Monday Reads

Good Morning!

The top stories on every one’s mind these days are the lousy jobs report last week and the tumbling stock markets.  Democrats in the House are calling for new infrastructure spending as a way to create more jobs in the hopes that a few federal projects could provide some stimulus to the stalling recovery.

“The American people, while concerned about the deficit, place much more emphasis on job creation, and they see a role for the government,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told The Hill. “A fast injection of job stimulus on the public side would help tremendously. … It [the job report] helps our argument about investment.”

Other Democrats delivered a similar message on Friday. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said “the answer” to the lingering jobs crisis is “investment” in the “communities and businesses who need confidence and resources to hire [people].”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said “investing in our communities goes hand in hand with full economic recovery.”

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said that only in Washington is targeted new spending being demonized.

“Once you get outside the Beltway, almost everyone agrees that we should be rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and investing in clean American energy that reduces our dependence on oil,” Blumenauer said.

Meanwhile, the major reason for home foreclosures these days isn’t the subprime loan scandal.  It’s unemployment.

The Obama administration’s main program to keep distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure has been aimed at those who took out subprime loans or other risky mortgages during the heady days of the housing boom. But these days, the primary cause of foreclosures is unemployment.

As a result, there is a mismatch between the homeowner program’s design and the country’s economic realities — and a new round of finger-pointing about how best to fix it.

The administration’s housing effort does include programs to help unemployed homeowners, but they have been plagued by delays, dubious benefits and abysmal participation. For example, a Treasury Department effort started in early 2010 allows the jobless to postpone mortgage payments for three months, but the average length of unemployment is now nine months. As of March 31, there were only 7,397 participants.

“So far, I think the public record will show that programs to help unemployed homeowners have not been very successful,” said Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, an executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

One additional question is popping up now that it appears more than certain that some entitlements will be subject to cuts, That is why aren’t Democrats defending Medicaid?  Democrats have spoken out against cuts to Social Security and have defended Medicare.  What about Medicaid?

…for all the Democrats’ posturing and campaigning against Republican plans for Medicare, the GOP budget actually makes more immediate and deeper cuts to Medicaid. But Democrats haven’t been blasting the GOP Medicaid plan with nearly the same fervor, even though Republicans would cut about $750 billion from the program during the next decade and end the guaranteed federal match for states.

With intense budget negotiations on the debt limit under way, health care insiders think Democrats won’t budge much on Medicare now that they have a significant campaign chip in their pockets: Kathy Hochul’s upset win in New York’s 26th Congressional District is Exhibit A of the power of Medicare.

And that makes advocates worry that Medicaid cuts are more likely to come out of budget negotiations led by Vice President Biden.

Medicaid covers more than 50 million people, including low-income children and seniors in long-term care, but it doesn’t pack the same political punch as Medicare. Some observers say that’s due to the lingering perception that Medicaid is just a program for poor people that holds a much less broad-based appeal.

That perception is definitely part of the challenge in communicating Democratic opposition to the GOP’s Medicaid plans, Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) told POLITICO.

Medicaid “doesn’t quite have the same political dynamic” as Medicare, Andrews said.

Protestors in Wisconsin have opened a ‘Walkerville’ Tent city in Madison as a reminder of the Great Depression and to protest the governor’s budget.  Wisconsin is leading the way in protesting the way state budgets are being balanced on the backs of the poor and the working and middle classes.

In a move meant to evoke the infamous “Hooverville” tent cities of the Great Depression, protesters in Madison, Wisconsin opened “Walkerville” on Saturday evening, a tent city in the heart of Madison intended as a protest of Governor Scott Walker’s budget plan.

The Wisconsin Sentinel Journal calls the protest “the latest act in the 2011 political drama featuring the governor’s push to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for most public employees”.

By 9:00pm, an estimated 250 campers in up to 100 tents were arrayed throughout the designated protest area, with many campers pitching their tents on concrete sidewalks. City police, state troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were on hand, but on the whole a carnival air prevailed as families set up for the night, some intending to stay just for a night or two and others through June 20.

Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is in Saudia Arabia recovering from injuries suffered in an attack on his palace last week.  Many people are encouraging him to stay there.

The United States and Britain are pressing Saudi Arabia to persuade the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to formally stand down after flying to Riyadh for treatment for injuries that were sustained in shelling in Sana’a on Friday.

Diplomats said that Washington and London were insisting that Saleh now be urged to implement a deal under which he would relinquish power in exchange for immunity from prosecution and financial guarantees about his future.

Pro-democracy protestors in Yemen were celebrating his departure after 33 years in power, but the Arab world’s poorest country still faces turmoil as well as immediate concerns over whether a truce will hold if Saleh tries to return and his relatives and supporters fight back.

The risks ahead were underlined by clashes in the southern city of Taiz, which left at least two dead and four injured. Shelling was also reported in Sana’a.

Saleh was described as recovering following emergency medical treatment in a Riyadh military; he was injured by shrapnel when his palace compound was attacked by tribal rivals.

Yemen’s ruling party, the General People’s Congress, insisted he would be back, but diplomats and analysts expressed doubt, suggesting that Saudi patience with an always fractious and often manipulative neighbour was exhausted.

It would be impossible for Saleh to return, argued Abdul Ghani Iryani, a respected Yemeni political commentator. “He is out. That is the only rational course. The exit of the president has defused some of the tensions and war is less likely today than it was yesterday.”

Evidently John Edwards is going to trial because the Feds offered him a plea deal that included prison time.

The government wanted to dictate a sentence that would result in up to six months of prison for Edwards, even with the plea to lesser charges.

Edwards and his lawyers were concerned. They wanted the ability to at least argue to a judge for alternatives, such as a halfway house, weekend releases, home arrest or some arrangement that would allow Edwards to be with his school-age children. He is a single parent after the death of his wife, Elizabeth, in December.

Yeah, right.  My guess is he doesn’t want to be some one’s mistress.

So, that’s what I’ve dug up today.  What’s on your reading and blogging list?