Happy Wednesday folks,
The big news of the day is that the top spot in college basketball is up in the air, because Indiana was knocked off by Minnesota last night. It’s been difficult to pin down the best team in the game, because several teams have been ranked number one at some point in the season.
What’s also difficult to pin down, though, is President Obama’s true on spending cuts to defense. Yesterday, in Newport News, Virginia, President Obama gave a campaign-style rally to a crowd of shipbuilders. He said, “so here, at Newport News ship building, you guys have made an enormous investment because we’ve said, in order to maintain the finest Navy that the world has ever known, we’ve got make sure that there’s an orderly process whereby we are continually upgrading our ships, building new ships, maintaining our ships properly, and these are some big ships.”
Going around the country placing the blame for the policies that are about to go into effect must be taking a toll on President Obama, because he’s clearly too tired to remember what he said about building ships in the Presidential debate last year: “But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”
So then, President Obama determined it was right to use the resources we have in order to have in order to innovate, even if that means having “fewer ships.” But now, he is unwilling to own up to that stance. In order to truly figure out the impact of sequestration and which policies need to be enacted if it hits, the American people deserve to know where the President actually stands on issues.
Seize the day,
Mark Bednar
@MarkBednar
Important Things On Tap For Today
10:00 AM: Senate will potentially meet to discuss Jack Lew’s nomination for Treasury Secretary.
2:30 PM: House Judiciary Committee, Hearing Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee hearing on “How E-Verify Works and How it Benefits American Employers and Workers.”
7:30 PM: President Obama delivers remarks at the Business Council Dinner. Park Hyatt Hotel, Washington, D.C.
Tweet Tweet
@AEI “Anyone who thinks the Euro crisis is over has simply not being paying attention to political developments in Italy http://ow.ly/i4Dl1”
@JoeNBC “The ATF is still suffering politically because of the abuses of Ruby Ridge & Waco. Let’s start enforcing the gun laws that are on the books!”
@alexcast “we don’t often move back a generation RT @morganwarstler: @alexcast Gavin Newsom > Hillary 2016?”
@GottliebShow “Good for Minnesota - man they were bad the past couple weeks #iwaswrong”
@WSJ “Republicans are threatening to block the nomination of John Brennan to lead the CIA. http://on.wsj.com/XZvuEM”
On The Radar
Economic Growth
The Pending Automatic Budget Cuts, How the Two “Sequestrations” Would Work from The Center On Budget And Policy Priorities by Richard Kogan. “Second, based on appropriations levels under the continuing resolution that’s now in effect, funding for appropriated (or “discretionary”) programs will exceed the BCA funding caps for those programs and, thus, will be subject to a second (albeit much smaller) across-the-board cut, which is scheduled to take effect on March 27. These two sequestrations will act independently of each other, so the savings generated by one do not reduce the cuts required by the other. The President and Congress can still agree to turn off the two cuts for 2013 before they occur or undo them after they take effect.”
Does Light Rail Reailly Encourage People To Stop Driving? from The Atlantic by Eric Jaffe. “The work makes a good contribution to our understanding of urban transit, but it has some severe caveats. The study’s biggest limitation is that it focused on the simple existence of light rail — not the quality of its service, or for that matter other factors like density or development or demographics. In the case of the Midland corridor, for instance, all of the findings are compromised by the fact that a major road was built parallel to the light rail line; a city that creates an incentive to drive shouldn’t be surprised when people do.”
Wall St. Tax, A Simple Idea But Unintended Consequences from The New York Times by Steven M. Davidoff. “This net benefit is paired with a simple budget argument. The Robin Hood Tax campaign in Britain, for example, has used the slogan “Not complicated. Just brilliant” to support a 0.05 percent tax on transactions as an effective way to ease the budget without harming markets. Let’s face it, the banks are an easy target after the financial crisis. It seems to be a win for everyone.Unfortunately, the reality has been much different.”
A New European Tax On Financial Transactions Is Set To Go Global from The Washington Postby Howard Schneider. “A new European tax on financial transactions will hit investors worldwide — including in the United States — who buy stocks and bonds of European companies, do business with European banks or engage in any of a broad array of financial activities. The levy is due to take effect next year and will be a significant money-raiser for the 11 nations that have signed on, bringing in an estimated $45 billion annually. The 11-nation group, whose members are mostly from the economically ailing euro currency union, includes major U.S. trading partners such as Germany and France. Britain is not participating.”
In U.S., Majority Still Names China As Top Economic Power from Gallup by Jeffrey M. Jones. “For the third consecutive year, a slim majority of Americans, 53%, say China is the leading economic power in the world today. Thirty-two percent believe the United States is, with relatively few naming other countries. In 2008-2009, Americans were more evenly divided in their views of whether China or the United States was the leading economic power. Back in 2000, Americans overwhelmingly said the United States was.”
Immigration
McCain, Graham Say Obama Understands Link Between Border Security’s Link To Immigration Reform from The Washington Post by Rosalind S. Helderman. “Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said they covered a variety of topics in the unusual meeting with Obama, including a robust discussion of how to reshape the nation’s immigration laws. The GOP duo — members of a bipartisan group of eight senators working to write an immigration bill for introduction in March — emerged with strong praise for Obama’s leadership and optimism for the fate of the effort. ‘It was one of the best meetings I’ve ever had with the president,’ Graham said. ‘I think the president’s very sincere in wanting a bill and wanted to know what he could do to help.’”
House Republican Expresses Support For Guest-Worker Program from The New York Times by Ashley Parker. “At a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the topic of agricultural workers, Mr. Goodlatte, the chairman of the full committee, said that he could support a measure that would offer at least temporary legalization for illegal immigrants who are currently in the country working in the agriculture industry.”
Entrepreneurs, Lawmakers Pushing Startup Act 3.0 from Fox Business by Gabrielle Karol. “Suman, also originally from India, has had a more challenging route to establishing his company Mentii in the United States. A trained engineer, Suman arrived in the United States to attend Columbia University’s MBA program, after which he received an employer-sponsored H-1B visa. When Suman wanted to launch Mentii, however, he still needed an employer sponsor. So, his American co-founder Andrew Ryan assumed the CEO role and effectively sponsored Suman’s visa. While this may seem like a reasonable solution, the payroll taxes that the young company has needed to pay for Suman’s salary, as well as the lawyer and application fees, have taken a huge chunk of the capital used to start the company – 40%. Had he been able to obtain an entrepreneur visa, says Suman, he wouldn’t have taken a salary initially, and would have had more funds to invest in the growing business.”
Health Care
Entitlement Reform Key To U.S. Future from Politico by Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler. “The problem is this: During this decade and the next, the number of Americans over the age of 65 will jump by 75 percent while those of working age — the people who fund entitlements through their tax contributions — will nudge up by just 7 percent. On top of that, entitlement benefits typically grow faster than both inflation and wages, and can pay out significantly more than people pay in. The median lifetime Medicare taxes paid by new retirees in 2030 will be $180,000; while the median paid benefit will be a staggering $664,000. Vastly more elderly, combined with steadily larger retiree benefits, and relatively fewer taxpayers to fund them create an untenable budget situation unless addressed.”
X-Factor
You Can Leave Your Shoes On, Why Sequester Could Make Air Travel A Whole Lot Better from Foreign Policy by Justin Heinz. “But, to be blunt, the length and speed of security lines at airports are a function of the TSA’s inefficient security methodology, not its budget and staff. Reduced federal funds will magnify this inefficiency, but to claim longer lines are purely a result of budget cuts is a cop-out. Sequestration is actually an opportunity for the TSA to abandon its insistence on screening all airline passengers, which demands extraordinary resources and manpower, and instead adopt a more efficient and effective approach. If it does, budget cuts might be the best thing that ever happened to airport screening.”
Yahoo’s Work From Home Ban Sparks Recruitment Frenzy from Fox News Business by David Mielach. “Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to take away the remote working privileges of Yahoo employees has touched a nerve among workers at lots of companies. Savvy HR types, however, are using the announcement and the backlash as an opportunity to cherry-pick some talent from the tech giant and promote their companies’ work form home policies at the same time.”
This & That
Table Games Will Be Less Than An Hour Away Come April from DCist by Benjamin R. Freed.
The Daily Shep from Politico by Dylan Byers.
Lindsay Lohan’s Letter Writes To Prosecutor “We Can Fix Her” from TMZ.
The Warriors And Pacers Got Into A Fight, Roy Hibbert Ejected from Yahoo! Sports by Eric Freeman.
20 Unconventional Reasons To Be Friends With Otters from Buzzfeed.