would be worse off if the tax cuts were eventually paid for by proportional financing, and that 58 percent of filers with business income would be worse off if the cuts were eventually paid for with equal-dollar financing.
Even those Republicans who supported the small business lending bill — like Sen. George LeMieux (R-FL) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — voted against it today, claiming that they didn’t have ample opportunity to attach amendments. So in the end, Senate Republicans had the chance to do something helpful for small businesses, but decided obstruction was the more productive route.
Speaker At NOM’s ‘Peaceful And Prayerful’ Marriage Tour Has Compared Gays To Pedophiles, Hitler
Speaker At NOM’s ‘Peaceful And Prayerful’ Marriage Tour Has Compared Gays To Pedophiles, Hitler
Throughout its 23-city “Summer for Marriage Tour 2010,” the National Organization For Marriage (NOM) has gone to great lengths to portray itself as a tolerant organization of Christians driven to oppose same-sex marriage by their religion. NOM has argued that its members are in a great “civil rights” struggle against intolerant LGBT counter protesters who have sabotaged its tour and threatened its members. Former NOM President Maggie Gallagher has described her supporters as “very peaceful and prayerful and respectful of the law, because that’s who our people are” while painting LGBT activists as “a real face of hatred.” “It isn’t just ‘we disagree with you, we’re supporting our point of view,” Gallagher quoted the counter protesters as saying, “it’s ‘you’re wrong, you’re haters, you’re bigots.’”
The blog NOM Tour Tracker has worked to expose the thin veil of NOM’s tolerance throughout their tour and has noted that NOM has coached its supporters to focus on the movements message of “love” when speaking with reporters. Yesterday, the blog cross-posted an item by Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper, which uncovered the homophobic record of pastor Brad Brandon, one of the speaker’s NOM’s rally in Minneapolis. Brandon had previously warned supporters that gays would teach children how to masturbate and compared gays to alcoholics, pedophiles and Hitler:
COMPARES GAYS TO ALCOHOLICS: “If you had an uncle who was a drunk and he was destroying his marriage and he was destroying his life and he was dying from problems that come along with drinking….Would you love him to go up to him and say, ‘oh, it’s okay, what you’re doing is alright?’ ….no you wouldn’t… But yet when it comes to the issue of homosexuality, all of the sudden, we have to keep our mouths shut, and we cannot say anything when it comes to this issue.”
COMPARES GAYS TO ADULTERERS, PEDOPHILES: “On the 17th, the ELCA convenes to vote on whether to allow homosexuals to be clergy. I mean, to me that’s like asking somebody who is living an open adulterous lifestyle to become a pastor. To me, that is like asking a pedophile to become a pastor.”
BELIEVES IN REPARATIVE THERAPY: “We need to preach Christ, the love of Christ, the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Get These homosexuals saved and get them out of this lifestyle.”
Listen:
Ironically, Gallagher has criticized LGBT leaders for failing to condemn the counter protesters’ “disruptive” tactics, but has yet to issue a statement distancing NOM from Brandon’s controversial remarks or the now infamous noose placard that appeared at NOM’s rally in Indianapolis. “I mean, what kind of people do that, first of all, and what kind of movement doesn’t step up and say, ‘No, this isn’t what our movement is about,’” Gallagher asked of the LGBT movement.
Foreclosures Up In 75% Of Metro Areas, But Congress Reduced To Pleading With Banks To Modify Mortgages
Foreclosures Up In 75% Of Metro Areas, But Congress Reduced To Pleading With Banks To Modify Mortgages
According to the latest data from RealtyTrac, “foreclosures rose in three of every four large U.S. metro areas in this year’s first half,” providing yet another piece of proof that the foreclosure crisis is far from over. “More than 3 million households are seen getting at least one foreclosure notice this year, and this record will be surpassed slightly at the peak of next year,” RealtryTrac estimated.
The slow but consistently mounting number of foreclosures is, sadly, warranting little attention from lawmakers. And the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure prevention program, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), has fallen flat on its face. The latest report shows that fewer than 400,000 homeowners have received permanent modifications. In fact, more homeowners (520,814) have fallen out of the program than have had their mortgage modified.
HAMP has suffered from a series of design flaws, but one of the biggest is that there’s simply no incentive for banks to make a wide effort at implementing modifications, as the program contains no stick to force a bank’s hand. In fact, at this point, Democratic lawmakers have been reduced to asking banks if they would deign to pick up the pace of modifications on their own:
In a letter Tuesday, [Sen. Sherrod] Brown (D-OH) stated that a number of constituents have contacted his office saying banks are offering limited assistance in helping them restructure their home loans. The senator used the letter to call on banks to do more to help these individuals. “It is in the best interest of your banks to work with responsible borrowers to help them stay in their homes or find other alternatives to foreclosure,” Brown wrote.
As Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the TARP Oversight Panel, said, “for every family that Treasury has helped into a sustainable mortgage modification, ten other families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Foreclosures show no clear signs of abating.” Atrios added, “HAMP was announced with great fanfare, a big budget, and a promise that the program could help millions of homeowners. Instead it’s mostly gouged desperate people, extracting a few more mortgage payments out of them while doing little to help them.”
Treasury has been reluctant to implement substantial changes to the HAMP program, but states across the country are trying other approaches to stem the foreclosure tide, including mediation programs that compel banks to meet with a homeowner before finalizing a foreclosure. And it remains the case that the failure to get a handle on the housing crisis will impair an economic recovery.
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