Republicans have spent the better part of the last year and a half railing against a government stimulus package they often blame for crowding out more jobs than it saved. But the Center for Public Integrity has published an extensive report pointing out that some of the bill’s loudest detractors More…
With Republican National Committee officials from all fifty states filing into their annual summer meeting today in Kansas City, GOP pollster Whit Ayres has supplied them with some good news.
Today, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released their latest quarterly report on the stimulus and estimated that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has increased total employment by between 2.2 and 2.8 million jobs — with tax cuts and income support saving or creating approximately half of More…
It remains one of the most popular ideas in the White House’s economic stimulus law: Helping states and localities weather the credit crisis by selling a new breed of taxpayer-subsidized municipal debt to investors. School districts, transit agencies and water authorities in more than 40 states have won by More…
A chief criticism of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, enacted in February, was that too large a portion went to tax cuts in lieu of spending. Critics, including some conservative economists, argued that people would simply save that money, rather than spending it to stimulate the economy. More…
What is it with Paul Krugman, anyway? The Nobel economist with the dour outlook is becoming the most unlikely of pop icons. First, there was, “Hey Paul Krugman,” a ditty praising his virtues, especially compared with those of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, that flew around the blogosophere. Now, via More…
Thomas Frank has a terrific op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, praising President Obama’s recent presidential memorandum declaring the end of an era of unrestrained government outsourcing.
The president “meant to put the kibosh on the GOP’s favorite method for spreading the wealth around,” Frank writes, noting the More…
Turns out the final language included in the agreed-upon stimulus bill does indeed include protections for employees of government contractors — like KBR, Halliburton, etc. — who report fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer money, even if they report within their own company rather than to an outside government agency. More…
For two weeks, Republicans cited polls from Rasmussen Reports to prove that the stimulus package “proposed by Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats” was fading in popularity, and that their push to stop it was winning converts. Today’s poll on the stimulus suggests that President Obama’s publicity blitz More…
One of the greatest obstacles to overarching energy policy reform is likely to come in the form of a group of moderate Democratic senators from states that rely heavily on manufacturing. Among this so-called Gang of 16 is Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who is also a member of the Senate More…
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