Archive for the ‘Government Spending’ Category

But Obama continues to blame Republicans for not passing his “Jobs Bill” (really another “Porkulus” Bill) “right now”

THE HILL: Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, at the moment, Democrats in Congress don’t have the votes to pass President Obama’s jobs bill, but Durbin added that that situation would change.

“Not at the moment, I don’t think we do, but, uh, we can work on it,” Durbin said, according to Chicago radio station WLS.

President Obama has been calling for Congress to pass his American Jobs Act since legislators returned from their August recess. The jobs plan is made up of a combination of tax increases on the wealthy, new infrastructure spending, an extension of the employee payroll-tax cut and additional funding for unemployment insurance benefits.

Read more here >>>

POLITICO: Former President Bill Clinton says now is not the time to hike taxes.

“I personally don’t believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending, either one, until we get this economy off the ground,” Clinton told Newsmax in an interview Tuesday. “This has been a dead flat economy.”

Clinton, who is hosting the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting in New York City this week, said that until the country’s debt is reduced, he doesn’t believe cutting or raising taxes or boosting spending are the solution to bringing the country to a full employment economy.

Read more here >>>

NEW YORK TIMES: The 1,100 full- and part-time employees who were abruptly laid off two weeks ago aren’t the only ones whose paychecks have been affected by the sudden and dramatic failure of bankrupt solar energy company, Solyndra Inc.

Because for its brief lifespan, Solyndra proved to be pretty good for the lobbying community.

According to records filed with the Clerk of the House and a search of disclosure forms compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Solyndra spent nearly $1.9 million on lobbying activities over a period of 43 months from 2008 to 2011.

About $1 million of that was earned by the company’s two in-house lobbyists, Joseph Pasetti and Victoria Sanville, over an 18-month period from 2010 until this year. But Solyndra has also had several big-name lobbying shops on its payroll, including established powerhouses Dutko Worldwide and Holland and Knight, which began representing the then-fledgling company in 2008.

Read more here >>>

CNS: There were only 1.75 full-time private-sector workers in the United States last year for each person receiving benefits from Social Security, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security board of trustees.

That means that for each husband and wife who worked full-time in the private sector last year there was a Social Security recipient somewhere in the country taking benefits from the federal government.

Read more here >>>

Threatens “Pass My Jobs Plan Now,” or else. Then says we have to wait until next week to see his plan.

Most of the $450 billion he wants will go to his union cronies.

RON FOURNIER-NATIONAL JOURNAL: Pass this jobs bill, and we can put people to work. Pass this jobs bill, and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work. Pass this job bill, and we’ll cure cancer, sprout wings, and fly.

OK, that last quote wasn’t really Obama’s. But the first two promises—and many more poll-tested pledges—adorned his address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night. It was a reelection campaign speech that may go a long way toward convincing dubious voters that Obama “gets it”—that he understands how tough life is for middle-class and unemployed Americans.

First, the president opened with an I-feel-your-pain homage that echoed former President Clinton’s 1992 campaign against George H.W. Bush, a one-term president saddled with the impression that he lacked empathy. Second, Obama offered a creative collection of economic ideas—none of them blockbuster—that were better targeted economically and politically than his 2009 stimulus plan.

Read more here >>>

The GOP response to Obama’s Job’s Plan should go something like this . . .

ASSOCIATED PRESS: A Standard & Poor’s official says there is a 1 in 3 chance that the U.S. credit rating could be downgraded another notch if conditions erode over the next six to 24 months.

The credit rating agency’s managing director, John Chambers, tells ABC’s “This Week” that if the fiscal position of the U.S. deteriorates further, or if political gridlock tightens even more, a further downgrade is possible.

Chambers also said Sunday that it would take “stabilization and eventual decline” of the federal debt as a share of the economy as well as more consensus in Washington for the U.S. to win back a top rating.

Read more here >>>

Tim Geitherner is clearly the most incompetent Treasury Secretary in U.S. history. It’s obvious to any 10 year-old kid that he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing.

WASHINGTON POST: Standard & Poor’s announced Friday night that it has
downgraded the United States credit rating for the first time, dealing a huge symbolic blow to the world’s economic superpower in what was a sharply worded critique of the American political system.

Lowering the nation’s rating one-notch below AAA, the credit rating company said “political brinkmanship” in the debate over the debt had made the U.S. government’s ability to manage its finances “less stable, less effective and less predictable.” It said the bi-partisan agreement reached this week to find at least $2.1 trillion in budget savings “fell short” of what was necessary to tame the nation’s debt over time and predicted that leaders would not be likely to achieve more savings later on.

The decision came after a day of furious back-and-forth between the Obama administration and S&P. Government officials fought back hard, arguing that S&P made a flawed analysis of the potential for political agreement and had mathematical errors in its initial report, which was submitted to the Treasury earlier in the day. The company had overstated the U.S. deficit over 10 years by $2 trillion, officials said.

Read more here >>>

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Gripped by fear of another recession, the financial markets suffered their worst day Thursday since the crisis of 2008. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 500 points, its ninth-steepest decline ever.

The sell-off wiped out the Dow’s gains for 2011. It put the Dow and broader stock indexes into what investors call a correction — down 10 percent from the highs of this spring.

“We are continuing to be bombarded by worries about the global economy,” said Bill Stone, the chief investment strategist for PNC Financial.

The day was reminiscent of the wild swings that defined the markets during the crisis three years ago. Gold prices briefly hit a record high, oil fell an extraordinary $5 a barrel, and frightened investors were so desperate to get into some government bonds that they were willing accept almost no return on their money.

WASHINGTON TIMES: U.S. debt shot up $239 billion on Tuesday — the largest one-day bump in history — as the government flexed the new borrowing room it earned in this week’s debt-limit increase deal.

The debt subject to the statutory limit shot way past the old cap of $14.294 trillion to hit $14.532 trillion on Tuesday, according to the latest the Treasury Department figures, which are released on the next business day.

That increase puts the government already remarkably close to the new debt limit of $14.694, which means one day’s new borrowing ate up 60 percent of the $400 billion in space Congress granted the president this week.

Debt numbers go up and down regularly, depending on what the Treasury Department is redeeming or issuing on any day, but have been on a steep upward trend for the past decade as spending has ballooned and revenues have fluctuated.

Read more here >>>