“I’d like to see him (President Barack Obama) put someone in their late 40s or early 50s on the court and someone, you know, with a lot of energy for the job,” Clinton said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the oldest and longest-serving justices in history, announced earlier this month he would resign. Stevens celebrates his 90th birthday on April 20.

Clinton, 63, said he would enjoy sitting on the high court, but at his age did not think it would be a good idea and besides he loves the humanitarian work he is doing.

And he suggested that his wife, 62-year-old Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose name has been bandied about for a seat on the high court, would also “advise the president to appoint someone 10, 15 years younger.”

The former president, who served two terms during the 1990s, appointed two associate justices to the Supreme Court: Stephen Breyer at age 55 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at age 60.   John Roberts Jr., the current chief justice, was appointed by President George W. Bush at 50.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Clinton speaking at symposium)

Carrying signs that said “Justice and Dignity for All U.S. Immigrants” and “We just want to work,” the immigration activists filled five blocks of the National Mall. Some protesters wore T-shirts that read, “Our journey as immigrants is a journey for human rights.”

New York Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez said: “Every day without reform is a day that 12 million hard-working immigrants must live in the shadow of fear, and … a day that a family is torn apart. That is wrong and it is unAmerican.”

Velazquez, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called on Congress and the president to reform immigration laws immediately.

Immigration is a sensitive issue in the United States where some 10.8 million illegal immigrants live and work in the shadows and where Hispanics, the largest immigrant group, are a rapidly increasing voting bloc.

Despite Washington’s focus on healthcare, some in the ethnically diverse crowd were confident that lawmakers would hear about the rally and take note of their concerns.

“I have my documents, but the majority of the people here do not. It’s time for all immigrants to support a just immigration reform. This country really needs it because … Latino labor produces a lot of money for their country,” said a Colombian man who lives in Arlington, Virginia and gave his name as Jairo.

FRUSTRATED BY CONGRESSIONAL, PRESIDENTIAL INACTION

President Barack Obama benefited in 2008 from a huge Hispanic turnout, drawn by his promise to deliver immigration reform allowing millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Frustrated that Obama has yet to fulfill a pledge to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, immigration supporters have warned him to deliver this year or face the consequences in congressional elections in November.

“A lot of these people are here like myself are voters and if they don’t do something, then I am voting against that congressman,” said Gumecindo Salas, vice president of government relations for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

While Hispanics are seen as unlikely to switch support to Republicans, who have fought immigration reform without a clampdown on illegal immigrants, they could hurt Democrats by failing to turn out at the polls.

On Thursday, Obama embraced a framework for legislation offered by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Charles Schumer. Obama said the plan, which features a new high-tech identification card for U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want a job, “can and should be the basis for moving us forward.”

But on Friday, Graham said, “If the healthcare bill goes through this weekend, that will, in my view, pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year.” He and other Republicans have complained about the tactics used by Democrats to win support for the healthcare bill.

(Reporting by Nancy Waitz; additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Donna Smith and Sreya Banerjee)

Carrying signs that said “Justice and Dignity for All U.S.
Immigrants” and “We just want to work,” the immigration
activists filled five blocks of the National Mall. Some
protesters wore T-shirts that read, “Our journey as immigrants
is a journey for human rights.”

New York Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez said:
“Every day without reform is a day that 12 million hard-working
immigrants must live in the shadow of fear, and … a day that a
family is torn apart. That is wrong and it is unAmerican.”

Velazquez, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus,
called on Congress and the president to reform immigration laws
immediately.

Immigration is a sensitive issue in the United States where
some 10.8 million illegal immigrants live and work in the
shadows and where Hispanics, the largest immigrant group, are a
rapidly increasing voting bloc.

Despite Washington’s focus on healthcare, some in the
ethnically diverse crowd were confident that lawmakers would hear
about the rally and take note of their concerns.

“I have my documents, but the majority of the people here
do not. It’s time for all immigrants to support a just
immigration reform. This country really needs it because …
Latino labor produces a lot of money for their country,” said a
Colombian man who lives in Arlington, Virginia and gave his name
as Jairo.

FRUSTRATED BY CONGRESSIONAL, PRESIDENTIAL INACTION

President Barack Obama benefited in 2008 from a huge Hispanic
turnout, drawn by his promise to deliver immigration reform
allowing millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Frustrated that Obama has yet to fulfill a pledge to
overhaul the nation’s immigration system, immigration
supporters have warned him to deliver this year or face the
consequences in congressional elections in November.

“A lot of these people are here like myself are voters and
if they don’t do something, then I am voting against that
congressman,” said Gumecindo Salas, vice president of
government relations for the Hispanic Association of Colleges
and Universities.

While Hispanics are seen as unlikely to switch support to
Republicans, who have fought immigration reform without a
clampdown on illegal immigrants, they could hurt Democrats by
failing to turn out at the polls.

On Thursday, Obama embraced a framework for legislation
offered by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic
Senator Charles Schumer. Obama said the plan, which features a
new high-tech identification card for U.S. citizens and legal
immigrants who want a job, “can and should be the basis for
moving us forward.”

But on Friday, Graham said, “If the healthcare bill goes
through this weekend, that will, in my view, pretty much kill
any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year.”
He and other Republicans have complained about the tactics used
by Democrats to win support for the healthcare bill.
(Reporting by Nancy Waitz; additional reporting by Susan
Heavey, Donna Smith and Sreya Banerjee)

The SBA said $375 million in Recovery Act funds for use in 7(a) and 504 loan programs were exhausted by Monday, leaving thousands of struggling but viable small businesses in limbo unless new resources can be found.

The money was used to temporarily reduce fees on SBA-backed loans and raise SBA’s guarantee percentage on some loans to 90 percent from 75 percent. This saved small businesses up to $60,000 in fees, made lenders more willing to extend credit and helped lure investors back into the market for securities backed by SBA loans.

“We are continuing to work with Congress on funds to continue these programs, which have helped engineer a turnaround in SBA lending following last year’s credit crunch and resulted in more than 40,000 loans to small businesses during these tough economic times,” said Jonathan Swain, assistant administrator for communications and public liaison at the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The programs were authorized through February 16, and the Obama administration is seeking enough funding to extend them until that date. One administration official said this would likely amount to around $100 million.

A lack of sufficient capital for small businesses has been weighing on the U.S. economy’s recovery from a deep recession. Small companies, which are a key driver of U.S. job growth, are the traditional customers of community banks.

Companies with fewer than 500 employees accounted for 64 percent — or 14.5 million — of the 22.5 million net new jobs between 1993 and the third quarter of 2008, the SBA said.

WAITING LIST

To accommodate businesses that can afford to wait for funding, the SBA has implemented a transition period called the Recovery Loan Queue enabling those businesses to get their loan applications in line.

Loan applications that are conditionally approved subject to the funding will be placed in the loan queue in the order in which they were approved.

“We anticipated that once we notified lenders of the November 23 transition date that we would see a surge in loan approvals, which we in fact did see,” Swain said.

Last week alone, SBA supported more than $1.1 billion in lending to small businesses and since February has supported more than $16 billion, he said.

Last month, the Obama administration threw its support behind legislation to raise the maximum size of a SBA (7a) loan to $5 million from $2 million. This program provides partial guarantees on loans for small businesses that are borrowing to invest in working capital, machinery and equipment.

The administration also called for raising the maximum size of loans under the 504 program, which provides guarantees on loans to small businesses for real estate and other fixed assets for expansion that will create and retain jobs.

The amount would rise to $5 million from $2 million for standard borrowers and to $5.5 million for manufacturers.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided the SBA with $730 million for lending and investment programs, the agency said.

Of the total, $255 million was also granted for a new loan program to provide temporary interest-free loans to small businesses to help them meet existing debt payments and $30 million to expand SBA’s Microloan program. At current lending rates, the interest-free loan program funds could last until around mid-2010.

(Reporting by Nancy Waitz; Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Jan Paschal)

The fourth-quarter borrowing total was $209 billion less
than forecast in July, due in part to paydowns in a
Supplementary Financing Program that Treasury operates to raise
money to support Federal Reserve liquidity programs instituted
to revive lending after the housing market crash.

The October-December borrowing needs include $15 billion
for the Fed’s SFP.

Financial market participants had anticipated reduced
fourth-quarter borrowing, noting that Treasury has been paying
down bills, but said it was moderately encouraging.

“It’s not declining as much as one would like but it’s a
step in the right direction,” said Ward McCarthy of Jefferies &
Co Inc in New York.

One reason for the decline that Jefferies cited is the
possibility that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp may take in
as much as $50 billion in assessments to rebuild the insurance
fund it operates for banks, which would reduce its need to
borrow money.

TOUGHER LINE ON BANKS

Regulators have proposed that banks prepay three years of
fees to offset the rising cost of bank failures.

Jefferies expects an $82-billion refunding to be announced
on Wednesday, made up of a $40-billion three-year note, a
$25-billion 10-year note and a $17-billion 30-year bond.

But borrowing will accelerate at the start of next year.

In its quarterly estimate of market financing needs,
Treasury said it expects to borrow about $478 billion in the
January-March 2010 period and that it expects to have an
end-of-quarter cash balance of $45 billion.

Treasury borrowed $393 billion in net marketable debt in
the July-September quarter, ending the quarter with a cash
balance of $275 billion.

In July, Treasury had estimated it would need to borrow a
larger total of $406 billion but said its spending during the
July-September quarter was less than expected.

Treasury will lay out details about the specific mix of
securities that it intends to sell during the fourth quarter at
a quarterly refunding press conference on Wednesday, Nov. 4.

It is also expected to say then whether it intends to move
to a longer-dated 30-year Treasury Inflation Protected Security
from the 20-year maturity that it now issues.

DEBT LIMIT CONSTRAINS BORROWING

As the economy has shown signs of emerging from severe
recession, Treasury has begun paring back borrowing for the SFP
program that the Fed used to add liquidity to the financial
system and to manage the size of its own balance sheet.

One reason that Treasury said in mid-September that it was
reducing the SFP program was that it feared soon piercing a
Congressionally set debt limit of $12.1 trillion if it did not
do so.

The debt limit has not yet been raised and Treasury
officials said any questions about when it might hit the debt
ceiling would have to wait until Wednesday’s press conference.

President Barack Obama said on Monday that with the United
States facing huge deficits, it cannot rely on the past
“debt-driven” models for growth.

Commentators point out that U.S. budget deficits are likely
to remain high for years, troubling financial market
participants who worry that investors’ appetite for U.S. debt
may not keep pace with the government’s borrowing needs.

A survey of primary market dealers — the big Wall Street
firms that deal directly with Treasury and advise it on market
conditions — found that they expect another deficit in fiscal
2010 of about $1.4 trillion, a repeat of fiscal 2009′s record
shortfall between spending and income.
(Additional reporting by Richard Leong in New York; Editing by
James Dalgleish)

To a standing ovation at a dinner held by the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group, Obama said he would “end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ That’s my commitment to you.”

Obama, who was referring to the policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the U.S. military, was seeking to shore up his support among gays and lesbians who backed him strongly during last year’s presidential campaign.

Many gay activists are frustrated he has not moved more quickly to carry out promises, such as overturning the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from forcing states to recognize gay marriage.

Activists plan to march in Washington on Sunday to urge action on those issues.

At the dinner, Obama acknowledged that work on those issues was “taking longer than you’d like” as the push to overhaul healthcare and dealing with the economic crisis dominate his domestic agenda.

But he promised “unwavering” support for broadening the rights of gays and lesbians and said he would not allow the issue to be sidetracked.

“Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach,” said Obama, who made history as the first African American president and compared the push for gay rights to the struggles in the 1960s to end discrimination against blacks.

“My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time when we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians, whether in the office or on the battlefield.”

Obama touted his decision to extend some benefits to partners of gay federal employees and said he hopes to soon sign a bill that would broaden the definition of hate crimes to include attacks on people because of their sexual orientation.

The House of Representatives passed the bill last week and the Senate is expected to act soon.

Obama last week nominated an openly gay lawyer, David Huebner, to serve as his ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

Lane Hudson, a blogger and activist who attended the Human Rights Campaign event, said while Obama’s speech was well-received, it probably would not erase doubts about his commitment to fulfilling his campaign promises.

“It was the kind of feel-good speech we are used to from the president,” Hudson said. “It lacked any specific details on fulfilling his promises and he failed to say anything new at all.”

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)