For months, a debate has raged over whether the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, should do more to help the economy — particularly to gin up more employment. At The Washington Post, Neil Irwin builds on a helpful metaphor from The Nation’s Chris Hayes to explain how these More…
Billions of dollars of stimulus funds created in the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act remain in state coffers, Alec MacGillis reports at The Washington Post. On the downside, that means funds have not yet boosted the economy; on the upside, the funds remain to help boost the More…
Yesterday, the House reconvened to pass and President Obama signed into law a $26.1 billion package granting aid to state governments — $16.1 billion for Medicaid and $10 billion to prevent the layoffs of teachers. While intended as job-saving stimulus, the bill did not add to the deficit.
Senate Democrats may have leaned too heavily on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) when funding recent legislation. Initially, they made a $6.7 billion cut to an add-on to the program, a supplement created by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Then, when the state More…
Last week, Fannie Mae announced it lost $1.2 billion in the second quarter and asked the Treasury Department for an additional $1.5 billion to see it through.
Tomorrow, the House reconvenes to vote on a $26.1 billion state aid package, providing Medicaid and teachers’ jobs funding to cash-strapped states. And while most Senate Democrats remained mum on the mechanism used to fund the bill — cuts to the food stamp program — House Democrats aren’t.
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.
After two months of wrangling, Congress passed an extension of unemployment benefits earlier this month. But a number of other of vital safety-net programs remain in limbo.
In a new paper released today, entitled “How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End,” prominent economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi say that the stimulus, stress tests, emergency Federal Reserve maneuvers and Troubled Asset Relief Program saved the economy from collapse.
This summer, Democrats pushing for additional stimulus have seemed to focus almost exclusively on extended unemployment benefits, blocked by Senate Republicans for two months. But the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created dozens of stimulus programs whose funding is fading. And Congressional Democrats have thus far failed to extend More…
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