A deficit hawk insists that there must be spending cuts and revenue increases to halt the growing deficit. Most Republicans and many conservative Democrats in Congress are deficit hawks—and so are European authorities who are imposing drastic austerity measures on Greece to get its fiscal house in order. A deficit dove, on the other hand, believes that concerns about short-term deficits are less important and attempts to shrink them should not override temporary efforts to foster economic growth. President Obama is a deficit dove. He believes that long-term deficits pose a problem for our country, but believes it is more important to focus on reviving the economy through short-term spending increases and tax cuts.

Then there is the deficit owl. Owls believe that concerns over budget deficits are misplaced and don’t think we ever need to balance the budget. They argue that any government spending that leads to deficits boosts demand and therefore economic growth. This is the basis for Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the subject of a Washington Post article by Dylan Matthews on Sunday that featured Levy Institute scholars James K. Galbraith and L. Randall Wray. Titled “Modern Monetary Theory, an unconventional take on economic strategy,” the article lays out the history and arguments for such an approach, and responses by its critics.

The MMT movement believes that governments that control their own currency should never default. Because governments can create money by printing it and putting it into circulation, there should never be an instance when a government runs out of money and fails to pay its debts. Thus, MMTers are not concerned with growing deficits. In fact, they believe that the government should be spending more and cutting taxes further during recessions like the current one.

The idea has predictably been considered outside the mainstream. The Washington Post article describes how James K. Galbraith, public policy professor at the University of Texas and former head economist for the Joint Economic Committee—and son of legendary author, Harvard professor and Kennedy advisor John Kenneth Galbraith—was laughed at by the Clinton White House when he advocated for it.

The story goes that in 2000, the government was running a surplus, and there were questions of how to use the extra money. While many conventional economists argued that it should be used to pay down the national debt or shore up entitlement programs, Galbraith warned policymakers not to do so. He insisted that directing money to the government instead of to individuals and private business—who would spend it and help the economy—was not the best approach.

Still, MMT has yet to be widely embraced. The main argument in opposition to MMT is that it could lead to hyperinflation. The reasoning is that when the government deficit spends, it issues bonds in the form of Treasuries. Ordinarily, when bond investors become worried that a debtor is borrowing too much, they require higher interest rates on the bonds to counteract the additional risks that the borrower has taken on. Such an approach would normally decrease the amount of debt that the borrower takes on, but the government is unlike other debtors. The Federal Reserve can continue to buy its outstanding debt by purchasing large amounts of Treasuries or other bonds, which increases the supply of money.

MMTers acknowledge that this progression could in theory lead to inflation, but they are confident that it will not do so. This is because the Fed’s actions amount to a computer keystroke, which floods banks’ reserves with cash but does little to move money throughout the economy. They argue that only by targeting demand will money start flowing. MMTers believe that inflation is a legitimate concern only when there is full employment and demand, which is clearly not the current case.

We can only guess whether the principles that underlie MMT will stand the test of time, but for now, the conversation about its potential benefits is heating up. Economists Dean Baker, Jared Bernstein and Paul Krugman are debating MMT’s merits, and it is spreading around respected blogs like Naked Capitalism and Firedoglake.

Hawk, dove or owl: which one are you?

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Remember that phrase, “too big to fail”? Well, that’s the main reason we’ve petitioned the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Financial Stability Oversight Council to break up Bank of America. Under Section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, they have the authority to do so. And, award-winning filmmaker and activist Michael Moore helped us put attention on our Bank of America campaign over the weekend by highlighting a recent video made by Micha Liberman, a Hollywood music editor who won an Emmy for his work on the HBO series “Deadwood” and who has been nominated for a Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel award for his work on the Steven Spielberg television series “Terra Nova.” Be sure you have your speakers turned up to get a better appreciation of the nod from Moore . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWV_jwYGzPA&hd=1

We also got a nod from two ladies that we were pleased to work with on putting a spotlight on the importance of the Volcker rule, an important component of Wall Street reform, in our capacity as members of Americans for Financial Reform Coalition. Alexis Goldstein and Caitlin Kline, the illustrious coauthors of the famous (or if you work for the financial industry lobby, “infamous”) Occupy the SEC Volcker letter and action, were on a call last week with our financial policy guru Bart Naylor and on Up With Chris Hayes this weekend discussing many an issue near and dear to our hearts.

In addition to having our eyes on Big Banks, Public Citizen is always on the look out for patients. We’ve vowed not to let up on the medical device industry’s egregious attempts to subvert the approval process in Congress, and on Wednesday, you can expect Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, to be equally determined as he testifies before an FDA advisory committee considering approval of the proposed weight-loss drug Qnexa. We have testified against this drug previously but new information has come out that we will be analyzing and highlighting.

Also Wednesday, at the Busboys and Poets location on 5th and K St. NW here in Washington, D.C., we are co-sponsoring a book signing by BBC journalist and author Paul Mason. He will be talking about his book, “Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions,” at Busboy’s venue at 1025 5^th St. NW. One said Lady Liberty, yours truly, is very excited about this event to the extent Mason focuses his narrative around firsthand exploration of  ” . . . new forms of activism, from the vast, agile networks of cyberprotest to the culture wars and tent camps of the #occupy movement.”  Recent events from Tahir Square to Zuccotti Park, says Mason, call attention to the increasing power of the individual while demonstrating the demand for different political realities.

Finally, whether you’ve noticed as you are filling up your tank or just heard all the recent chatter on the news, the price of gasoline is inching up. There is a lot of speculation out there about what’s causing the rise in gas prices. Later in the week, we’ll turn to our resident energy policy guru Tyson Slocum to shed some light on this issue. So stay tuned to this space, where you’ll find we’re always driven to continue our 40 year legacy of standing up for Main Street!

And, if you feel so inclined, take a moment to check out our ACTION CENTER and join us in the fight to keep corporations and our government accountable. As another of our recent Citizen Vox blog posts show, your efforts have a real impact.

Rachel Lewis, @Public-Citizen‘s new media strategy and outreach coordinator, is a former-wonk-turned-professional-wonk-speak translator who relishes a good Twitter hashtag almost as much as a strong cup of coffee.

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$5.2 million: Amount President Barack Obama’s campaign spent last year for Internet advertising
$9.5 million: Amount Obama’s campaign spent on telemarketing
$2.6 million: Amount GOP contender Newt Gingrich spent on telemarketing
$1.3 million: Amount Obama’s campaign spent on credit card fees for donations
$143,862: Amount Obama’s campaign spent last year on text messages

New Mexico Legislature approved amendment resolution
New Mexico’s Legislature has passed a resolution calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. New Mexico is now the second state to pass such a resolution (Hawaii was the first).

Supreme Court showdown
Corporations challenging the Montana Supreme Court’s decision upholding the state’s restrictions on corporate political expenditures have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put the law on hold pending a decision on whether the Supremes will hear the case. Montana’s Attorney General has responded that the challengers are asking the court “to invalidate Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act – an Act that has safeguarded the republican form of government in Montana for a century from the scourge of political corruption.” The challengers’ request will be considered by Justice Anthony Kennedy and may be referred to the full court for decision.

Californians deliver 10,000 signatures for constitutional amendment
California residents want a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, as evidenced by a Public Citizen, CALPIRG and Common Cause letter signed by more than 10,000 people. The letter, supporting a pending resolution in the California Assembly calling for a constitutional amendment, was delivered this week to a California Assembly chairperson.

Fifty groups call for amendment hearings in Congress
Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees received letters this week signed by 50 organizations calling for hearings on the need for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Public Citizen was one of them.

New “hybrid PAC” are catching on
Can’t keep all these kinds of PACs straight? We admit, it’s not easy. Now, we see the emergence of “hybrid PACs.” These political action committees are like Super PACs in that they can raise unlimited amounts of money to independently support candidates via such things as TV and radio ads. But they also can raise limited amounts of money and donate that right to political candidates, providing they use separate accounts. Critics contend that these entities further illustrate the fiction of campaign finance limits.

Medical device industry launches lobbying push for weaker oversight
The $350 billion medical device industry is launching a major lobbying push to make it even easier and faster to get devices approved, a new Public Citizen report finds. The trouble is, recalls of dangerously defective devices are increasing. Defibrillators that provide painful shocks, artificial hips that shed metal fragments and destroy tissue – these show that the approval process is already too fast and loose. Instead of caving to the industry, Congress should be strengthening the device approval process.

Eric Cantor’s Wall Street insider trading loophole
Sometimes, public outrage bubbles up and forces Congress to take action to advance the public interest. The Big Business interests, who normally count on the legislative process operating according to plan, lose control. And that’s when they really set to work. Case in point: the STOCK Act.

Dollars and Cents
… Seven U.S. senators have asked the IRS to investigate social welfare nonprofits that spend a lot on direct political ads. Potential targets: The Karl Rove-funded Crossroads groups and the pro-Obama Priorities USA …

… Six lobbyists are suing the Obama administration, claiming that its prohibition on lobbyists serving on federal advisory committees (part of the administration’s attempt to be more ethical than past administrations) is unconstitutional …

… A new group, New York Leadership for Accountable Government has formed to push for reforms to the state’s campaign finance system …

… Citing Citizens United, Personal PAC, a group that helped elect Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, is suing to block a new Illinois law that limits donations to political action committees …

… A measure supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United is pending in the Alaska Legislature …

… A move is afoot in Salt Lake City to persuade voters there to approve a resolution favoring a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United …

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President Obama has promised that, “Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail.” He continues to use similarly vivid imagery to describe the leverage “too big to fail” banks have over the financial system and the threats they pose to our economy. Fortunately, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act provides financial regulators new tools to break up and reform such dangerous financial firms.

Financial regulators must fulfill the president’s and the law’s promise by using those tools to break up Bank of America.

Public Citizen filed a petition with the Federal Reserve and the Financial Stability Oversight Council a few weeks ago, calling on them to use their authority under section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Act to mitigate the “grave threat” that Bank of America poses by breaking it up and reforming it. If regulators do their jobs correctly, the resulting institutions will be smaller, simpler and safer.

The new institutions could also add value to the company and the economy. For example, Former Republican-nominated FDIC chair Sheila Bair has said that Bank of America and Citi shareholders could gain approximately $270 billion in market value if they were broken up, and JP Morgan Chase shareholders could see $52 billion in appreciation. Indeed, the sum of the parts would be worth more than the whole. This added value would be great for investors, customers and employees, and give the bank an opportunity to create jobs.

The views in the petition are receiving widespread support, and in some unexpected places. One supporter was so inspired by the petition that he decided to help the cause. Micha Liberman, a Hollywood music editor who won an Emmy for his work on the HBO series Deadwood, and who is currently nominated for a Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel award for his work on the Steven Spielberg television series Terra Nova, decided to make a video about the petition. It gets straight to the “too big to fail” problem and why Bank of America should be broken up.

If Bank of America goes down, a sizable chunk of our economy will go down with it. After more than $1 trillion of federal assistance has already gone toward propping up this sprawling behemoth, it should be unthinkable to keep propping it up. Instead, we need to start breaking it up.

We cannot wait and find out whether another financial crisis strikes. If that happens, it will be too late to act. This is why Public Citizen filed a petition to financial regulators to break up and reform Bank of America, and why your voice must also be heard. Let’s make sure “too big to fail” is more than just a sound bite.

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The reauthorization of the user-fee program is nothing new. However, the 14 bills introduced in Congress that threaten device regulation are indeed the latest attack on patient safety.

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) called the bills in the House “industry’s wish list,” fulfilling most of the device industry’s desires to reduce already weak standards for approving medical devices and, thereby, expedite devices’ path to market.

Public Citizen’s new report, Substantially Unsafe, reveals that this $350 billion industry dispatched 225 lobbyists, including 107 who previously worked in government, to lobby on medical device regulatory issues in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2011. The industry’s resources surged in the 4th quarter, when an additional 96 lobbyists (of the 225) and 23 new companies (of 53) joined the campaign. The device industry spent $33.3 million lobbying Congress in 2011.

While Congress is working to grant industry’s wish list, the industry also has done its best to fulfill the wishes of members of Congress. In 2011, members of industry hosted campaign fundraisers for at least 31 members of Congress. In just one month last spring, Representative Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.), who is either sponsoring or co-sponsoring all 10 of the industry-friendly House bills, received $74,000 from venture capitalists with a stake in device regulation.

As the industry “wish list” makes its way through Congress, the long list of needed patient safety reforms remains neglected. Patients need to know that the FDA will take necessary steps to block unsafe devices from reaching the market, develop a reliable system to notify patients who have been implanted with dangerous devices, and act quickly to remove defective devices once problems come to light. Finally, Congress should restore the rights of patients who have been injured by faulty devices to seek redress in court.

At present, the processes used to approve devices do not even come close to those required for approval of new drugs.

The number of device recalls has practically doubled in the past year, resulting in more than 1,200 recalls in the FDA’s 2011 fiscal year. High-risk recalls, like those for metal-on-metal hip implants and malformed surgical clips, tend to result from an approval system lacking in clinical testing, thorough manufacturing inspections, or both.

One would expect that recalled devices would be easily traceable to affected patients, similar to the ease with which recalled automobile parts can be traced back to affected cars. Yet, the FDA has yet to implement such a system.

When patients are harmed by defective devices, their rights to seek redress in court are severely limited. If the device has achieved the highest approval of the FDA, its manufacturer enjoys a near iron-clad immunity from litigation, compliments of Riegel v. Medtronic, the 2008 Supreme Court decision.

It’s time Congress place patient safety needs before industry’s wishes. Read the new report and take action for a stronger medical device review process.

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Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) noted in their request the Public Citizen finding in March 2011 that medical boards failed to take action against 220 physicians who were considered an “immediate threat to health or safety of patients” – 75 percent of whom had had their clinical privileges suspended on an “emergency basis.” The senators called on the OIG to conduct an evaluation of state medical boards’ performance. They also reiterated concerns – expressed by Public Citizen in a March 15, 2011, letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius – that a state medical board licensure action against a physician provides greater patient protection from questionable physicians than a hospital clinical privilege action alone.

Too many people in this country, including the large fraction whose medical services are paid by HHS, are injured or killed each year because of the inadequate job most medical boards do by failing to discipline those physicians whose substandard care is a threat to the public.

The absence of HHS-OIG medical board oversight has been accompanied by a worsening in the national rate of serious disciplinary actions against physicians (including revocations, suspensions, probations and license surrenders), which has fallen 20 percent from 2004 to 2010.

The OIG should resume its investigations of state medical board discipline records.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe is director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

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Flickr photo by wintersoul1

The Wall Street Journal’s Victoria McGrane reports:

The so-called Volcker Rule has broken the record for attracting the most comment letters submitted on any Dodd-Frank proposal.

Regulators have received a whopping 17,000-plus comments on the proposal, a Federal Reserve spokeswoman said. And some poor junior-level staffers are still counting them. The rule restricts U.S. banks from making bets with their own money.

More than 15,700 of those comments came from activists mobilized by Public Citizen’s online organizing efforts.

As the Washington Post observed, most submitted some version of the comment we provided, which called for implementation of a strong, simple Volcker Rule with few exceptions and swift penalties for violations.

The regulators receiving the messages were the Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

The Volcker Rule is a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that prohibits banks from operating as casinos, making bets with taxpayer-backed funds. Bankers won extravagant bonuses while inflating the housing bubble before inevitably crashing the financial system and the greater economy.

Thousands of Public Citizen supporters provided insightful comments with detailed examination of many banking corruptions, and documenting the human cost of this giant Ponzi scheme.

Many bring financial industry experience to bear.  One supporter from New York explained that she “worked at Goldman Sachs for 12 years. [. . .] I know how this game is played. Big banks have no business gambling amounts of money that can destroy our economy. […] The only way to protect us from them is to write laws like the Volcker Rule, and it should remain without any loopholes whatsoever. Zero tolerance.”

Another supporter (from Arkansas) also writes with inside expertise:

As a Financial Products Specialist, I am urging you to support a strong version of the Volcker Rule. In fact, I contend we should go a little further and criminalize all uncovered speculation on any position.  Had we just cut off all derivative contracts at that moment of financial collapse, we could have avoided the corporate welfare and taxpayer burden.

Many Public Citizen members detail the problem. A supporter from Kansas:

The three legged tripod of synthetic CDO’s, improper securities ratings, and credit default swap insurance had too much complexity built into the entire scheme to have been any kind of an accident with unintended consequences.  This structure was purposely created and the risks were ignored in favor of freeing up investment capital (as well as generating capital that did not truly exist) to extend the capital leverage of investment houses to create even more havoc in the market.  Meanwhile the risk to ordinary Americans was monumental and it seemed no one cared as long as the money kept rolling in the door.

A supporter from Delaware writes with important historical perspective:

I’m 85. I remember my father and my uncles talking about the Glass-Steagall Act and what a great thing it was to protect us from the dangers of speculative investments by banks. In the full flush of prosperity (for some) that law was repealed. A consequence was banks getting richer until we had a great recession. (I remember the Great Depression;  it wasn’t pretty.) We need a strong Volcker Rule to protect us from the bandits again lousing up our economy.  With sharp teeth and heavy punishment.

And many examine the human cost of bank speculation. Writes one Massachusetts supporter: “My husband and I lost our jobs and careers in the economic collapse of 2008 with a child in college, and we’re struggling to get back on our feet. Another such collapse would ruin us, and we did nothing to deserve this.”

These and more than 15,000 other comments will go far to counter the self-serving arguments submitted by the banking industry accustomed to normally exclusive communication with their government supervisors.

The deadline for submitting comments on the Volcker Rule is over. Now were turning up the pressure on the SEC to require corporations disclose their political activities.

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Also today, we will be giving you details about our petition drop at Starbucks headquarters. Late last Friday, Public Citizen activists submitted more than 15,000 signatures to Starbucks, demanding the company stop requiring gift card customers to give up their right to go to court. The terms of service of the coffee giant’s prepaid cards contain a forced arbitration clause and class-action ban that unfairly restricts its customers’ legal rights.

Speaking of petition drops, we will be joining folks from CALPRIG and Common Cause today to deliver more than 10,000 signatures to a California Assembly member calling on the state legislature to support a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. That’s the one that let corporations spend as much as they want to influence elections.

Also today, we are urging everyone to tell the Senate not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. A vote is scheduled for tomorrow, and Public Citizen is joining with other organizations to help generate 500,000 emails to senators in 24 hours. Make your voice heard on this critical issue!

You’ve seen the news reports about malfunctioning medical devices – the defibrillators that erroneously shock patients, the replacement hips that leach scraps of metal into their victims and so forth. Amazingly, the medical device industry is pushing Congress to speed up the approval process for medical devices. The trouble is, the approval process is already dangerously flawed, as evidenced by the fact that so many faulty devices are hitting the market. Tomorrow, watch for a significant report we will issue about the medical device approval process and what Congress should do. A congressional hearing on the matter is scheduled for Wednesday on the

And finally, an issue we’ve long fought for, a ban on Congressional insider trading, is on the verge of becoming law this week. The question is will this law have teeth or will House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and the one-percent he seems deadset on protecting claim another victory? Public Citizen President Robert Weissman wrote of Cantor’s move last week to strip the political intelligence registration provision of the bill,

It was quite a brazen move by Cantor. He knows Wall Street is unpopular. He knows the Democrats are going to attack him over the move. He has to know that he is defending the ability of a small slice of Wall Street traders gaining unfair advantage in the markets.

Weissman says, “Now the ball is back in our court.” So who is ready to play ball against these shape-shifters on the Hill? Find out what you can do to eliminate the Eric Cantor Wall Street trading loophole. And click here, to read Robert Weissman’s full post on the fight to ban Congressional insider trading.

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Esteemed Levy Institute scholar L. Randall Wray offers his take on the foreclosure settlement. Wray’s incisive commentary really gets at the bigger “too big to fail” problem. This involves the government’s continued coddling of the big banks for fear that any significant punishment will destabilize them and lead to another financial crisis. It is worth noting that the settlement allows for criminal prosecutions relating to foreclosure fraud. The question remains whether prosecutors will choose to investigate alleged abuses fully and bring charges where appropriate…

State AGs Cave to Banksters

Author: L. Randall Wray

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has long been skeptical of the negotiations by the State Attorneys General and the banksters over the foreclosure frauds (see here http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/settlement-breakdown-by-state-plus-other-official-propaganda.html). And while I had held out some hope that California and New York would either refuse to join, or would insist on good terms, today’s announcement of the settlement makes it clear that the banksters had their way. I expect that the US Attorney General, Eric Holder and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan played important roles in making sure the bank frauds would only get little slaps on the wrist.

Some of the details are not clear, but apparently the 750,000 people who had their homes stolen from them will get a mere $2000 a piece in compensation. That is how this Administration values homeownership. Yep, a bankster can take your home and you might get two thousand bucks–and with that you can pay first and last month’s rent on a cheap, run-down apartment if you are willing to live in a low rent city.

It also gives you some idea of the cost of buying out 49 states: $2.75 billion. Yep, that is all that the states get out of this settlement. They’ll look the other way and let you move in, completely destroy property records and proceed to steal the homes of your citizens while destroying your economy and tax revenues–and for under 3 billion measly dollars you can buy off their chief prosecutors.

What about underwater borrowers? Well after crashing the real estate markets, the worst of the banksters have agreed to provide $3 billion for relief. How far underwater are homeowners? $700 billion. So far.

Oh, and Holder managed to get $750 million for the Federal Government. Boy is he a tough negotiator!

The deal is with the five top mortgage servicers: BofA, JPM-Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Ally Financial. Notice a pattern? Yes, 4 of the top mortgage servicers are also members of the “Dirty Half Dozen” biggest banksters–all we would need to add is Goldman and Morgan-Stanley and we’d have the list of those most responsible for causing the crisis in the first place. (Yes, there were a handful of others, including Bear, Lehman, Merrill, IndyMac, and Countrywide–that either were closed or folded into one of the dirty half dozen.)  Ally is the new name of GMAC–the financial fraudster arm of GM.

The following table was provided with a draft news release. Note it totals to $40 billion; the reason was not made clear–but presumably it has to do with an estimate of indirect borrower relief from short sales and so on.

The filename of the draft press release sent to me was titled “Settlement Swiss Cheese”. I suppose that was in reference to all the holes in this mess that will allow the banksters to continue to steal homes with impunity.

Amount = $ million

http://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2012/02/09/state-ags-cave-to-banksters-2/

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Strange but true: Jack Abramoff makes a splash at Public Citizen
Yes, yes, we know, it was very strange. Notorious ex-superlobbyist Jack Abramoff at Public Citizen?! It happened this week, and oh boy, did Abramoff’s appearance make a splash. Read some of the coverage and watch the video.

25,000 people say: Obama, fix the FEC
A petition on the White House website calling for President Barack Obama to nominate new commissioners to the deadlocked Federal Election Commission (FEC) has garnered 25,000 signatures – enough to prompt the administration to respond.

Obama reverses stance on Super PACs
Putting pragmatism over principle, President Barack Obama has reversed his stance against using Super PACs to benefit his race and is now encouraging donors to give to a Super PAC that is backing his re-election campaign. Reaction has been swift and negative. “The president’s engagement in the Super PAC arms race virtually ensures we will witness the nastiest campaign in memory,” Public Citizen President Robert Weissman said.

But Obama is for a constitutional amendment
President Barack Obama supports a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court case that said corporations can spend as much as they want to influence elections. This is according to a blog post by Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager,

House GOP leadership weakens STOCK Act
What a sorry – but telling – display. The Republican leadership’s weakening of legislation banning congressional insider trading reflects its commitment to the financial industry interests that do not want anyone to know about the trading activities they engage in – activities that are based on insider knowledge gleaned in the halls of Congress. The House bill, which doesn’t prohibit trading by these political intelligence consultants, must be reconciled with a stronger Senate version, which does.

Take two: DISCLOSE Act is reintroduced
A new DISCLOSE Act has been introduced in Congress. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), this version would require more timely disclosure of donors by Super PACs, extend disclosure requirements to other groups that make political expenditures and currently evade disclosure altogether, and require ads to include the identity of major donors. You may recall that the original DISCLOSE Act was killed by the GOP in 2010.

Dollars and Cents …

Nothing like winning to boost fundraising. GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum raised $1 million in the 24 hours after he won contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri …

… Montana’s Supreme Court says the state’s ban on corporate spending in elections will stay in force while the challengers’ effort to seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court remains in the works …

… Harold Simmons, the Texas billionaire who helped pay for the infamous Swift Boat attack ads, has poured $8.5 million in the past six months into groups supporting GOP presidential contenders Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, as well as American Crossroads, a Karl Rove co-founded PAC …

… Voters in the District of Columbia are one step closer to seeing a measure on the November ballot that would ban corporate donations to city candidates …

… As if things weren’t weird enough, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has released a tongue-in-cheek video that promotes the DISCLOSE Act by taking digs at comedian Stephen Colbert for his Super PAC activity. One of her lines: “I hear he doesn’t even like kittens” …

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