Think Progress

ECONOMY -- LUTZ CONTRADICTS WAGONER, SAYS AMERICANS WANT SUVS AND PICK-UPS: General Motors submitted its restructuring plan to Congress last week in an effort to receive billions in federal aid,  it pledged "a dramatic shift in the company's U.S. portfolio" toward "more fuel-efficient cars and crossovers" and "extensive investment in a wide array of advanced propulsion technologies." Testifying before Congress, GM CEO Rick Wagoner said that one of GM’s "mistakes" had been "not moving fast enough to invest in smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles for the U.S. market." Yet, just yesterday on Fox News, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz seemed a bit off message, insisting that Americans still want large SUVs and that small vehicles are a bad investment. As gas prices fall, "the American public wants sport utilities and large pickup trucks," Lutz said. When Fox host Brian Kilmeade noted that Americans used to want big gas guzzlers, Lutz remained defiant, "No, they do now." Wagoner had pledged an "increased commitment" to alternative fuel-driven cars. What's more, the bailout money could be conditional on the auto companies dropping their lawsuits against states seeking tougher emissions standards. Given all this, Lutz seemed to undermine GM's sincerity and its chances for receiving the bailout money.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS -- PAY GAP DEPRIVES WOMEN OF $434,000 IN LIFETIME EARNINGS: A new Center for American Progress Action Fund report by Jessica Arons finds that the career pay gap -- the difference between the median wages of full-time working men and women over a 40 year period -- deprives women of an average of $434,000 over the course of their working lives. A woman typically makes 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man doing similar work -- a gap that widens over time. The pay gap persists across all income and education levels; in fact, women with the most education lose the most comparatively in earnings. Arons notes that women with a college degree or higher lose $713,000 over a 40-year period, versus $270,000 lost for women who do not finish high school. The pay gap is the widest in finance and management careers, and narrowest in construction and maintenance. As Arons writes, "The career pay gap represents an outrageous, unacceptable, and unjustifiable loss to women and their families, as well as to our economy." Congress can do something to close the gap by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would make it easier for women to be compensated for pay discrimination and give employers incentives to close the pay gap. I Am Progress released a video encouraging Congress to act. Watch it and sign a petition telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to stop blocking pay equity. 

ECONOMY -- FORMER HOUSING CEOS: POOR PEOPLE DID NOT CAUSE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS: Yesterday, four former CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac testified on how their companies' actions may have "contributed to the ongoing crisis." Blaming Fannie, Freddie, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and low-income people is one of conservatives' favorite talking points, as The Progress Report has documented. But at the beginning of the hearing, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said that 400,000 documents amassed by the committee showed that the right-wing claim is nothing more than a myth. Furthermore, later in the hearing, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) asked the CEOs whether poor people caused the current financial crisis. All said "no." Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977, requiring banks "to lend throughout the communities they serve." In the 1990s, greater mortgage lending to lower-income households by CRA-covered banks increased the homeownership rate for lower-income and minority families. As the Center for American Progress's Tim Westrich has written, "The real culprits in the mortgage mess are non-bank mortgage companies -- not covered by CRA -- that originated the lion's share of bad mortgages at the heart of the crisis. They made an estimated 50 percent of subprime loans in 2005."

Bank of America has agreed to extend a loan to Republic Windows and Doors so that it can pay its workers. Since Friday, 250 laid-off employees have been staging a sit-in at the shuttered Chicago factory, protesting the fact that the company gave them just three days notice of the plant's closing.

A tentative agreement between President Bush and congressional Democrats would give a $15 billion loan to the Big Three as early as next week and allow Bush to immediately appoint a "car czar" to oversee the bailout. Congress could revoke the funds if the companies failed to cut costs and restructure debt by March 31. So far, Democrats have kept a provision requiring automakers to drop lawsuits opposing California's strict emissions limits, but the White House says the rule could kill the deal.

Former Clinton administration EPA chief Carol Browner is expected to "take a new White House position as head of environmental, energy, climate and related matters." Progressive reformers have advocated the creation of a "National Energy Advisor" to coordinate government resources in transforming our nation to a low-carbon economy.

The House Ethics Committee voted to expand its investigation into Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) to "examine his role in preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company whose chief executive pledged $1 million to a City College of New York project" that will bear Rangel's name. Rangel insisted yesterday he will not step down.

Yesterday, New Jersey's 13-member Civil Union Review Commission unanimously concluded that state legislators "should allow gay couples to marry, setting up what could be a spirited debate over whether the state should be the first to allow gay marriage by passing a law, rather than by court mandate." The panel included both liberal advocates and a self-described "pro-life Republican." More »

The Iowa Supreme Court is now hearing "a case that could make Iowa the first Midwestern state to legalize same-sex marriage." The legal core of the case, Varnum v. Brien, "is whether the state’s 10-year-old law defining a 'valid' marriage as only 'between a male and female' violates the Iowa Constitution’s guarantees of equal treatment and due process."

963,000,000: The number of people who are facing a hunger crisis in the world, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. "The ongoing financial and economic crisis could tip even more people into hunger and poverty," the FAO added.

"A lawyer for former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama urged a federal appeals court panel on Tuesday to overturn Mr. Siegelman’s 2006 bribery conviction” but the justices seemed unlikely to overturn the conviction. If the court rules against Siegelman, "he faces a return to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence of seven years and four months."

A new study by the New America Foundation "places the United States at the top of the list of the world's leading arms-selling nations in 2007, accounting for more than 45 percent of all global weapons transfers." The Bush administration "signed arms sales agreements...worth more than $32 billion last year, including with one or more parties involved in 20 of the world's 27 major conflicts."

British troops will begin withdrawing from Iraq in March after regional elections in southern Iraq, and the troop levels will fall to 300-400 by June, according to the Ministry of Defense. "A U.S. brigade will replace the British force at Basra airport."

And finally: Washington, DC jewelers are breaking out the inauguration "bling." The DC Examiner has some photos of pieces here.