Morning Must Reads

By first taking a hard line on demonstrations and protests, the mullahs drew Obama into his first rebuke of the Tehran regime. But even as the White House was considering the next move under pressure from pro-democracy Americans, the theocrats in Iran seemed to undertake the recount they promised last week.

The Iranian government’s argument that all nations have to work out their own electoral problems seems designed to box in Obama, who has spoken at great length about the equality of nations.

“At a news conference Monday, Hassan Qashqavi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, called the turnout — officially put at 85 percent, or 40 million voters — a ‘brilliant gem which is shining on the peak of dignity of the Iranian nation.’

He accused unidentified western powers and news organizations, which are operating under extremely tight official restrictions, of spreading unacceptable ‘anarchy and vandalism.’ But, he said, the outcome of the vote would not be changed. ‘We will not allow western media to turn this gem into a worthless stone,’ he said.

Mr. Qashqavi drew comparisons with American election results.

‘No one encouraged the American people to stage a riot’ because they disagreed with the re-election of George W. Bush,’ he said.”
 
Washington Post – Recovery’s Missing Ingredient: New Jobs
 
President Barack Obama is starting to hear the phrase that dogged his predecessor throughout 2003 and 2004 – jobless recovery. Democrats, including Obama, beat up George W. Bush for engineering an economic turnaround that left working people behind.
Writer Michael Fletcher points out that as Obama admits that 10 percent unemployment will soon be a reality and economists suggest that job losses may continue through the summer of 2010, the president and his party are looking for a way to get a lagging indicator to quit lagging so much.

A second stimulus is gaining currency in some influential circles.

“Before passage of the stimulus bill, the Obama administration had predicted that unemployment would peak at 8 percent before beginning to abate this fall. But unemployment has already reached 9.4 percent, the highest level in a quarter-century, and the situation is not projected to start improving until long after the White House had predicted.

Many economists agree that the job market would be in much worse shape had the stimulus package not been enacted. And some say more stimulus measures may be needed, even as the federal government grapples with a huge budget deficit.

‘There is a good economic argument to be made that the government has not done enough stimulus,’ said Niko Karvounis, a policy analyst at the New America Foundation who recently wrote a report warning that the economic recovery is likely to be tepid and accompanied by unusually high unemployment.”
 
Wall Street Journal — Changes Urged to Rules on Condo Loans
 
Having just helped precipitate the inflation and bursting of the housing bubble by letting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get out of hand, Rep. Barney Frank is already calling for a loosening of the restrictions put in place following the collapse.

Writer Nick Timiraos explains that Fannie and Freddie won’t underwrite mortgages for Condos in buildings that are less than 70 percent occupied or where there are major delinquencies in 15 percent of the units or one owner has more than 10 percent pf the units. It was deemed necessary after the lenders took repeated pasting on buildings where speculators ran up prices and then couldn’t sell.

Frank wants Fannie and Freddie to drop the rules to make it easier for sellers to move condo inventory.

“Fannie Mae officials say the new rules haven’t been as taxing as some claim. The mortgage company said the 70% rule doesn’t apply to loan applications submitted through an underwriting program used by major lenders, and that hundreds of projects submitted through that program since March 1 have been approved even though their sales levels are below 70%. Developers are also able to apply for exemptions to the new policies for loans that are manually underwritten. Both Fannie and Freddie say they are preparing a response to the lawmakers.

‘In the absence of these changes, Fannie and Freddie would be putting good money after bad and run the risk of further increasing the building epidemic of foreclosures and dysfunctional homeowner associations in Florida and around the country,’ said Charles Foschini, vice chairman of CB Richard Ellis in South Florida.”
 
New York Times — White House Changes the Terms of a Campaign Pledge About Posting Bills Online

The White House has been struggling with the president’s pledge to operate the “most transparent” administration ever. Visitor logs are kept hidden, Justice Department lawyers regularly defend secrecy exemptions despised by liberals and, most gratingly to his supporters and the press corps, the promised five-day viewing period for legislation awaiting the president has been almost utterly ignored.

The administration tried it’s new interpretation of the five-day pledge on writer Katharine Seelye – when legislation looks likely to pass, the White House will post online. But interested parties can already go to legislative sites and see that. The reason Obama promised the waiting period so that America’s citizen inspectors would have five days to look over the bill before Obama made it into law.

“Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning research organization, has tracked Mr. Obama’s bill-signing history. He said posting bills before final passage could be problematic because of last-minute changes.
One glaring example came in February, when it was discovered that the 1,071-page federal stimulus bill allowed millions of dollars in bonuses for American International Group executives.

If members of Congress know that final language will be ‘sitting out there’ for five days, Mr. Harper said, they might be less likely to try to slip in questionable items. And if Mr. Obama keeps his pledge to wait five days, Mr. Harper said, he might set an example for Congress.”
 
Wall Street Journal — In the House, It’s Peterson vs. Climate Bill
 
Writer Stephen Power provides a brilliant snapshot of why the second leg of the president’s tripartite agenda – cap and trade – is perhaps hopelessly stalled.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House encouraged Rep. Henry Waxman and his environmental committee to rush a bill through to clear the deck for health care. Now rather than continuing to push the bill at breakneck pace, the speaker is letting run the gauntlet of committees.

The White House has already established the EPAs power to regulate carbon dioxide as if it were harmful to human life, as well as banning types of coal mining and ordering hard-line emissions limits for carmakers. So liberals have little interest in fighting to the end for a bill that, even in its original form would allow some carbon emitters to prosper.

As a result, the Waxman bill, heralded by the president on Feb. 24, is on a legislative death march. The place where its journey may end is on the House Agriculture Committee run by Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota farm country not impressed by the Obama-Waxman approach to the subject. Peterson sees more expensive electricity for his district, less ethanol production by farmers and profiteering by connected industries in Waxman’s plan.

As for the threat of being branded a global warming denier for his obstruction, Peterson seems untroubled:

“An accountant by training with a well-creased face and a fondness for cowboy boots, Mr. Peterson shows little enthusiasm for passing climate legislation. After the administration released a report last week by government scientists warning of increased heat, pests, water shortages, disease and other impacts of climate change on crop and livestock production, Mr. Peterson laughed and said farmers in his district would welcome warmer temperatures after a recent cold spell.

‘They’re going to be able to grow more corn,’ he said.”