Posts by Jefferson Morley

While reporters hooted at the comically simplistic charts and lack of details in the House Republican leadership’s budget plan, the green eyeshade types at Citizen’s for Tax Justice crunched the numbers (PDF). They conclude that a quarter of all households, most of them poor, would pay more taxes under the GOP plan, while the richest [...]

The 15 banking CEOs who met with President Obama today in Washington head financial institutions that spent at least $45 million on lobbying in 2008, and gave $21.2 million in political contributions in 2007-2008, according to OpenSecrets.org, the Center for Responsive Politics’ Website that tracks money in politics.

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Bloomberg today that “it’s absolutely essential that we come out of this year with a substantial health-care reform,” and “the best prospect for that to happen is to do it under reconciliation” — the process by which legislation would only need 51 votes to pass, rather than the [...]

While major corporations and utility companies have accommodated themselves to the reality of climate change and the necessity of doing something about it, the irrepressible Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) wants to pick up a gun. Her target: President Obama’s proposal to create a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions, which she calls an “energy tax.”
“I [...]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill which left 11 million gallons of black petroleum deposited on a pristine Alaska coastline. The Daily Green looks at the sorry aftermath, including how Exxon, thanks to the Supreme Court, paid a penalty that was less than one percent of its annual earnings. But [...]

While Wall Street likes the Obama administration’s financial rescue plan and liberal economists Brad DeLong (pro) and Paul Krugman (anti) go head to head over its merits, The Wall Street Journal’s lead story today tells how the populist impulses of a Democratic White House have been checked in recent days by the president — and [...]

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) told The Associated Press Friday that health care reform, possibly including near universal coverage, will happen this year.
“It will not be a perfect bill, it will not be a complete answer,” said the stalwart Wyoming conservative. “But it will get a lot done. It may well even get the goal of [...]

Two bills introduced in Congress recently stake out rival positions on a key issue related to health care reform. Which approach ultimately prevails will help determine whether the pharmaceutical industry maintains the support that Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler voiced Wednesday for President Obama’s plan’s to overhaul the nation’s health care system.
Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) [...]

While the coal industry lobby in Washington seeks to rebrand its product as “clean,” and the fate of climate change legislation in Congress remains hostage to partisan maneuvering, two recent decisions by local power companies show a lower carbon future slowly taking shape.

In what The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim calls a “big boost for climate change,”  Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (D-Ariz.) today endorsed the idea of  ”cap-and-trade” system to reduced carbon emissions. When President Obama offered his proposal for a cap and trade system last month, even Republicans who had supported the idea last [...]