MORNING MESSAGE: Good News For Paul Ryan
OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "...Paul Ryan said that if we "cut spending" will avoid European austerity, and America will be the 'port in the storm of the global economy.' In other words, if we adopt radical austerity now, we won't have radical austerity later. As their plan sort of defeats the purpose of avoiding radical austerity, I have good news for Paul Ryan. We are already the port in the storm of the global economy, thanks to President Obama's Recovery Act. The Atlantic's Robert Wright uncovered a graph that shows America in the last three years outperformed similar economies with 'high per capita GDP' -- the European Union and Japan."
More Welfare Lies From Romney
Obama admonishes Romney welfare attack, saying "you can't just make stuff up." Romney makes more stuff up. The Hill: "Mitt Romney's campaign released a new web video Tuesday [charging again] that recent changes to the federal welfare program that provide waivers to the states have stripped out the work requirement ... a day after being directly chastised by the president for 'making stuff up' in the welfare attacks ... Independent fact-checkers and some Republicans have agreed, with the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org calling the Romney attack ads 'simply untrue.'"
"Romney’s False Welfare Attacks Ignore His Own Plans To Gut Programs For The Poor" argues ThinkProgress' Melissa Boteach: "...the budget plan they champion would gut the work supports, such as childcare, job training, and Head Start, that provide greater economic opportunity for working and middle class voters alike."
Romney-Ryan Austerity Plan Targets Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction
"Republican Platform Won’t Protect Mortgage Tax Deduction" reports Bloomberg: "Republican platform drafters refused to put their party on record for preserving the mortgage-interest deduction, giving Mitt Romney more flexibility to promote his plan to lower tax rates paid by corporations and the wealthiest Americans without increasing the federal debt ... The mortgage interest vote was a shift in Republican policy from four years ago..."
Obama campaign tells voters how the Romney-Ryan austerity plan affects them locally, in new radio ad push. USA Today: "In Colorado and Iowa, the message is clean energy -- Romney's opposition to Obama's investments, and Ryan's votes in Congress to raise taxes on solar and wind companies and against tax credits to create jobs. In Florida, voters will hear the Obama campaign's views on the Romney-Ryan Medicare plan ... In Nevada, the message is housing -- Romney's remarks about letting the market hit bottom and Ryan's vote against a Democratic bill that would protect service members and veterans from foreclosures. In New Hampshire and Ohio, the message will be education. The Romney-Ryan budget, according to the Obama campaign, would reduce Pell grants for 21,000 students in New Hampshire and up to 356,000 in Ohio. In North Carolina, a state with a strong military bent, Ryan's vote against funding for post-traumatic stress disorder treatment and suicide prevention will be featured. And in Virginia, where voters in the D.C. metro area spend hours in their cars, the radio spot will discuss potential GOP cuts to highway and other infrastructure projects."
Robert Reich details the five things wrong with the Romney-Ryan plan: "It would boost unemployment because it slashes public spending next year and the year after, when the economy is still likely to need a boost ... Ryan would take from lower-income Americans and give to the rich ... Ryan wants to turn Medicare into vouchers that won't keep up with the rising costs of health care ... He wants to add money to defense while cutting spending on education, infrastructure, and basic research and development ... Finally, Ryan's budget doesn't even reduce the federal budget deficit ..."
Ryan pushed through Bahrain trade agreement despite awful labor practices. HuffPost: "...Bahrain landed the biggest prize in global economics: unfettered access to American consumers, the largest market in the world. In return, the oil-rich kingdom agreed to reform labor practices and improve conditions for workers. Ryan and foreign policy leaders said they hoped an economic relationship would help stabilize the Middle East by spurring democratic reforms and improving the region's human rights record ... But the hoped-for reforms never materialized. And rather than help change Bahrain for the better, the trade pact is making it difficult for the U.S. to discourage recent misbehavior."
The Romney-Ryan plans for more war is no roadmap for balancing budgets, says NYT's Roger Cohen: "...I’ve not seen a war that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan don’t want to fight. Romney vows never to negotiate with the Taliban and declares, 'We go anywhere they are and we kill them.' He beats the war drums on Iran. He has a bizarre itch to open a new era of confrontation with Russia ... The big question, of course, is how all this squares with the concerns over the U.S. debt that Romney has placed at the center of the campaign ... the final bill [for Iraq and Afghanistan] will be $3.7 trillion or higher. New or rebooted wars are scarcely the fiscal medicine the United States needs."
Breakfast Sides
Brokerage firms audits are suspect. NYT: "Having completed the first review of such brokerage firm audits, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board said on Monday that it had found deficiencies in every audit its inspectors reviewed ... The accounting oversight board, which was established by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act a decade ago, initially was authorized only to review audits of companies that issue securities in the public market. Audit firms that audited only broker dealers were not subject to inspection by the board. That was changed in 2010 by the Dodd-Frank law, as lawmakers reacted to the Madoff scandal, which was carried out through his brokerage firm. "
New W. Post/Kaiser study explodes myths of independent voters: "...many are neither centrist nor moderate. And many don’t really swing back and forth from one party to the next with any regularity. About a third are indistinguishable from Democrats, and three in 10 are indistinguishable from Republicans, at least when it comes to their voting patterns. Those who are both genuinely independent and active participants in the political process constitute only a sliver of the overall electorate — about 5 percent..."
Obama talks up possibility of budget deal in local interviews in military towns. Roll Call: "Obama addressed the effects of scheduled military budget cuts [if there is no deal] 'The numbers work as long as each side recognizes they've both got to give. Democrats have to understand we're going to need some additional spending cuts, and Republicans have to understand we're going to need some additional revenues' ... Realistically, however, there are not enough session days in Congress to get the deal done before the November elections, Obama said. 'My sense is it will get done,' Obama told Virginia TV station WVEC. 'Two out of three Republicans voted for this law setting up sequestration.'"