New U.S. Claims For Unemployment Benefits Dropped To 2-1/2 Year Low

Reuters:

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a 2-1/2 year low last week, offering assurance that the labor market was strengthening despite January's poor jobs numbers.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 383,000, the lowest since early July 2008, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims slipping to 410,000. The prior week's figure was revised up to 419,000, from the previously reported 415,000.

According to Reuters, the rolling four-week average is now at 415,500, a drop of 16,000. Overall, 9.4 million Americans are receiving assistance from unemployment programs.

All told, the economy added roughly 1.3 million private-sector jobs in 2010. For comparison purposes, note that the economy lost nearly 4.7 million private-sector jobs in 2009, and lost 3.8 million in 2008.

With that in mind, here is a chart, showing monthly job losses/gains in the private sector since the start of Bush's Great Recession through January 2011. The image makes a distinction -- red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration. (Chart from Washington Monthly)

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Rachel Maddow: The Bikini Graph on Job Gains April 2010

A Strategy Of Giving Republicans Enough Rope?

"If the president is willing to do what I and my members would do anyway, we’re not going to say no," McConnell said at a breakfast hosted by Politico's Mike Allen on January 26th.

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) seemed to say If Obama Acts Like A Republican, We Can Negotiate With Him.

Last December President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress compromised on what to do about Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that had been set to expire this year.

The compromise was to extend Bush's tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires to 2012 - the Presidential election year.

President Obama caught a lot of flack caving to the right, particularly from his progressive base, for the tax deal he cut with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts in exchange for, among other things, an extension of unemployment benefits. (Under Obama Taxes Reach Lowest Level Since Truman)

On Wednesday President Barack Obama and Republican leaders in the House had a lunch meeting at the White House to find some more common ground compromises. Obama considered the meeting with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and his top two deputies "constructive" and cited general agreement with them on the need to reduce spending and the deficit, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, said the lunch discussion was "fairly robust" and that the meeting demonstrated general agreement on the need to seriously cut spending -- a top priority of House Republicans.

The day following Wednesday's meeting between GOP House leaders and President Obama’s the top news item is that Obama's proposed 2012 budget will cut several billion dollars from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people, officials briefed on the subject told National Journal. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, would see funding drop by about $2.5 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that a Republican proposal to cut home heating oil counted as an "extreme idea" that would "set the country backwards." Schumer has not yet reacted to Obama's proposed cut. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., declared: “The President’s reported proposal to drastically slash LIHEAP funds by more than half would have a severe impact on many of New Hampshire’s most vulnerable citizens and I strongly oppose it." A spokesman for Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., declared similarly: “If these cuts are real, it would be a very disappointing development for millions of families still struggling through a harsh winter.” In a letter to Obama, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wrote, "We simply cannot afford to cut LIHEAP funding during one of the most brutal winters in history. Families across Massachusetts, and the country, depend on these monies to heat their homes and survive the season."

Billion of dollars must be cut from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people in large part because Bush's big 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires were extended to 2012.

But one (perhaps unintended, perhaps intended) consequence of extending Bush's tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires for two more years seems to be emerging as Democrats start to hammer the jobs message.

The December deal seems to have taken away one of the GOP’s main talking points on the jobs and unemployment issue according to a US News Op-Ed, "Obama Tax Deal Left GOP Without Jobs and Unemployment Answers," by Robert Schlesinger:

Congressional Democrats have started lashing House Republicans about their lack of focus on jobs, noting that the new majority’s first few acts have been sops toward the base like healthcare repeals and a raft of abortion-restricting provisions. Wednesday Democrats launched a “When Are the Jobs?” website. [Read Robert Schlesinger: GOP Falling Into the Same Healthcare Trap That Snared Democrats]

But what answer could the GOP have? Tax cuts have become the alpha and omega of GOP economic policy, but they played that card even before they took control of the House when Obama agreed in December to extend Bush's tax cuts.

Having more or less gotten what they wanted with the Bush tax cuts they’re not in an especially strong position to go back to the tax cut well--especially in this fiscal environment. Still it's surprising that with an economy that remains soft they are not even making a pro forma rhetorical attempt at cutting the individual tax rate.

Instead House leadership is faced with a rank-and-file [Tea Party] uprising on the right demanding more spending cuts. While the GOP has tried to decouple tax cuts from the budget deficit, even they can’t with a straight face make a new tax cut pitch in the face of the dreaded "Obama deficits" ... not that the party can credibly claim new status of deficit hawks after their tax deal added hundreds of billions of dollars to the budget deficit.

What they’re left with is a “cut-and-grow” program that even Republicans admit isn’t selling.

Here’s the GOP’s problem: the idea that cutting government spending will necessarily lead to job growth might be a given in conservative ivory towers, but its logic isn’t obvious to most Americans.

And if they want to know how easy it is to sell notions that require more than one bumper sticker to explain, they can ask the Democrats how the healthcare reform debate turned out.

After 30 years of trying, cutting taxes to stimulate the economy and create jobs, has never worked.

But, during the Bush years Republicans cut taxes while at the same time more than doubling the size of the federal government. The Republican "cut and grow" approach to stimulate the economy turned budget surpluses to budget deficits and ballooned the federal debt to $13 trillion. Democrats are just as angry about Bush's $13 trillion federal debt as anyone marching in the Tea Party movement!

TX House Speaker Joe Straus Names Committees

Speaker Joe Straus announced appointments to House Committee positions today. With House Committees staffed the various committees can begin to consider legislation in earnest. Progress of the various House bills that have been filed can be tracked on the House Calendars.

The House Appropriations Committee chaired by Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, will immediately begin to consider a proposed 2011-2012 budget the Legislative Budget Board sent to House members last month. (available to the public online)

The Legislative Budget Board’s budget proposal released to House members last month will cut $31.1 billion from current spending, even before accounting for population growth.

The budget, drafted for the House, will slash education funding by $9.8 billion, while the student population is projected to grow by 80,000 students each year. Several primary and secondary education programs are recommended for elimination, including: pre-k early start grants; Texas reading, math and science initiatives; criminal history background reviews; and science labs.

Higher education is slated to lose $1.7 billion in funding including significant cuts to the Texas Equalization Grants and Texas Grants student aid programs.

Other budget recommendations include reducing prison populations through early release of prisoners, cutting Medicaid reimbursements to doctors, hospitals and nursing home by 10 percent, and eliminating family practice and rural public health physician rotations.

The Elections committee chaired by Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, and the Select Committee on Voter Identification and Voter Fraud chaired by Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, will take up the Voter Government Issued Photo Identification bill. Keying off Gov. Rick Perry's declaration that this legislation is an emergency, the Senate last month voted to bypassed the usual committee process and turned itself into a committee of the whole to pass voter identification legislation (SB14) on a party line vote. The Committees will consider the House's version - HB624.

The idea behind this legislation is that to combat in person voting voter impersonation fraud voters must present Government Issued Photo Identification to election clerks.

Any voter who does not have a photo ID, or who election clerks consider does not look like his or her ID photo will not be allowed to vote a regular ballot. Those voters will only be allowed to cast a provisional ballot. Those voters who do vote a provisional ballot must then present their Government Issued Photo Identification to the County Election office by the sixth day after the election or their provisional ballot will not be counted.

The Redistricting Committee chaired by Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, will take up the task of redrawing various district lines. The decennial census for Texas totaled to 25,145,561 people living in the state in the first half of 2010 for a 20.6% increase over the 2000 population count, courtesy of the burgeoning Texas Hispanic and Black populations.

Based on the 2010 Census count of 25,145,561 people, the ideal population of a Texas congressional district is 698,488, the ideal senate district is 811,147, the ideal state house district is 167,637, and the ideal State Board of Education district is 1,676,371.

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution calls for a census of the nation's population every 10 years to apportion the U.S. House of Representatives seats among the states. The 2010 apportionment winner is Texas with four additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas also gains four more presidential electoral votes and will be eligible for a greater share of federal money for various services and programs.

While the Texas House Redistricting Committee will begin preliminary work this week, serious redistricting efforts can't take place until the Census Bureau releases its detailed census breakdown. The Census Bureau expects to release the detailed county and block level population data needed to redistrict in late February or early March. (Census data release schedule - Texas redistricting information)

Committee Chair Assignments:

Committee	Chair	Party	City
Agriculture &Livestock	Rick Hardcastle	R	Vernon
Appropriations	Jim Pitts	R	Waxahachie
Border &Intergovernmental Affairs	Veronica Gonzales	D	McAllen
Business &Industry	Joe Deshotel	D	Beaumont
Calendars	Todd Hunter	R	Corpus Christi
Corrections	Jerry Madden	R	Richardson
County Affairs	Garnet Coleman	D	Houston
Criminal Jurisprudence	Pete Gallego	D	Alpine
Culture, Recreation &Tourism	Ryan Guillen	D	Rio Grande City
Defense &Veterans' Affairs	Joe Pickett	D	El Paso
Economic &Small Business Development	John Davis	R	Houston
Elections	Larry Taylor	R	Friendswood
Energy Resources	Jim Keffer	R	Eastland
Environmental Regulation	Wayne Smith	R	Baytown
General Investigating &Ethics	Chuck Hopson	R	Jacksonville
Government Efficiency &Reform	William Bill Callegari	R	Katy
Higher Education	Dan Branch	R	Dallas
Homeland Security &Public Safety	Sid Miller	R	Stephenville
House Administration	Charlie Geren	R	Fort Worth
Human Services	Richard Peña Raymond	D	Laredo
Insurance	John Smithee	R	Amarillo
Judiciary &Civil Jurisprudence	Jim Jackson	R	Carrollton
Land &Resource Management	Rene Oliveira	D	Brownsville
Licensing &Administrative Procedures	Mike Hamilton	R	Mauriceville
Local &Consent Calendars	Senfronia Thompson	D	Houston
Natural Resources	Allan Ritter	R	Nederland
Pensions, Investments &Financial Services	Vicki Truitt	R	Keller
Public Education	Rob Eissler	R	The Woodlands
Public Health	Lois Kolkhorst	R	Brenham
Redistricting	Burt Solomons	R	Carrollton
Rules &Resolutions	Ruth Jones McClendon	D	San Antonio
Select Committee on Election Contest	Todd Hunter	R	Corpus Christi
Select Committee on Oversight and HHS Eligibility System	Fred Brown	R	College Station
Select Committee on State Sovereignty	Brandon Creighton	R	Conroe
Select Committee on Voter Identification and Voter Fraud	Dennis Bonnen	R	Angleton
State Affairs	Byron Cook	R	Corsicana
Technology	Aaron Peña	R	Edinburg
Transportation	Larry Phillips	R	Sherman
Urban Affairs	Harold Dutton Jr	D	Houston
Ways &Means	Harvey Hilderbran	R	Kerrville

For Complete Committee Membership Rosters, Click Here.

Gov. Rick Perry's State of the State Speech

Gov. Rick Perry boasted about the strength of the Texas economy and downplayed the $27 billion Texas budget deficit during his State of the State speech Tuesday.

Perry won re-election last year by touting the strength and health of the conservative Texas economy, a familiar strategy he has consistently repeated since taking office in late 2000.

"The mainstream media and big-government interest groups are doing their best to convince us that we're facing a budget Armageddon," Perry said in the speech in the House chamber to representatives and senators. "Texans don't believe it, and they shouldn't.".

But, away from the television cameras and microphones, Perry's office released a budget plan (PDF) that largely resembles those put forward by the state House and Senate in recent weeks.

Those plans cut $31 billion in spending from the Texas budget, which will cause layoffs for tens of thousands of teachers, close of community colleges, eliminate tuition support for 60,000 college students, close correctional facilities and lay off correctional officers and a drastically reduce state services for the poor, elderly and young and those with mental health problems.

In 2010 the state created only 230,800 new jobs to replace the 359,000 jobs lost in 2009. The Texas Workforce Commission reports the unemployment rate in Texas was 8.3 percent in December, up from 8.2 percent in November. Layoffs caused by the $31 billion cut in state spending will continue to deepen Texas' unemployment rate, which is already at 22-year highs. The state layoffs will also cause even more Texas families to lose health insurance coverage and Texas already leads the nation in the percentage of residents without health insurance. The state ranks last in the country in percentage of adults with a high school diploma and the cuts to education will lead to ever more students dropping out of school.

The governor also called on state lawmakers to quickly approve a list of "emergency" proposals. These include implementing stricter voter identification requirements, requiring women seeking an abortion to first view a sonogram, targeting cities that provide sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, strengthening the rights of property owners in cases of eminent domain and calling for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Perry's bottom line assessment of the state of the state is that it's all good.


Gov. Rick Perry State of the State Speech