Tonight the Senate will vote for cloture on Harry Reid’s stripped down jobs bill. No one knows – not Mitch McConnell and not the majority leader – if Reid will have the votes (so their offices say). But tonight’s vote is exactly the kind of thing that American voters have come to hate about the Senate: the bill is widely …
Economy
Morning Must Reads
–Republicans in Congress still seem a little thrown off by the health care summit and haven’t yet settled on a message going in. Andrew Sullivan notes some inconsistency. They also haven’t decided which way to go on the Senate jobs bill.
–Former GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee, now running as an independent, makes the case for a third …
Alan Simpson vs. The Deficit. Again.
Back in the days when I first arrived in Washington, Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming was one of my favorite people to seek out. That was pretty much the case with just about every other reporter in town, too. Simpson was always good for a salty quote; more importantly, he had a way of looking at things that made you consider them in a …
Morning Must Reads
–One of the few areas of comity and cooperation between the parties during the Obama administration has been education policy. The Washington Post reports this morning that Democrats and Republicans in the House are taking a bipartisan stab at rewriting No Child Left Behind.
–It looks like the White House may have a deal on forming …
Housing Starts Up
Good news? Not necessarily, our Curious Capitalist colleague Barbara Kiviat tells us.
Morning Must Reads
–Despite the high profile retirements and a Majority Leader on the ropes in Nevada, the chances of the GOP flipping the Senate in November remain slim, albeit not impossible. Adam Nagourney looks at the map in today’s Times, concluding that Republicans would have to run the table in all competitive races to have a shot.
–Everybody …
The Jobs Bill: What Went Wrong
In case anyone was wondering what an earth happened last week with the jobs bill hokey pokey, here’s a time.com story from me looking into what went on behind the scenes. The most troubling aspect of all this? That Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin are apparently further screwing up a screwed up Senate in their fight over Reid’s corpse. …
Morning Must Reads
–D.C. dysfunction seems to be the theme of the day. Bayh says it’s why he’s retiring. Former Clinton chief of staff and Center for American Progress president John Podesta, citing GOP obstructionism, says the political environment “sucks.” Tea Party angst over big government run amok lands on the front page of the New York Times. A Wall …
We Have a Jobs Deal… Er, No.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and the top Republican on the committee, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, unveiled a long-anticipated bipartisan jobs bill this morning but clearly they didn’t run their plan past the leadership — or at least didn’t gain leadership support before they proceeded. This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader …
Morning Must Reads
—Karen notes that Anthem’s 39% rate hike in California – in part due to an altered risk pool in the struggling economy – makes a convincing argument for certain elements of health reform. The Obama administration agrees, and HHS Secretary Sebelius makes just that case on the White House blog. I would not be surprised to see this …
Palin’s Speech
The Grand Ole Opry may have been next door but Sarah Palin preached to the choir on Saturday at the National Tea Party Convention and brought down the house. The two-day event, held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Hotel, had been a relatively placid affair – Tea Partiers learned how to social network and reach out to young …
Hank Paulson Takes Your Questions
Every want to ask the former Treasury secretary what he actually said to Nancy Pelosi when he got down on his knees in front of her at the White House days before TARP passed? Or find out why he let Lehman fail while bailing out Bear Sterns and AIG? And how much did he really protect his alma mater, Goldman Sachs? Find out here by …
The Jobs Report
Over at the Curious Capitalist, Justin Fox tells us:
The long-awaited end of the Great American Job Destruction of 2008 and 2009 did not arrive in December, as some forecasters hoped it might, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported another 85,000-job decline in nonfarm payroll employment this morning. The BLS did revise
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