Ezra is on vacation until November 7th.

Top Stories

1) The Senate has blocked another part of the jobs bill, reports Rosalind Helderman: "The Senate shot down another piece of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill Thursday, as a stalemated Congress goes through the motions of attempting legislation to spur economic growth largely as a mechanism to allow each party to blame the other for the failure to act. The chamber failed to advance a measure to spend $50 billion on highway, rail, transit and airport improvements and another $10 billion as seed money for an infrastructure bank designed to spark private investment in construction. The vote was 51 to 49 in favor, but the measure needed 60 votes to proceed to a full debate...All 47 Senate Republicans joined Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) in opposing the Obama infrastructure measure."

2) The supercommittee is at an impasse, reports Lori Montgomery: "Washington’s latest exercise in debt reduction appeared to be at an impasse Thursday, as members of a special congressional committee barreled toward a Thanksgiving deadline with no movement on the fundamental question of whether to raise taxes. Talks continued between congressional leaders and members of the supercommittee, but the panel had no further meetings scheduled and no path to compromise on a plan to slice at least $1.2 trillion from projected borrowing over the next decade. Aides in both parties said the prospects for a bigger deal were fading rapidly, and that the panel committee could be left struggling just to meet its minimum target. 'In a word, it’s stolid. Not stalled, but stolid,' said supercommittee member Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, suggesting that talks had slowed to a crawl."

3) But the trigger may not really go off even if the committee fails, reports Seung Min Kim and Scott Wong: "Lawmakers from both parties have warned what a disaster the automatic spending cuts would be if the deficit-slashing supercommittee fails to reach a deal in just under three weeks. But the reality is that the so-called trigger might not carry the live round everyone fears. A growing number of lawmakers are already talking about reversing the automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs that would go into effect if the supercommittee doesn’t find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts by Nov. 23. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) confirmed Thursday that they’re working on 'alternative' legislation that would scale back the size of cuts that can be made to the Pentagon. On the other side of the political spectrum, liberals are talking about rolling back automatic cuts to domestic programs."

4) Greece isn't holding a referendum on receiving a bailout after all, reports Michael Birnbaum: "Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou backed away Thursday from a proposal to hold a referendum on a European bailout plan, removing a significant obstacle that had rattled global markets and imperiled plans to halt a spreading economic crisis. In a day filled with political intrigue and drama, Greek politicians for the first time coalesced around the rescue deal after the opposition dropped its objections. But the plans still require Parliament’s approval, and politicians remained at odds over whether Papandreou would stay or go. The opposition has called for elections by the end of the year, which Papandreou opposes, suggesting that the deal could still fall apart."

Top Op-eds

1) Taking conservative economics seriously means saying the president doesn't matter for job creation, writes Adam Davidson: "Many Republicans follow the more fiscally conservative University of Chicago School, which argues that Keynesian stimulus can’t heal a sick economy -- only time can. Chicagoans believe that economies can only truly recover on their own and that policy interventions only slow the recovery...Of course, Romney, Perry, Herman Cain and the rest won’t come out and say, 'If elected, I will tell you to wait this thing out.' Instead, Republican candidates fill their jobs plans with Chicagoan ideas that have nothing to do with the current crisis, like permanent cuts in taxes and regulation. These policies may (or may not) make the economy healthier in 5 years or 10, but the immediate impact would require firing a large number of America’s roughly 23 million government workers."

2) Obama's advisors' personalities don't explain his failures, writes Ezra Klein: "The weakness of Suskind’s book...is also a weakness that afflicts much punditry about the presidency: it is very surefooted in its reporting on personalities and the process by which decisions were made, and very vague when it comes to assessing the policy that was under consideration and judging whether the final approach performed better or worse than the alternative proposals...Suskind’s narrative takes place in the White House. But the economic response really took place elsewhere. Almost anything the White House wanted to do that would cost money had to be authorized by Congress. Tax cuts? State and local aid? Infrastructure spending? Nationalizing the banks? Congress."

3) There's huge inequality even among the rich, writes Paul Krugman: "If anything, the protesters are setting the cutoff too low. The recent budget office report doesn’t look inside the top 1 percent, but an earlier report, which only went up to 2005, found that almost two-thirds of the rising share of the top percentile in income actually went to the top 0.1 percent -- the richest thousandth of Americans, who saw their real incomes rise more than 400 percent over the period from 1979 to 2005. Who’s in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they’re corporate executives. Recent research shows that around 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent either are executives in nonfinancial companies or make their money in finance, i.e., Wall Street broadly defined. Add in lawyers and people in real estate, and we’re talking about more than 70 percent of the lucky one-thousandth."

4) We need economic mobility, not equality, writes Michael Gerson: "the most important measure of U.S. economic success is not income equality but social mobility. Economic inequality can be justified in a fluid society, in which economic advancement is a realistic goal. Economic inequality in the absence of economic mobility amounts to a class system in which the circumstances of birth are the main economic blessing or curse...There remains a considerable amount of economic mobility, upward and downward, in the middle class. But nearer the bottom of the income scale, upward mobility is weak and stuck. As a result, according to the Economic Mobility Project, the U.S. economy is less fluid than the economies of Canada, France, Germany or the Scandinavian countries."

British pop interlude: The Orchids play "Obsession No. 1" live.

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Still to come: The new jobs report is out today; a report shows that the safety net reduces poverty considerably; House Republicans are moving forward with their Solyndra-related subpoena of the White House; and parents prank their kids by saying they ate all the Halloween candy.

Economy

The new jobs report drops today, reports Neil Irwin: "A new report due out Friday morning will show whether the job market stayed on an even keel as the final quarter of the year began. So far, signs have pointed to employers who are shrugging off the ill effects of Europe’s troubles and volatile financial markets and continuing to hire at a slow, gradual pace. Indeed, the September unemployment report relieved concerns about massive waves of layoffs, and last week the Commerce Department said that the economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the late summer months, its fastest clip in a year And on Thursday, the Labor Department reported that that the number of people filing new claims for unemployment insurance benefits fell last week to 397,000, from a revised 406,000 the previous week. That was the lowest level in five weeks."

Mitt Romney unveiled a deficit reduction plan, report Philip Rucker and Perry Bacon: "Republican Mitt Romney outlined a deficit-reduction plan here on Thursday that he said would slash federal spending and 'economize, simplify and make smarter government.'...He said he would cut federal spending by about $500 billion during his first term by eliminating programs and services he doesn’t like (he cited President Obama’s health-care overhaul) and those he does like but doesn’t think the country can afford (he cited Amtrak). Romney also pledged to turn responsibility for costly entitlement programs like Medicaid over to state governments...Romney talked for about 20 minutes, delving into wonky budgetary details, and once casually interrupting his thoughts to say hello to a crying baby."

The European Central Bank is easing, reports Jack Ewing: "The new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, quickly responded to the latest developments in the sovereign debt crisis on Thursday, overseeing a cut in the euro zone’s benchmark interest rate while warning of a mild recession. Two days after assuming office in one of the most turbulent phases in the history of the euro zone, Mr. Draghi signaled that he might be more willing than his predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet, to tolerate inflation in the name of economic growth. The bank cut the benchmark rate to 1.25 percent from 1.5 percent, a move aimed at putting more money into the European economy by making borrowing easier. Investors cheered the decision by pushing stocks higher in Europe and the United States."

Bill Gates is pushing for a financial transactions tax, reports Tim Mak: "Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates will tell the G20 Thursday that they could raise $48 billion to fight global poverty by levying a 'Robin Hood' tax on the trading of bonds and shares. Gates will talk about the transaction tax - dubbed by some as a 'Robin Hood' tax - when he speaks before the G20 to deliver a report commissioned by French President Nicholas Sarkozy on international development, according to The Guardian. 'It is very plausible that certain kinds of FTTs [financial transaction taxes] could work. I am lending some credibility to that. This money could be well spent and make a difference. An FTT is more possible now than it was a year ago, but it won’t be at rates that magically raise gigantic sums of money,' Gates told the British newspaper. Estimates are that the Robin Hood tax could bring in $50 billion a year."

MF Global had fought tougher regulation, reports David Hilzenrath: "Long before broker MF Global landed in bankruptcy with an unexplained shortfall in customer accounts, federal regulators had identified the handling of client funds as a point of risk in the industry. But when the government proposed tightening restrictions on the handling of those funds, MF Global strenuously objected. In a letter to rulemakers last year, MF Global protested that the government was trying to 'fix something that is not broken.' When MF Global this week filed one of the largest bankruptcy cases in the nation’s history, brought on by risky bets on European bonds, the rules change proposed a year ago remained on the drawing board. It is unclear why an estimated $633 million of customer funds is missing at MF Global, or whether the proposed restrictions would have made a difference in this instance."

Parks and Recreation interlude: A supercut of Tom Haverford hitting on women.

Domestic Policy

A new report will suggest that the safety net reduces poverty considerably, report Jason DeParle, Robert Gebeloff, and Sabrina Tavernise: "The official poverty measure ignores ever more of what is happening to the poor person’s wallet -- good and bad. It overlooks hundreds of billions of dollars the needy receive in food stamps and other benefits and the similarly formidable amounts they lose to taxes and medical care. It even fails to note that rents are higher in places like Manhattan than they are in Mississippi. On Monday, that may start to change when the Census Bureau releases a long-promised alternate measure...Similar measures...suggest among other things that safety-net programs have played a large and mostly overlooked role in restraining hardship: as much as half of the reported rise in poverty since 2006 disappears."

Extreme poverty is up, reports Sabrina Tavernise: "The number of people living in neighborhoods of extreme poverty grew by a third over the past decade, according to a new report, erasing most of the gains from the 1990s when concentrated poverty declined. More than 10 percent of America’s poor now live in such neighborhoods, up from 9.1 percent in the beginning of the decade, an addition of more than two million people, according to the report by the Brookings Institution, an independent research group. Extreme poverty -- defined as areas where at least 40 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line, which in 2010 was $22,300 for a family of four -- is still below its 1990 level, when 14 percent of poor people lived in such areas. The report analyzed Census Bureau income data from 2000 to 2009, the most recent year for which there was comprehensive data."

The supercommittee is getting barraged with interest group lobbying, reports Eric Lichtblau: "Facing billions of dollars in possible cuts, advocates for the poor are resorting to some creative tactics to grab the attention of Congress: Getting lawmakers to try eating on $4.50 a day, just as some 46 million food-stamp recipients already do...Health care providers, worried about Medicaid cuts and other programs, have taken out big ads around Washington to make their case. Lobbyists for defense contractors have been meeting with Congressional staff members to warn of the threat to national security if weapons programs are slashed. Some farmers are anxious to avoid cuts in crop subsidies. And cities and counties warn of rising crime rates if federal financing for police, fire services and the like are curtailed."

A key labor leader is stepping down, reports Steven Greenhouse: "Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees for three decades, said on Thursday that he would step down next June when his two-year term expires. Mr. McEntee, one of the nation’s most powerful union leaders, has also served as chairman of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s political committee for 15 years, playing a major role in revamping organized labor’s roles in presidential, Senate and House races. Under Mr. McEntee, 76, the union grew to 1.4 million members, from 900,000, and became known for its political war chest. Mr. McEntee deployed his union’s and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s political funds not just to back Democratic candidates, but also to defeat efforts to privatize Social Security and change Medicare."

Adorable children being distraught interlude: Jimmy Kimmel tells parents to tell their children that they ate all of their Halloween candy. Mayhem ensues.

Energy

House Republicans are moving ahead with Solyndra subpoenas, report Darren Samuelsohn: " House subcommittee voted Thursday to subpoena internal White House documents about Solyndra, opening a new phase in House Republicans’ feud with the Obama administration about the failed solar manufacturer. A major question now is whether President Barack Obama will assert executive privilege to protect some of the documents, including his personal BlackBerry messages. House Republicans also have to figure out what they actually want. Early drafts of their subpoenas indicated that the Republicans could issue open-ended demands for more than three years of West Wing communications. But minutes after the 14-9 party-line vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, GOP members said they might narrow their request."

Less than one percent of energy-related stimulus projects have faced investigations, reports Darius Dixon: "The Energy Department came to its own defense Thursday, one day after its inspector general told a congressional panel that stimulus-related projects had spawned more than 100 criminal investigations. Those probes amounted to 'fewer than one percent' of the DOE projects involved in stimulus spending, department spokesman Damien LaVera said in a statement Thursday. 'As we work to implement the unprecedented investment in job-creating clean energy projects supported by the Recovery Act, the secretary and the department are committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayers' money,' LaVera said. 'Under the Recovery Act, the department has allocated more than $35.2 billion to support more than 15,000 projects around the country, supporting jobs in every state in the Union,' he added."

26 nations are bucking European climate rules, reports James Kanter: "China, the United States and 24 other nations backed a declaration on Wednesday urging that their airlines be exempted from the European Union’s Emissions Trading System. The move at the International Civil Aviation Organization, an arm of the United Nations, is another challenge to environmental leadership by the European Union, which has failed in its efforts to get some of the biggest polluters in the developed world to adopt crucial parts of its agenda for tackling climate change. The declaration said the European directive was 'inconsistent with applicable international law' and that the signatory nations would work together to oppose it. The declaration is not binding, but it does represent a shot across the bow, as it could lead to a formal dispute procedure through the international aviation organization."

We need fracking, writes David Brooks: "Fracking has paid off in the most immense way. In 2000, shale gas represented just 1 percent of American natural gas supplies. Today, it is 30 percent and rising...The U.S. now seems to possess a 100-year supply of natural gas, which is the cleanest of the fossil fuels. This cleaner, cheaper energy source is already replacing dirtier coal-fired plants. It could serve as the ideal bridge, Amy Jaffe of Rice University says, until renewable sources like wind and solar mature. Already shale gas has produced more than half a million new jobs, not only in traditional areas like Texas but also in economically wounded places like western Pennsylvania and, soon, Ohio. If current trends continue, there are hundreds of thousands of new jobs to come."

Closing credits: Dylan Matthews is a student at Harvard and a researcher at The Washington Post. Wonkbook is compiled and produced with help from Michelle Williams.

Nov. 4, 2011

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