stimulus

Alan Ota has an early look at the possible shape of the “10 for ‘10″ agenda that Republicans will run on in next year’s midterms.

Among proposals floated so far by members: a ban on spending unused funds from this year’s economic stimulus law (PL 111-5), tougher earmark disclosure requirements and an “all of the [...]

Unemployment jumped to 9.7 percent in August, though the 216,000 jobs shed were fewer than expected, the Labor Department reported this morning.
It should come as no surprise.
Economists, for many months, have warned that employment rates are among the last economic indicators to rebound from a recession, and there’s no reason to think that this time [...]

Republicans are pushing back hard against today’s unemployment report, which showed a lowerr-than-expected 247,000 new jobless and the overall unemployment rate falling 0.1 points to 9.4 percent. Former McCain campaign economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin spoke to reporters on a Republican National Committee-sponsored call to make the wonk’s case against reading too much into the report
“No [...]

Party strategists hope to harness voter anger at unemployment with anti-spending rhetoric.

Politico points readers to the economic analysis of Morgan Stanley’s Richard Berner:
In a research note that’s been making the rounds of economics blogs this week, Berner declares that “America’s long-awaited fiscal train wreck is now under way.”
By “train wreck,” he means out-of-control federal budget deficits that he’s sure will finally drag the economy under — [...]

In a little-noticed column, Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the Senate minority whip, comes out for scrapping the stimulus money that has not yet been spent. All $677 billion of it.
It’s not a surprise that a recent Rasmussen poll found that 45 percent of Americans want to cancel the rest of the stimulus spending.  I agree.
Most economists [...]

SurveyUSA has the results of an ugly round of South Carolina polling:
Based on what you know, should Gov. Mark Sanford remain in office?
Remain in office – 34 percent
Resign – 60 percent
Not sure – 5 percent
Strikingly, the gap between white and black opinion is larger than the gap between female and male opinion. Fifty-six percent of [...]

In February, TWI’s Daphne Eviatar called attention to the weak protections in the federal economic stimulus bill for whistleblowers who expose contracting fraud. At the time, Daphne wrote:
[T]he stimulus bill fails to adequately protect employees of government contractors, who are in the best position to blow the whistle on fraud and abuse of taxpayer money. [...]

Josh Kraushaar reports that the National Republican Senatorial Committee will go back on its word from last week and endorse Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) when he announces his bid for the U.S. Senate. It’s one of several Senate races where the party has drafted or is trying to draft a moderate Republican to shove aside [...]

More economic pessimism from Paul Krugman, whose skeptical views have a growing following: The United States risks losing an entire decade of growth and enduring Japanese-style stagnation if it doesn’t move more aggressively to deal with ailing banks and to stimulate the economy.
Krugman made those remarks at a speech in China today. He’s previously warned [...]