Greens Sue NJ Gov. Chris Christie for Dropping Climate Pact

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jun. 6, 2012 10:20 AM PDT

Bob Jagendorf/Flickr

A little over a year ago, New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie announced that the state was dropping out of the northeast climate pact known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Christie declared RGGI, which began in January 2009, a "gimmicky program" and deemed it a failure, touching off outrage among enviros who saw it as the testing ground for larger policies to cut planet-warming emissions. Now greens are suing Christie.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment New Jersey filed the suit on Wednesday. Over on its blog, NRDC argues that Christie circumvented public process when he made his decision to rescind New Jersey's involvement in the pact:

The suit maintains that the Christie administration effectively dissolved the program in the state without following proper legal procedure. That procedure requires the administration to seek public input before making big decisions like this one. For example, by providing notice of its intent to repeal regulations and by giving the public a reasonable opportunity to comment.

Christie is seen a potential running mate for Mitt Romney, who also famously pulled out of RGGIright before it launched after previously supporting it. (Massachusetts eventually signed on after he left office.)

Don't Let Congress and Broadcasters Keep You in the Dark

Don't Let Congress and Broadcasters Keep You in the Dark

A House Appropriations Subcommittee just voted on a measure to decrease transparency for political ads aired on local television stations.

If signed into law, this bill would deny the public better access to information about the wealthy corporations and individuals that are inundating our airwaves with misleading political ads in 2012.

The FCC decision was a milestone in the fight for better democracy. Yet as with any hard-won reform in the age of big-money politics, this change in being attacked by unscrupulous members of Congress, who put the interests of corporate lobbyists before those of everyday Americans.

Please sign this letter to your members of Congress and demand that they serve the public first.

In this post-Citizens United era, we can't let broadcasters hide their political profits.

Obama Coming to L.A. for 2 Beverly Hills Fundraisers

KTLA News

8:19 a.m. PDT, June 6, 2012

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (KTLA) -- President Obama is coming to town Wednesday afternoon for two fundraising events, and that could create traffic problems on Los Angeles' Westside.

The president is expected to depart from San Francisco at 3:15 p.m. and touch down at LAX around 4:20 p.m.

Although the exact route will not be released, in recent months the president has flown by helicopter from LAX to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Westwood.


He has then traveled by motorcade east on Sunset Boulevard over the 405 Freeway and into Beverly Hills.

The Secret Service has typically used rolling street closures to help alleviate traffic congestion.

Obama is scheduled to attend a gala sponsored by the LGBT Leadership Council at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel at 7:15 p.m.

The event was originally supposed to be at the smaller SLS Hotel, but demand for tickets went up after the president openly endorsed same-sex marriage.

Singer Pink is scheduled to perform before a crowd paying $1,250 per person up to $25,000 a piece, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Attendees who shell out $25,000 will get priority seating and a photo with Obama.

After the Beverly Wilshire event, Obama will head to another fundraising event at the Beverly Hills home of "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy at 8:55 p.m.

Dinner with the president at Murphy's home, which he shares with fiance David Miller, will run $40,000 per couple or $25,000 for a solo ticket.

Guests can become co-hosts by agreeing to raise $250,000 for the president's reelection, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Taken together, the concert and dinner could raise between $5 million and $10 million for the Obama's campaign.

Last month, Obama raised a record $15 million at a fundraiser at the Studio City home of actor George Clooney.

The president will spend the night in Los Angeles and depart Thursday morning.

Obama's overnight plans and departure time have not been released.

Russian anti-protest law could fire up opposition

By Alissa de Carbonnel

MOSCOW | Wed Jun 6, 2012 12:42pm EDT

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's opponents warned on Wednesday that their protest movement could become more radical after parliament approved a law increasing fines on protesters who violate public order.

Almost unanimous approval by the upper house completed rapid parliamentary approval of the law, which opponents say is intended to stifle dissent against Putin, whose return to the Kremlin for six more years has triggered large protests.

Putin has said that Russia needs new regulations on protests and earlier this week defended tougher rules governing protests as being in line with European norms.

The bill now needs only his signature to become law and the opposition expects it to be in force by Tuesday, a public holiday when new demonstrations are planned.

"Criticism of the authorities is becoming the main crime in our country," Gennady Gudkov, an opposition member of the lower house of parliament, told Reuters. "This is a draconian law."

"That the authorities are in a hurry, that they are doing everything at lightning speed, points to their key priority ... to suppress dissent and put pressure on peaceful protests," he said.

People at protests where public order is violated could face fines of 300,000 roubles ($9,100) - more than the average annual salary - and the organizers of such rallies could be fined up to 1 million roubles. The maximum fine had been 5,000 roubles.

In a rare show of defiance by what has long been a largely rubber-stamp parliament, opposition lawmakers in the State Duma lower house had dragged out debate on Tuesday before Putin's United Russia party eventually managed to ram it through.

The Federation Council, the upper house, approved it by 132 votes to one, with one abstention, after a short debate.

LAW COULD HAVE UNINTENTIONAL EFFECT

Although the aim is to discourage protests against Putin, who has dominated Russia for 12 years, some of his critics said the law could unintentionally fuel opposition.

"I was still debating whether or not to go (to the Moscow rally) on June 12. Now there is only one possible choice," psychologist and blogger Yulia Rubleva said.

Mikhail Fedotov, the chairman of the Kremlin's human rights' council, said the bill could violate the constitutional right to free assembly.

"If this amendment governing demonstrations casts doubt on the real constitutional right of citizens to gather peacefully, without weapons, there is a real threat that it will serve only to radicalize the protests," he told Reuters.

Communist Party deputy Anatoly Lokot said the protest mood will only grow.

"This law is deepening the gulf that separates the people from the Russian president," he said, adding that "instead of dialogue" the authorities were "brandishing a truncheon".

Police largely left alone the mostly middle-class crowds who protested against Putin's 12-year rule this winter but beat protesters and detained hundreds at a rally in Moscow on May 6, one day before Putin's inauguration.

Some young professionals who have been regulars at the protests, some of which involved just singing songs or walking through parks dressed in white, say they have lost their jobs.

"They thought they would discourage the protests by arresting people like me, who had never before been detained, but they only poured fuel on the fire," said Alisa Obraztsova, a 24-year-old lawyer. ($1 = 32.9987 Russian roubles)

(Additional reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Alissa de Carbonnel; editing by Mark Heinrich/Jeremy Gaunt)

WEDNESDAY, JUN 6, 2012 08:32 AM EDT

Tom Barrett gets slapped

By a disappointed supporter; Dems win Wis. Senate; Calif. strikes at unions; and other top Wednesday stories

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

 
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TOPICS: WISCONSIN RECALL

Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett delivres his concession speech at his election night party Tuesday, June 5, 2012, in Milwaukee. Barrett faced Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in a recall election. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)(Credit: AP)

With 99 percent of precincts reporting: Republican Governor Scott Walker 53.2 percent, Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 46.3 percent.
It was a crushing blow for Democrats and labor activists, and when Barrett came at his election night party to announce he was conceding, he was met with gasps, boos and aggressive shouts. One supporter even slapped the mayor for giving up before all the votes had been counted. Seriously.
Dems win Senate — barely: It’s a small consolation prize, but Democrats appear to have taken control of the Wisconsin state Senate with a win over an incumbent Republican in the 21st District. Still, there is some disappointment as Dems were expected to win and even thought they had a good chance of picking up more than one seat.
A win for the plutocrats: The recall election pitted the money of big out-of-state donors on Walker’s side against the grass roots boots on the ground of unions on Barrett’s side and money won. Salon’s Joan Walsh writes:
It turns out Walker’s anti-union gambit was a defining moment for the modern Republican Party. When Reagan busted PATCO, the air traffic controllers’ union, he accelerated the decline of the American labor movement, and American workers’ wages have declined along with it ever since. When Walker moved against public employee unions, it was an effort to drive the final nail in labor’s coffin, while defunding a crucial resource base for the Democratic Party. Plutocrats rewarded him handsomely for his work, shoveling money into Wisconsin and burying Democrat Tom Barrett with a 7-1 cash disadvantage.
A ray of hope for Obama: Despite the terrible news for Democrats and labor on the whole, there is some good news for President Obama’s reelection campaign, and perhaps some vindication for not getting more involved, despite hackles from some labor groups. Exit polls show Obama beating Romney by 7 points in the state, though that did not include those who voted absentee. Salon’s Steve Kornacki writes: “This doesn’t mean that Obama is a lock to take Wisconsin in the fall, or that the GOP will be wasting its money to compete in the state.”
Two more blows to unions in California: “In both San Diego and San Jose, voters appeared to overwhelmingly approve ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers. Around 70 percent of San Jose voters favored the pension reform measure, with almost 80 percent of precincts reporting. In San Diego, 67 percent had supported a similar pension reform measure, with more than 65 percent of precincts reporting,” the New York Times’ Ian Lovett reports.
Romney email hacked? Authorities are reportedly looking into an alleged hacking of Mitt Romney’s personal Hotmail account after a tipster told Gawker that he had guessed the presidential candidate’s security question and changed his password. Romney allegedly used the personal account as governor to flout open records laws. “The proper authorities are investigating this crime and we will have no further comment on it,” Romney communications director Gail Gitcho said in a statement.
Few options for Obama on the economy: The AP’s Andrew Taylor: “In the wake of an alarmingly weak jobs report last week, President Barack Obama and lawmakers in both parties find themselves possessing few if any realistic options for jolting the economy out of its doldrums before Election Day. Big-ticket items like payroll tax cuts, free-trade agreements, months of extended unemployment benefits and ‘stimulus’ spending on public works and aid to states and local governments have been tried but have failed to spur a sustained, robust recovery. … Obama’s remaining ‘to do list’  for Congress contains a partial tax credit for new hires, extending tax breaks about to expire, renewing highway and mass transit construction programs and preventing interest rates on student loans from doubling. Even combined, they hold little promise of lifting a $15 trillion economy from its torpor.”
Senate Republicans block pay equality bill: Senate Republicans blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act yesterday, which is designed tohelp narrow the pay gap between men and women. The bill earned 52 votes, falling to a Republican filibuster, which would have required 60 votes to break. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called on Romney to show some courage and push Republicans to support pay equality, which the presumed GOP presidential nominee said he he supports in theory. “It’s a very sad day here in the United States Senate,” said Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski after the vote.
A machine gun and call to “take her out”: A Republican challenging Rep. Linda Sanchez, a California Democrat, put out a campaign video in which he demands his supporters  “take Linda Sanchez out.” In the video, a machine is seen firing at a wall with Sanchez’ name on it. The ad also calls the Congresswoman a “hot mess” and says she “has problems budgeting her lifestyle” because she has not paid off her student loans.
The American Prospect on life support: The esteemed liberal magazine faces sad tragic straights and its possible demise. GQ’sMarin Cogin reports the magazine met their $200,000 fundraising goal, but it may be just a band-aid.
She’s the “Birther Queen,” not senator: Orly Taitz, the dentist/lawyer who has made a national name for herself doubting Obama’s birth certificate had a fairly strong showing California’s Senate primary last night, finishing in fifth place with over 113,000 votes.

Close

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon's political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald.

WEDNESDAY, JUN 6, 2012 09:42 AM EDT

Can unions bounce back?

Tom Barrett's defeat in Wisconsin was a devastating blow to labor -- but not a death knell

BY JOSH EIDELSON

 
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TOPICS: WISCONSIN RECALL

Tom Barrett concedes the race at his election night rally in Milwaukee.(Credit: Reuters/John Gress)

MADISON – Last year, Wisconsinites reinvigorated the labor movement as they defied their union-busting governor. Last night, Wisconsinites voted to keep him office. That result cements Wisconsin as the place that best captures both the vitality and the vulnerability of the current U.S. labor movement.
There’s much to mourn in last night’s result. What it reflects: the triumph of big money in politics and the traction of anti-union resentment. What it inspires: even more aggressive attacks from employers and politicians. What it cements: public workers’ legal right to bargain will be anemic in Wisconsin for years.
At an election night party in Madison, the president of a New York union local told me Walker’s victory will inspire Governor Cuomo to go even harder after his union. A Madison school nursing assistant told me it’ll drive her co-workers to leave the profession before their pensions are gutted. And people pondered why so many of their fellow citizens would side with a governor who’d promised to “divide and conquer” union members.
In Wisconsin, what long seemed stable – the political and legal support for workers’ right to negotiate with their boss – turned out, when tested, to be precarious. That’s not the only place that’s happened to unions recently. When Boeing managers bragged about retaliation for strikes, fury from Republicans, complicity from Democrats, and the rusty wheels of the National Labor Relations Board conspired to leave the workers in the lurch. As more employers have been locking out their unionized employees – denying them work until they accepted concessions – workers have found that just having a union contract isn’t enough to keep your boss at bay. Since teacher-bashing became a hot trend in “education reform,” mainstream Democrats boast about defying teachers’ unions, while reassuring them that unlike the GOP, they want them to keep existing. (When I asked Democratic Governors Association Chair Martin O’Malley, who was in Madison campaigning for Barrett, about his fellow Democratic Governor Dan Malloy’s proposal to curtail teachers bargaining rights, O’Malley said he wasn’t familiar with “the nuances of collective bargaining” in Connecticut, but that unlike Walker, Democrats “don’t wade into this with our primary goal being to crush the teacher’s union.”)
Over the past week, canvassers recounted visits to Democratic voters who said that while they didn’t support Walker, they didn’t believe a recall was necessary (of course, some national Democrats agreed with them). Some were probably just pro-Walker Democrats who were being polite; others may really have believed that none of Walker’s offenses was severe enough to disrupt the tradition of four-year terms. Either way, that reaction’s a reminder that an injury to many – the frontal assault on public workers — wasn’t seen by all as an injury to them.
But even as Wisconsin highlights labor’s vulnerability, it shows how dynamic a true labor movement can become. The recall effort itself offers one measure of what labor and its allies accomplished: triggering the third such election in U.S. history, fighting Walker to a close race despite marked asymmetry in cash (and national party support), and seizing control of the state Senate. While Walker’s survival will embolden other anti-union politicians, they’d be far bolder already if labor had just rolled over as rights were stripped away last year.
But the uprising in Wisconsin has accomplished far more than instigating an election. It’s pushed state senators to meet a higher bar: fleeing the state to slow the bill. It’s muscled class and labor back into our culture and media. It’s forged a new wave of activists, and it’s moved working people all over the place.
Last week, it included workers at Palermo’s Pizza in Milwaukee, who went on strike to win union recognition. Workers told me that last year’s occupation in Madison helped inspire them to defy their boss and strike, even in the face of management wielding immigration audits as a weapon. The Palermo’s workers aren’t affiliated with an international union; they’re working closely with Voces De La Frontera, an immigrant rights group whose connection to unions was deepened when they occupied the capitol together last year. That occupation, Voces De La Frontera’s Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz told me yesterday, created “a lot of room for creative and broader partnerships, and just a broadening of the labor movement.”
On Monday, when I asked one of the Palermo’s workers about how his struggle related to the one that had occupied the capital, he told me matter-of-factly in Spanish: “It’s the same.” He wasn’t offering charity or quid pro quo. He was showing solidarity, that sense that of shared purpose and shared stakes that last year kept farmers and firefighters occupying their capitol together.
Wisconsin foreshadowed other labor uprisings that followed. Like the Wisconsinites, more workers defied expectations, or defied the law. Port truck drivers classified as “independent contractors,” not employees, went on strike despite the law and massed at their state capitol to change it. Longshore workers ignored injunctions and occupied train tracks rather than let them be used to do their work without their union. Tomato growers forced Trader Joe’s to negotiate with them – not through any legal authority, but by organizing consumers and wielding the power to boycott.
With legal collective bargaining rights set to stay hamstrung in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell told me yesterday, “collective action, collective voice doesn’t change. In fact, without the protections of the collective bargaining, collective voice is sometimes the only voice you have in the workplace.”
Soon after Scott Walker declared victory, South Central Federation of Labor President Kevin Gundlach told me that the tasks now facing Wisconsin’s labor movement would have been necessary even if Walker lost: “We would have to rebuild our unions. We would have to do a lot of community outreach and coalition building…We have to embolden our workers” and take on “workplace actions that could lead to other forms of power.”
The U.S. labor movement is at a Wisconsin moment in the best and worst sense: it keeps showing strength and weakness in unexpected places. Wisconsin shows that labor can still be a militant, growing, mass social movement – and that it has to be one in order to survive in the face of existential threat.

Josh Eidelson is a freelance journalist and a contributor at The American Prospect and In These Times. After receiving his MA in Political Science, he worked as a union organizer for five years.MORE JOSH EIDELSON.

LOLGOP ‏@LOLGOP

Weird. People won't pay for unions that aren't allowed to bargain on their behalf. Doesn't sound like an evil plan at all.

California primaries show Democratic divide on education

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By Stephanie Simon

Wed Jun 6, 2012 12:22pm EDT

(Reuters) - Democratic candidates backed by wealthy advocates for charter schools squeaked past rivals backed by teachers unions in two California state assembly primary races on Tuesday, highlighting a bitter split in the Democratic Party over education policy.

The most contentious race was in Assembly District 46, a heavily Democratic swath of Los Angeles suburbs.

Wealthy philanthropists, hedge-fund managers and internet entrepreneurs - bound together by a common goal of overhauling public education - spent an eye-popping $1.4 million to bolster the candidacy of Brian Johnson, a Democrat who until recently ran a network of charter schools.

Johnson narrowly edged Andrew Lachman, a Democrat supported by the California Teachers Association, to secure second place in the six-person primary and earn a chance to face voters again in the fall, according to final results from the California Secretary of State's office.

Under California's new non-partisan primary system, the top two finishers advance to the November general election regardless of party affiliation.

The teachers union spent nearly $500,000 on ads attacking Johnson, but he drew 20.3 percent of the vote, to Lachman's 19.3 percent. The top vote-getter was another Democrat, Adrin Nazarian, the chief of staff to a Los Angeles city councilman. Nazarian has been endorsed by several other unions and college faculty associations.

A similar pattern played out in Assembly District 57, which runs along the border between Los Angeles and Orange Counties in Southern California.

Democrat Ian Calderon - the son of one of the most powerful state assemblymen in the capital Sacramento - beat out fellow Democrat Rudy Bermudez by 231 votes in Tuesday's primary to advance to the general election. Bermudez, a former parole guard, was endorsed by the California Teachers Association, though the union did not spend money on the race.

The top vote-getter was Republican businessman Noel Jaimes, but the district is overwhelmingly Democratic, making Calderon the favorite for November.

Calderon, a 26-year-old surfing champion and newcomer to politics, has pledged to give parents unprecedented power over their public schools, including the right to fire failing administrators, direct extra pay to successful teachers and control budgets.

That agenda resonates with a coalition known as "education reformers," who have been working in California and nationally to promote a more free-market approach to public education. Teachers unions bitterly object, saying there's no proof the reform agenda will improve student learning.

Among the policies opposed by teachers unions: Expanding charter schools, which are publicly funded but typically run by private firms; evaluating teachers in large part by their students' scores on standardized tests; and abolishing the seniority rules that protect veteran teachers from layoffs.

Teachers unions have long been among the most reliable - and most generous - allies of Democratic politicians. So the education reform community has moved aggressively to provide an alternative.

Donors such as developer Eli Broad, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, have spent heavily to back Democratic politicians willing to buck the teachers unions.

Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington D.C. public schools, also emerged as a major player in the California primaries.

Rhee runs an education advocacy group, StudentsFirst, which spent $370,000 to back Calderon and about $400,000 in support of Johnson. The political action committee she founded to engage in California races started out with $2 million, which would leave more than $1 million in reserve for the general election.

(Reporting by Stephanie Simon in Denver; Editing by Paul Simao)

SNAP Benefits to be reduced by $90/month under Farm Bill

EconomicHardship ‏@econhardship

#CBO estimates that, under #Farm Bill proposal, 500,000 households/year would have their #SNAP benefits reduced by an average of $90/month.

June 6, 2012

Voters in California Back Pension Cuts for City Workers

By IAN LOVETT

LOS ANGELES — As Wisconsin residents voted on Tuesday not to recall Gov. Scott Walker — who has become an enemy of labor unions nationwide — two California cities dealt blows of their own to organized labor.

In San Diego and San Jose, voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers.

Around 70 percent of San Jose voters favored the pension measure, while 66 percent of San Diego residents supported a similar measure.

"This is really important to our taxpayers," Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose, said Tuesday night. "We’ll get control over these skyrocketing retirement costs and be able to provide the services they are paying for."

Statewide, voters also remained very closely divided on a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes, which would be the first increase in the cigarette tax here in 14 years. Proceeds from the tax would not go to state coffers, but would instead finance cancer research.

The tax remained too close to call on Wednesday morning, according to The Associated Press, although opponents of the measure appeared to cling to a razor-thin lead with all precincts reporting.

Antismoking advocates, who promoted the tax as the best way to reduce smoking rates, were outspent nearly four to one. Their opponents, financed largely by the tobacco industry, spent almost $47 million in advertisements to defeat the measure.

Public employee unions, meanwhile, had fought hard against the two pension reform initiatives.

The San Diego Municipal Employees Association brought an unsuccessful legal challenge in an effort to keep the measure off the ballot.

Speaking to KPBS, a local television station, Michael Zucchet, general manager of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, said last month that the ballot initiative would not save the city money.

“This initiative doesn’t save anything,” Mr. Zucchet said. “You are basically cutting off your nose to spite your face for pension reform.”

Mr. Zucchet did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday night.

But the mayors of both cities pushed the pension reforms hard, arguing that changes to city worker pensions were essential to keep municipal budgets in the black.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said he hoped the initiatives would provide models for other cities and for the state government, where pension reform efforts have stalled. "The appetite for pension reform in California is huge," Mr. Coupal said.

Tuesday also offered the first widespread test of the state’s new primary system, in which the top two vote-getters move on to a runoff, regardless of party affiliation.

One of the most heavily financed races pit two sitting Democratic representatives, colleagues in the House for 15 years, against each other to represent the San Fernando Valley: Brad Sherman won with 42 percent of the vote, and Howard L. Berman had 32 percent. They will face each other again in the November runoff.

June 6, 2012, 11:06 AM

Summers Suggests Temporarily Extending the Bush-Era Tax Cuts

12:15 p.m. | Updated 
Confusing economic comments – first by former President Bill Clinton, then by Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s first National Economic Council director – have emboldened Republicans to press for the immediate extension of all of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, with a claim that they have bipartisan backing.

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program Wednesday, Mr. Summers, one of the president’s closest economic advisers, was asked about President Clinton’s comments on the tax cuts and the poor jobs report of last week. Pressed for his advice, he said: “The real risk to this economy is on the side of slowdown, certainly not on the side of overheating, and that means we’ve got to make sure we don’t take gasoline out of the tank at the end of this year. That’s got to be the top priority.”

The Bush-era tax cuts expire Jan. 1.

But Mr. Summers, in a later statement, said he was not contradicting Mr. Obama, who has vowed to let tax cuts for the wealthy expire.

“I fully support President Obama’s position on tax cuts. I have often said and continue to believe that promoting demand is the most critical short run priority for the American economy. Extending the high income tax cut does little for demand and poses substantial problems of fairness and fiscal prudence,” he said in an emailed statement.

Mr. Summers later in the MSNBC interview clearly supported tax hikes on the rich, but was less clear on the timeframe.

“You’ve got to look to the people who’ve gotten the most gains from the economy over the last 30 years, and who have also gotten the biggest tax reductions,” he said. “It’s not taking from them. It’s simply asking them to do their fair share at a time when the country has to pull together to work through some difficult problems.”

The back-and-forth over the Summers comments mirrored the flap over Mr. Clinton’s. In an interview on CNBC, Mr. Clinton appeared to say tax increases and Republican-led spending cuts should be temporarily set aside until the economy regains its footing. Those comments angered the Obama re-election campaign and were quickly followed by a retraction. A Clinton spokesman on Tuesday said the former president does not believe tax cuts for the wealthy need be extended.

Regardless of intent, the political damage may have been done. Public opinion polls have consistently shown strong majorities of Americans favor deficit reduction that includes spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy. But Republicans, who oppose any tax hikes, are on offense – thanks in part to the mixed Democratic messages.

House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio cited both Mr. Summers and Mr. Clinton, who “came out for it before he was against it” in calling for the extension of all the tax cuts “for at least a year.” The Bush tax cuts expire on Jan. 1.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, said President Obama justified the extension of the Bush tax cuts for two years in December 2010 because of a struggling economy. At 1.9 percent, the growth rate in the first three months of this year was slower than the end of 2010, when the economy grew 2.8 percent.

“We have to do everything we can to grow this economy,” said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader.

But Republicans gave no indication they are willing to cut a broad, anti-austerity deal that would include postponing deep spending cuts to domestic programs. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority whip, said the government has grown enough. He added Republicans will not come to the table until they believe they have a White House negotiating partner.

“You need somebody on the other side who wants to make a deal, and the No. 1 way to do that is to put people before politics,” he said. “And this president this year has done nothing but politics.”