Budget

Progressive Caucus Goes Where Senate GOP Won't

Elana Schor | March 31, 2009, 5:10PM

As TPMDC has previously noted, Senate Republicans don't see the need to offer an alternative budget of their own this week -- even as they blast the priorities President Obama has outlined.

But the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is taking that leap, presenting an alternative budget that includes cuts to outdated weapons projects and defense procurement initiatives as well as a new 0.25% tax on all stock trades that would offset the staggering cost of the financial bailout.

The details of the progressives' budget are available after the jump -- and worth cheering, given the recent news that the CPC is struggling to get a literal foot in the door at the White House.

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Bailout

The Second Scariest Number You'll Hear Today

Elana Schor | March 31, 2009, 3:34PM

Bloomberg reported a frightening fact this morning: The U.S. government has spent committed nearly as much on to bailing out financial firms -- $12.8 trillion, when you total up guarantees and loans given by the Treasury, Fed, and FDIC -- as the nation's entire $14.2 trillion domestic product.

But that's not the only eye-popping bailout number that was released today. In a Senate Finance Committee hearing today, panel chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) noted that the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) has put taxpayers on the book for at least $2.9 trillion. That number is almost equal to the U.S. government's total spending during the 2008 fiscal year, which you can find in Table 5 of this document.

Baucus described the bailout as a shadow U.S. budget "dedicated solely to saving the financial system, and that is truly surreal."

Environment

Greenpeace: Waxman-Markey Climate Bill Not Strong Enough

Elana Schor | March 31, 2009, 1:40PM

The climate change draft bill released today by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) goes further than the White House in terms of its emissions targets -- but the plan also tacks right in some notable ways, as Greenpeace is noting in its newly released response.

Steven Biel, director of Greenpeace's U.S. global warming campaign, raised questions about two elements of the Waxman-Markey plan and called for it to be "strengthened" by Congress.

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Environment

Waxman to Unveil Climate Change Bill Today, Going Further Than Obama

Elana Schor | March 31, 2009, 10:50AM

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) are rolling out their proposal to cut carbon emissions today, and early leaks of the plan suggest that the duo is prepared to ensure that the Obama administration is not the most liberal player in the climate change debate.

Waxman and Markey's bill will set targets of a 20% reduction in emissions by 2020, compared with Obama's proposed 15% cut, and an 83% reduction by 2050, a more ambitious goal than Obama's planned 80% trimming. This is more than just a numbers game: By moving the goalposts further left than the White House, the two House Democrats set the stage for a meaningful compromise on climate change ... but can it happen this year?

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Bailout

More on the Double-Standard Debate: Did GM Concede More?

Elana Schor | March 30, 2009, 4:45PM

Jed Lewison, writing at Daily Kos, observes that GM's Rick Wagoner isn't the only CEO at a bailed-out company to be asked to step down by the government -- a counterpoint to the double-standard question raised today by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), and numerous media outlets (including TPMDC).

It's true that the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve asked Robert Willumstad to resign after three months in AIG's top spot, and that Fannie and Freddie's CEOs were also asked to resign last year.

Here's where those cases diverge from GM: the government controlled the majority of AIG when it ousted Willumstad and had already placed Fannie and Freddie directly into conservatorship when it booted their CEOs. The government also has become a leading shareholder at Bank of America and Citigroup, while taking the discrete step of lending money to GM ... while planning on showing the door to upwards of half of GM's board in the coming days.

None of this is intended to take a side in the double-standard debate that TPM readers have dismissed as a false equivalency -- merely to observe that it would be equally false to compare the circumstances behind Wagoner's resignation to those behind the AIG and Fannie-Freddie departures.

Barack Obama

Levin: Detroit & Wall Street Held to Different Standards -- But We Can't Dwell On It

Elana Schor | March 30, 2009, 2:10PM

It's an admittedly over-simplified question, but one that's lingered in the background today after the Obama administration insisted on the resignation of GM CEO Rick Wagoner: Is the government insisting on stronger concessions from Detroit than it is from Wall Street, despite the latter's receipt of a far bigger taxpayer bailout?

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) just told reporters that he believes there has been "a double standard for a long time in terms of the treatment of the financial industry, compared [with] the way the auto industry has been treated. It's something we've fought against ... but something we've got to live with and deal with."

Levin added that it would be a distraction to lament banking CEOs' ability to keep their jobs while boasting managerial records nearly as dismal as Wagoner's (Bank of America chief Ken Lewis and Citigroup chief Vikram Pandit are the names that often spring to mind).

When the senator was asked if he advised the president not to fire Wagoner, however, Levin offered a curious demurral:

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Bailout

Obama Urges Congress to Revive 'Cash for Clunkers' Proposal

Elana Schor | March 30, 2009, 12:56PM

As he rolled out one last reprieve for the nation's troubled automakers, President Obama also restarted a legislative push that ran out of gas during last month's stimulus talks: a $10,000 rebate offer to car owners who traded in their old models for more fuel-efficient wheels.

The "cash for clunkers" plan was originally proposed by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), at a total cost of about $16 billion. It was dropped from the stimulus amid GOP opposition, but Obama said today that he would "work with Congress to identify parts of the recovery act that could be trimmed to fund such a program and make it retroactive starting today."

Could that strong presidential endorsement give the rebate plan the momentum it needs to win quick congressional approval? Stay tuned...

Late Update: Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who sponsored a $4,500 version of the "cash for clunkers" rebate alongside Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), has just released a statement promising to work quickly on complying with the president's request:

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Auto Industry

GM & Chrysler Kept Lobbying to Continue Their Unworkable Business Decisions

Elana Schor | March 30, 2009, 12:10PM

The Obama administration's candid "viability assessments" of GM and Chrysler emphasize one unsurprising but unfortunate theme: Both auto companies have contributed to their own financial demise by relying on gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs instead of cultivating more fuel-efficient cars.

Here's the relevant excerpt from GM's White House status report:

GM earns a disproportionate share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs and is thus vulnerable to energy cost-driven shifts in consumer demand. For example, of its top 20 profit contributors in 2008, only nine were cars.

And the administration's take on Chrysler was even more grim:

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Auto Industry

The Double-Standard Question Haunting Today's Detroit Announcement

Elana Schor | March 30, 2009, 10:56AM

President Obama is about to administer tough medicine to GM and Chrysler, giving them 60 days and 30 days, respectively, to formulate workable plans for financial survival -- in addition to securing the resignation of GM CEO Rick Wagoner.

Wagoner's departure hardly comes as a shock, given that the once-mighty General Motors began its current swoon under his stewardship. But Michiganders and Wall Street analysts alike are pointedly asking the same question Josh raised last night at the TPM mothership: Why did the Obama administration call for Wagoner's head but allow ineffectual banking CEOs to stay on the job and the government dole?

Here's how Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (MI), the third-ranked House Republican leader, put it to Reuters:

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