Jane talked to Congressman Barney Frank, a crusader for cost-of-living increase, who said he will NOT vote for The Gang of Six deal (which includes a calculation that would decrease cost-of-living adjustments). She reported on the 2000 people saying no to cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits… who visited over 40 Congressional offices to let them know if they vote for cuts they won’t get support in the next election. Now, she’ll talk to us about what comes next.

I spoke with Barney Frank today about the current debt ceiling debate. He said he would not vote for any bill that raised the debt ceiling which included cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits, including a chained CPI, which is included in the Gang of 6 deal.

Yes, switching to chained CPI changes not only the cost of living adjustment for Social Security and other benefit programs that use a COLA, like federal pensions and veteran’s benefits. It also changes the cost of living adjustment for…. tax brackets. A tax bracket that might go up, say, $100 year-over-year would only go up $50, under chained CPI. And that means that higher tax brackets would be available at lower yearly income. This sounds technical, but the point is it’s a tax increase, designed to bring in $60 billion over ten years. What’s more, it’s a regressive tax increase.

Today a small bipartisan group of House members lead by Ron Paul (R-TX) and Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee, thinks that the Republican efforts to both block any appointment for the Directorship of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and to now block recess appointments so a Director cannot be installed, comprises an “outrageous abuse of the Constitution,” and must mean that the “Republicans are completely afraid of Elizabeth Warren,” who is currently setting up the bureau, and who is the leading candidate to take it over.

There has been more momentum toward the bin Laden death leading to an exit from our occupation of Afghanistan than I expected.

A month ago, Brad Miller and a dozen other Congressmen — including House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank — wrote the Financial Stability Oversight Council to ask that they look into the systemic dangers of foreclosure fraud. Timmeh Geithner just responded to that letter. His response makes it clear he actually read Miller’s letter — because he references the first item I’ve laid out above, though rather than actually respond to that request, he describes what the FSOC is actually doing instead of examining collateral loan files. His response to the second and third requests is even more insolent; he refuses to even repeat the second one, and rather than consider either one seriously, he just says FSOC will take action “if abuses are found.”

Here’s just a quick example for why a pay freeze for public workers is about the stupidest policy you could put together right now. If you’re Barack Obama, you believe have engineered two signature victories through the Congress. You have a health care bill where the regulation that is key to the bill has been outsourced to state insurance regulatory shops (which is a problem), meaning that the relative effectiveness of the regulations are contingent on states allocating resources to those departments. In this time of budget cuts at the state level, that’s shaky.

The Senate planned to hold tax cut votes today on four separate proposals: one to extend the Bush-era rates on the first $250,000 of income, the “millionaire’s bracket” plan to extend the rates up to $1 million dollars, a Republican plan to extend the Bush rates permanently, and a plan to extend them for five years. This was all subject to getting unanimous consent on the four bills. One Republican objected, scuttling the votes and perhaps setting up a series of cloture votes on Saturday.

A letter from Rep. Brad Miller and other members of Congress urges the Financial Stability Oversight Council to take action to prevent the foreclosure fraud problem from becoming a systemic crisis. The letter reminds the FSOC that Dodd-Frank gives them the power to avoid a systemic crisis. Barney Frank has signed the letter, and Chris Dodd has already admonished Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to employ FSOC to mitigate systemic risk. And thus far?

Crickets. From both the Administration and the media.