Earlier this week, under pressure from conservatives, President Obama agreed to remove a provision expanding access to comprehensive family planning services for low-income women from the economic recovery package. But TPMDC reports that at yesterday’s Lilly Ledbetter Act signing ceremony, Obama assured attendees “that the family planning aid would be done soon — perhaps as soon as next week, when the House is set to take up a spending bill that would keep the government funded until October.” As ThinkProgress reported earlier, the CBO estimates that this provision would save the government around $700 million over 10 years.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Obama Plans To Reintroduce Family Planning Funding
Think Progress
Biggest Drop In GDP In 27 Years
If tax cuts are the most stimulative approach to rebooting the economy, as Republicans claim in rejecting Obama's spending approach stimulus plan, then the economy should already be racing, given the trillions of dollars in tax cuts President Bush and Republicans already gave the nation over the past eight years. Right? Wrong!
When Bush's White House proposed the 2003 cuts, they promised that it would add 5.5 million new jobs between June 2003 and the end of 2004. But "by the end of 2004, there were only 2.6 million more jobs than in June 2003."
As Paul Krugman has pointed out, the belief that Bush's tax cuts successfully stimulated the economy is a form of mythology. CAP's Michael Ettlinger and John Irons wrote in September, "Economic growth as measured by real U.S. gross domestic product was stronger following the tax increases of 1993 than in the two supply-side eras" that followed Reagan's 1981 tax cuts and Bush's 2001 tax cuts.
Indeed, employment growth was much stronger post-1993 than post-2001. The average annual employment growth was 2.5 percent after 1993 and just 0.6 percent after 2001.
And, remember President Bush's $168 billion tax cut/rebate economic stimulus plan the United States Congress approved in February of 2008, to help stave off economic recession. That does not seem to have worked either. Martin Feldstein wrote in the Wall Street Journal that of course the tax cut stimulus didn't work:
way to stimulate the economy as compared to tax cuts TPM:
At a luncheon meeting of the Plano Chamber of Commerce on Friday Jan. 23 Senator Hutchison said that she could not support President Barack Obama's proposed $825 billion stimulus package because it wouldn't provide an instant jolt to the economy.
Hutchison said the bill, among other things, would lift the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and allocate billions of dollars to help pay for college, build roads and other structures and invest in alternative fuels and other projects that would not stimulate the economy. Hutchison further said the effect of the sweeping spending plan would be to drive up the federal deficit. "What we're looking for is a jump-start," Hutchison said, "This is not going to be a jump-start."
According to the Dallas Morning News, both Texas senators predicted a lopsided vote in the Senate similar to the House vote where every Republican voted against Obama's plan.
Senate Republicans Are Gearing Up To Filibuster The Recovery Package Despite Promises To The Contrary On Friday night on NPR’s All Things Considered, host Robert Siegel asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) about the prospects of a Republican filibuster of the Senate’s version of the economic recovery package. Grassley responded that Republicans would indeed filibuster the package, requiring the bill to garner a 60-vote majority for passage, despite the fact that the Senate version of the recovery package is already loaded up with a significant number of provisions sought by conservative Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly said that Republicans “would not filibuster against the stimulus package.” He remarked earlier this month, “I don’t think this measure’s going to have any problem getting over 60 votes.”
On the other hand - Most Republican governors have broken with their GOP colleagues in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama's economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care. The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, scheduled meetings in Washington this weekend with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other senators to press for her state's share of the package. Tx Gov. Rick Perry's Transportation Department is lobbying to maximize its haul of federal money from an $819 billion stimulus bill too.
Related Posts:
The U.S. Department of Commerce reported this morning that in the fourth quarter of 2008 the economy shrank at its fastest pace in nearly 27 years, sinking deeper into recession as consumers and business cut spending.As Center for American Progress Senior Fellows Christian Weller and John Halpin noted in 2006, the outcome of the 2001 tax cuts was "the weakest employment growth in decades." The 2003 tax cuts didn't fare much better, resulting in job creation that was "well below historical averages."
The government report shows a broad-based contraction across nearly every business sector with the gross domestic product, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, in a near free fall 3.8 percent annual rate of contraction in the fourth quarter. That is the biggest drop since the first quarter of 1982, when output contracted 6.4 percent.
The Commerce Department report said that consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, fell 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter, after declining 3.8 percent in the third quarter, and Q4 spending on durable goods, like cars and furniture, plunged 22.4 percent, the steepest decline since Q4 of 1987. Investment by business also sharply declined at 19.1 percent, for the sharpest pull-back since the first quarter of 1975, and residential investment plummeted 23.6 percent too. Exports of goods and services plunged as well at a the rate of 19.7 percent, the biggest drop since the third quarter of 1974.
Added to the 0.5 percent contraction in GDP in the third quarter of 2008, the fourth quarter contraction rate of 3.8 percent yields the first consecutive quarterly declines in GDP since the fourth quarter of 1990 and the first three months of 1991.
Across all four quarters of 2008, GDP rose 1.3 percent, the slowest pace of growth since 2001, when the economy expanded 0.8 percent.
When Bush's White House proposed the 2003 cuts, they promised that it would add 5.5 million new jobs between June 2003 and the end of 2004. But "by the end of 2004, there were only 2.6 million more jobs than in June 2003."
As Paul Krugman has pointed out, the belief that Bush's tax cuts successfully stimulated the economy is a form of mythology. CAP's Michael Ettlinger and John Irons wrote in September, "Economic growth as measured by real U.S. gross domestic product was stronger following the tax increases of 1993 than in the two supply-side eras" that followed Reagan's 1981 tax cuts and Bush's 2001 tax cuts.
Indeed, employment growth was much stronger post-1993 than post-2001. The average annual employment growth was 2.5 percent after 1993 and just 0.6 percent after 2001.
And, remember President Bush's $168 billion tax cut/rebate economic stimulus plan the United States Congress approved in February of 2008, to help stave off economic recession. That does not seem to have worked either. Martin Feldstein wrote in the Wall Street Journal that of course the tax cut stimulus didn't work:
The facts show that increased infrastructure spending appears to be a particularly efficaciousHere are the facts. Tax rebates of $78 billion arrived in the second quarter of the year. The government's recent GDP figures show that the level of consumer outlays only rose by an extra $12 billion, or 15% of the lost revenue. The rest went into savings, including the pay down of debt. . .
. . .Although press stories emphasizing that the rebates induced additional consumer spending were technically correct, they missed the important point that the spending rise was very small in comparison to the size of the tax rebates. . .
The small rise in spending in response to these tax rebates is similar to what previous studies of one-time tax cuts found. It also corresponds to what both basic economic theory and common experience imply. Although someone who receives a permanent annual salary increase of $1,000 typically would increase his annual spending by an almost equally large amount, a $1,000 rise in wealth caused by a share price increase or a tax rebate would raise spending only gradually over a number of years.
way to stimulate the economy as compared to tax cuts TPM:
Mark Zandi, a Republican economist who advised John McCain's presidential campaign, has been stressing this point for months. Zandi's research showed a corporate tax cut delivering $0.30 in real GDP growth for every $1 invested, and a regular tax rebate delivering anywhere from $1.02 to $1.28 for every $1.Unfortunately, Reagan's "supply-side" mythology that "tax cut stimulus works best" is alive and well and still promoted by conservatives today. Despite the economic facts, conservatives like Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) continue to demand corporate tax cuts over infrastructure spending as the solution. Both Texas’ senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) have voiced their staunch opposition to Obama's $819 billion stimulus plan because it does not exclusively use tax cuts. “I read the bill in vain for any real stimulus in the economy,” Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News.
Compare that to aid to state governments, which Republicans have roundly criticized: $1.36 for every $1 invested. Infrastructure spending delivers a whopping $1.59 in GDP for every $1.
The Congressional Budget Office also maintains that corporate tax cuts are 'not a particularly cost-effective method of stimulating business spending.
At a luncheon meeting of the Plano Chamber of Commerce on Friday Jan. 23 Senator Hutchison said that she could not support President Barack Obama's proposed $825 billion stimulus package because it wouldn't provide an instant jolt to the economy.
Hutchison said the bill, among other things, would lift the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and allocate billions of dollars to help pay for college, build roads and other structures and invest in alternative fuels and other projects that would not stimulate the economy. Hutchison further said the effect of the sweeping spending plan would be to drive up the federal deficit. "What we're looking for is a jump-start," Hutchison said, "This is not going to be a jump-start."
According to the Dallas Morning News, both Texas senators predicted a lopsided vote in the Senate similar to the House vote where every Republican voted against Obama's plan.
Senate Republicans Are Gearing Up To Filibuster The Recovery Package Despite Promises To The Contrary On Friday night on NPR’s All Things Considered, host Robert Siegel asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) about the prospects of a Republican filibuster of the Senate’s version of the economic recovery package. Grassley responded that Republicans would indeed filibuster the package, requiring the bill to garner a 60-vote majority for passage, despite the fact that the Senate version of the recovery package is already loaded up with a significant number of provisions sought by conservative Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly said that Republicans “would not filibuster against the stimulus package.” He remarked earlier this month, “I don’t think this measure’s going to have any problem getting over 60 votes.”
On the other hand - Most Republican governors have broken with their GOP colleagues in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama's economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care. The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, scheduled meetings in Washington this weekend with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other senators to press for her state's share of the package. Tx Gov. Rick Perry's Transportation Department is lobbying to maximize its haul of federal money from an $819 billion stimulus bill too.
Related Posts:
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Obama Signs Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
Talking Points Memo - President Barack Obama signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law Thursday before labor and women leaders, who fought hard for it's passage, and the woman whose history-making lawsuit gave impetus to the cause.Obama, choosing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as the first bill to sign as president, declared that ending pay disparities between men and woman is an issue not just for women, but for all workers.
With Ledbetter standing by his side, Obama said, "she lost more than $200,000 in salary, and even more in pension and Social Security benefits losses that she still feels today." He then signed the measure that effectively nullifies a 2007 Supreme Court decision and makes it easier for workers to sue for discrimination by allowing them more time to do so.
"Making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone," Obama said. "That there are no second class citizens in our workplaces, and that it's not just unfair and illegal — but bad for business — to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability." Read more.
Read Obama's Remarks - TPM
A much broader bill addressing pay discrimination seems to be stalled in the Senate - TPM
Conservatives: No Second New Deal
Updated January 29, 2008 at 7:18 AM
This type of partisan obstruction by Republicans is just another example of why Americans overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party on issues like the economy. "There will be people in districts all over the country that will wonder why, when there's a good bill to get the economy moving again, why we still seem to be playing political gotcha," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs in an interview.
Rank-and-file Congressional Democrats had been willing to give Republicans the business tax cuts and other provisions they wanted in the stimulus in the spirit of bipartisan good faith. That is, up until every single one voted against the bill on the House floor Wednesday. Now, in both the House and the Senate, angry Democratic members are lobbying Democratic leaders to yank back those tax breaks and other concessions made to Republicans. Sen. John Kerry says Democrats should ignore Republicans’ demands about the stimulus plan if they’re going to vote against it anyway.
Several days before taking office, President Obama spent an evening in George Will’s home to dine with a handful of right-wing conservative media elites in an act of bipartisan good faith. Less than week after Obama took the oath of office, Will’s right-wing dinner guests have already shown the futility of engaging in a good-faith bipartisanship. While President Obama advances his approach to promote economic recovery, Will's dinner attendees are on a no-holds-barred offensive of misinformation against Obama's approach.
NYTimes.com
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 25, 2009
Media Matters
Even though Obama has met with Republican media pundits and congressional leaders several times to assuage their concerns and added bipartisan compromise tax cuts to his stimulus package package -
Bob Herbert says in his NYTimes column,
The rationale was that Republicans were “in power.” Now that Republicans are not in power the media continues to allow conservatives to monopolize corporate news channels.
In an analysis, ThinkProgress found that the five cable news networks — CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC — hosted Republican lawmakers over Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio.
Related Postings:
 | After taking out family planning money and ditching bankruptcy reform, plus including significant tax cuts to assuage Republican objections, not a single Republican voted for the economic recovery plan that passed in the House on Jan. 28. Nobody expected overwhelming GOP support, but after the 2008 election, that's just stunning. (11 blue dog Democrats voted Nay.) |
Rank-and-file Congressional Democrats had been willing to give Republicans the business tax cuts and other provisions they wanted in the stimulus in the spirit of bipartisan good faith. That is, up until every single one voted against the bill on the House floor Wednesday. Now, in both the House and the Senate, angry Democratic members are lobbying Democratic leaders to yank back those tax breaks and other concessions made to Republicans. Sen. John Kerry says Democrats should ignore Republicans’ demands about the stimulus plan if they’re going to vote against it anyway.
Several days before taking office, President Obama spent an evening in George Will’s home to dine with a handful of right-wing conservative media elites in an act of bipartisan good faith. Less than week after Obama took the oath of office, Will’s right-wing dinner guests have already shown the futility of engaging in a good-faith bipartisanship. While President Obama advances his approach to promote economic recovery, Will's dinner attendees are on a no-holds-barred offensive of misinformation against Obama's approach.
NYTimes.com
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 25, 2009
As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s [conservative Republican] opponents aren’t arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending. Some of these arguments are obvious [false and misleading] cheap shots.Many are promoting false and misleading cheap shots against Obama's recovery plan:
snip - Any time you hear someone reciting one of these arguments, write him or her off as a dishonest flack.
snip - [But the obvious cheap shot arguments and assertions] that are fraudulent can seem superficially plausible to those who don’t know their way around economic concepts and numbers. So as a public service, let me try to debunk some of the major anti-stimulus arguments that have already surfaced [from conservatives]
snip - But here’s the thing: Most Americans aren’t listening. The most encouraging thing I’ve heard lately is Mr. Obama’s reported response to Republican objections to a spending-oriented economic plan: “I won.” Indeed he did — and he should disregard the huffing and puffing of those who [not only] lost, [but whose conservative governance ideology created the economic crisis in the first place.]
Read the full article at NYTimes.com
Media Matters
snip - David Brooks, Larry Kudlow, Brit Hume, [George Will, Carly Fiorina and George Stephanopoulos, among many others,] have asserted that the proposed fiscal stimulus package supported by President Barack Obama would amount to spending at least $223,000 for every job created, echoing a January 15 false and misleading "Stimulus Quick Facts," issued by the Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee... read the full article.
| Among those repeating the false and misleading "Stimulus Quick Facts" is Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. At a luncheon meeting of the Plano Chamber of Commerce on Friday Jan. 23 Senator Hutchison said that she could not support President Barack Obama's proposed $825 billion stimulus package because it wouldn't provide an instant jolt to the economy. Hutchison said the bill, among other things, would lift the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and allocate billions of dollars to help pay for college, build roads and other structures and invest in alternative fuels and other projects that would not stimulate the economy. Hutchison further said the effect of the sweeping spending plan would be to drive up the federal deficit. "What we're looking for is a jump-start," Hutchison said, "This is not going to be a jump-start." |
Even though Obama has met with Republican media pundits and congressional leaders several times to assuage their concerns and added bipartisan compromise tax cuts to his stimulus package package -
House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning [Jan, 27] during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion. Boehner told members that he's voting against the stimulus, and Cantor told the assembled Republicans that there wasn't any reason for them to support the measure, according to another person in the room. Cantor and his whip team are going to urge GOP members to oppose it. [Politico]Both Texas’ senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and John Cornyn (R) have voiced their staunch opposition to the $819 billion plan. “I read the bill in vain for any real stimulus in the economy,” Cornyn told the Dallas Morning News. Not one House Republican supported the Obama-backed stimulus package and Texas’ senators predicted a similarly lopsided result in the Senate, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Bob Herbert says in his NYTimes column,
"What’s up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state?As Media Matters has documented, during the Bush administration, corporate media consistently allowed conservatives to dominate their shows, booking them as guests far more often than progressives.
Republicans have argued, with the collaboration of much of the media, that they could radically cut taxes while simultaneously balancing the federal budget, when, in fact, [Bush's] big income-tax cuts inevitably lead to big budget deficits. We listened to the G.O.P. and what do we have now? A trillion-dollar-plus deficit and an economy in shambles. When the G.O.P. talks, nobody should listen."
The rationale was that Republicans were “in power.” Now that Republicans are not in power the media continues to allow conservatives to monopolize corporate news channels.In an analysis, ThinkProgress found that the five cable news networks — CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC — hosted Republican lawmakers over Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio.
Related Postings:
- The Economy Crumbled
- For the GOP It's 1933 Déjà vu All Over Again
- FDR's New Deal
- Reconstituting Conservative Ideology As Good Governance
- Obama, please stop appeasing the Republicans to pass your stimulus package
- Obama faces 'no-we-can't' economy
- Global outlook to be slashed - again
- Earnings, economy - here comes 'terrible'
- FDIC closes 1st Centennial Bank
- Bigger bank bailouts coming?
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