Saturday, September 24, 2011
Economists Say Obama's Jobs Plan Won't Lower Unemployment
TweetEven if Congress heeds President Obama's demands to "pass this bill right away" and enacts his jobs and tax plan in its entirety, the unemployment rate probably still would hover in nosebleed territory for at least three more years.
Why? Because the 1.9 million new jobs the White House says the bill would produce in 2012 falls short of what it's needed to put the economy back on track to return to pre-recession jobless levels of under 6 percent, from today's rate of 9.1 percent.
That's how deep the jobs hole is. The persistent weakness of the U.S. economy has left 14 million people unemployed and more than 25 million unable to find full-time work.
Economists of all stripes pretty much agree that it will be a long, hard road no matter what Congress does. Right now, the Republicans who run the House and the Democrats who lead the Senate aren't finding much common ground.
Obama estimates his American Jobs Act would lower unemployment by just a single percentage point by next year, to just over 8 percent, heading into the 2012 presidential election.
Burned before by making overly optimistic job-creation predictions, the White House turned to prominent outside economists to crunch the numbers.
The projection of 1.9 million new jobs, a 1 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate and a 2 percentage point increase in the gross domestic product under Obama's plan came from Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics.
But Zandi said in an interview his forecast also is based on an assumption that "the president's entire package is passed by the end of the year," a slim prospect given the current divided leadership in Congress, and that there are no other budgetary policy changes.
"I assumed that it would be paid for," Zandi said. "I didn't know when I did that simulation how the president proposed to pay for it."
Since then, Obama has said he would pay for his $447 billion package with permanent income tax increases of about $150 billion a year, mostly on wealthy individuals and corporations, in addition to spending cuts. That's drawn criticism from Republicans, who say any tax increases could further stall the fragile recovery.
Zandi, who has advised both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, said he's still sticking with his forecast, mainly because the stimulus in the plan, including a temporary reduction in Social Security taxes for both employees and employers and infrastructure spending, would come in 2012 and be paid for later.
But there is one feature Obama doesn't emphasize.
Zandi said his job-creation figure only applies to 2012.
"Beginning in 2013, and certainly into 2014, the plan is a drag on the economy because the stimulus starts fading away," he said. "So by 2015, the economy is in the same place as now, as if there were no jobs package."
Also, Zandi said, his forecast does not leave any room for a new recession. If that happens, all bets are off.
"So it's very important to get as many people working as fast as possible," he said. "If we go back into recession, it is going to be very difficult to get out. And it's going to cost taxpayers tremendously."
Job creation has ground to a virtual standstill. The economy produced a scant 20,000 net new jobs in June, 85,000 in July and none in August. Economic output, as measured by the GDP, has been growing this year at an anemic annual rate below 1 percent.
The global economy is showing no signs of strengthening. A divided Federal Reserve is nearly out of ammunition for additional stimulus. And the U.S. is once again facing the possibility of a government shutdown at the end of next week.
The Obama-Zandi target of 1.9 million new jobs next year, or 158,000 a month, is somewhat higher than private analyses that suggest the plan would create 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month.
Heidi Shierholz, economist for the labor-leaning Economic Policy Institute, calculates it would take job growth of 400,000 every month for three years in a row to get back to the 5 percent jobless rate last seen in December 2007, at the recession's outset.
"To get down to 5 percent in five years, we need around 280,000 jobs every month," she added. "Right now, we're more than two years into the official recovery, and we're still bumping along at extremely low levels."
Bibi Netanyahu Responds To Bill Clinton: I Am Not The One Moving The Goalposts
From ABC’s David Muir interview with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday afternoon:
MUIR: President Obama and former President Clinton, for that matter, did not support this move by the Palestinians before the U.N. today.
But President Clinton was quoted in the last 24 hours, bluntly saying, reportedly, that your government is to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process, saying that you’d essentially moved the goalposts when you came to power. How do you react to that?
NETANYAHU: Oh, I respectfully disagree. You know, President Clinton knows very well in 2000 at Camp David that — who really made the generous offer, and the Palestinians refused to come. I’m sure that President Bush can tell you what happened at Camp David a few years later, when another Israeli prime minister made a generous offer, and the Palestinians refused to come.
I’ve made a series of offers on day one and since then, on coming to office this trip, and the Palestinians refused to come. The reason they refuse to come is they get away with it. They get a free ride. They basically refuse to sit down and negotiate. And they’re — and we’re branded as the opponents of peace. As long as that continues, they’ll continue to avoid negotiations.
MUIR: But have the goalposts been moved since President Clinton, Camp David, and since President Bush as well?
NETANYAHU: Not at all. I think that the Palestinians so far have not responded to these suggestions. I’d be interested in hearing their response to it. But the most important thing is rather than try to end the negotiations before they begin, I suggest just begin the negotiations. It’s so simple. What could be simpler than a suggestion to just sit down?
Now, there are a lot of things we have to negotiate about. Settlements is one of them. I’ll tell you what the other one is, security. Israel is so tiny. It’s, you know, a little less than the length of Manhattan, without the West Bank, without Judea and Samaria.
So how do we protect it? We’re going to have to have security arrangements, solid security arrangements on the ground, a long-term Israeli military presence in strategic areas in the West Bank. And that requires a negotiation.
And the Palestinians are basically trying to shortcut this. They’re trying to get a state without giving us peace, and without giving us security. That’s wrong. I called on them today to have — to come and negotiate the recognition and security that I think will make peace a real thing, something that could endure for generations.
Jeff Dunetz argues that Netanyahu has offered more concessions than his predecessors. Tweet
BlueCross BlueShield Of Tennessee: Patients To Wait Longer For Care Under Obamacare
Nearly 700,000 Tennesseans will gain new coverage under health-care reform, but those already with insurance might have to wait longer to receive care and younger people overall may have to pay more.
Those are among findings from a report out from a think tank the state’s largest health insurer, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, launched this year to study the interface between public policy and health care.
“It will be a little longer line, but everybody will be in the line,” said Dr. Steven L. Coulter, president of the insurer’s Tennessee Health Institute and co-author of the report with William T. Cecil, an independent health-care consultant.
The bulk of the new people obtaining coverage would be younger men who become eligible for Medicaid under new guidelines because of their low incomes, according to the report.
The rest will be people who qualify for subsidies to buy insurance policies through state health exchanges starting in 2014.
Expanding insurance coverage without a corresponding increase in the number of primary care doctors, though, could create problems with access to medical care, the study says.
Coulter called for a coordinated statewide strategy for increasing primary care. “We’re going to have a lot of new patients, but not going to have any new doctors,” he said.
TweetHerman Cain Wins GOP Florida Straw Poll
Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain won the Presidency 5 straw poll here Saturday, delivering a blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s frontrunner status and a victory for a candidate who has struggled to transform his grassroots popularity into strong showings in national polls.Tweet
“Tonight’s winner is Herman Cain,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced. “It shows you something, the road to the White House come through Florida, and it pays to spend time here.”
He received 37 percent of the more than 2,600 votes cast.
“Thank you to the Republican voters for this incredible honor of being named the winner of the Presidency 5 straw poll in Florida today,” Mr. Cain said. “This is a sign of our growing momentum and my candidacy that cannot be ignored. I will continue to share my message of ‘common-sense solutions’ across this country and look forward to spending more time in Florida, a critical state for both the nomination and the general election.”
Friday, September 23, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Senator Orrin Hatch Introduces Leglisation On UN funding Over Palestinian Statehood Vote
The Salt Lake Tribune reports:
If the United Nations recognizes Palestine as a member nation, Sen. Orrin Hatch wants the United States to pull all of its funding for the international organization.Tweet
Hatch, R-Utah, introduced legislation to that effect on Wednesday, Sept. 21 saying that such a move would hurt Israel and short-circuit any legitimate peace negotiations.
"Make no mistake, there will be consequences associated with efforts to undermine the security of America’s friends and allies," Hatch said.
President Barack Obama spoke before the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday and said there is no "shortcut" to a peace agreement. His administration is expected to veto a Palestinian attempt to get recognized by the U.N., which is expected to take place this week.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
AP Fact Check: Obama And Buffet Mislead, Secretaries Do Not Pay More Taxes Than Their Bosses
The AP debunks the populist myth being propagated by Obama and Buffet:
“Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires,” Obama said Monday. “That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that.”
The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.
There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That, however, was less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million...
This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes and payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15 percent of their income in federal taxes.
Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7 percent.
David Brooks writes in a New York Times op-ed worth reading that "[i]n reality, the top 10 percent of earners pay nearly 70 percent of all income taxes, according to the I.R.S. People in the richest 1 percent pay 31 percent of their income to the federal government while the average worker pays less than 14 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office." Tweet
Mitt Romney: Palestinian Statehood Bid "Culmination" Of Obama's Israel Policy
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has just released a statement on the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations, blasting President Obama's policies toward Israel for the situation. “What we are watching unfold at the United Nations is an unmitigated diplomatic disaster," Romney said in a statement. "It is the culmination of President Obama’s repeated efforts over three years to throw Israel under the bus and undermine its negotiating position. That policy must stop now."
TweetRick Perry: President Emboldened Palestinians To Seek Statehood
Rick Perry said today in a speech in New York:
Tweet“We are indignant that certain Middle Eastern leaders have discarded the principle of direct negotiations between the sovereign nation of Israel and the Palestinian leadership,” Perry said in excerpts of a speech provided by one of his aides to The Associated Press. “And we are equally indignant that the Obama administration’s Middle East policy of appeasement has encouraged such an ominous act of bad faith.” …
“It’s vitally important for America to preserve alliances with leaders who seek to preserve peace and stability in the region,” Perry said. “But today, neither adversaries nor allies know where America stands. Our muddle of a foreign policy has created great uncertainty in the midst of the Arab Spring.”
Monday, September 19, 2011
Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Zionists Started Both World Wars
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of perpetuating terror, and blamed the "Zionist regime" for starting both the first and second world wars.Tweet
Palestinian Authority Chooses Mother Of Four Jailed Jihadist Murderers To Launch UN Statehood Campaign
Palestinian Media Watch reports:
The Palestinian Authority chose the mother of 4 terrorist murderers, one of whom killed seven Israeli civilians and attempted to killed twelve others, as the person to launch their statehood campaign with the UN. In a widely publicized event, the PA had Latifa Abu Hmeid lead the procession to the UN offices in Ramallah and to hand over a letter for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
The official PA daily reported that she launched the UN campaign last week, and noted that she is the "mother of seven prisoners and of the Shahid (Martyr) Abd Al-Mun'im Abu Hmeid." However, the paper did not mention that 4 of her imprisoned sons are murderers.
Palestinian Media Watch reported last year that Abu Hmeid then had 4 sons in Israeli prisons who were each serving between two and seven life sentences, a total of 18 life sentences. At that time she was in the news because the PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Karake, decided to honor her with an award, "the Plaque of Resoluteness and Giving... inscribed with the names of her four sons who are imprisoned."Tweet
Congressional Black Caucus Chair: If Obama Weren't President We'd Be Marching On White House
From The Hill:
Tweet"Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).
"If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. "There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" To End On Tuesday
The military has begun accepting applications from openly gay recruits but will not act on them until the legal ban on openly gay service is lifted Tuesday, said a Pentagon official. Pentagon press secretary George Little said Monday that the military is adequately prepared for the end of the current policy, commonly known as "don't ask, don't tell," under which gays can serve as long as they don't openly acknowledge their sexual orientation and commanders are not allowed to ask. "No one should be left with the impression that we are unprepared. We are prepared for repeal," Little said. Last week, the Pentagon said 97% of the military has undergone training in the new law. The ban will end at one minute after midnight. At that time, revised Defense Department regulations will take effect, to reflect the new law that will allow gays to serve openly. President Obama signed the law last December, and in July he certified that lifting the ban will not diminish the military's ability to fight.Tweet
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