Washington Extra – Surplus shocker!
For anyone who thought the term “budget surplus” had been exorcised from the U.S. government’s lexicon, the Treasury Department offered up some interesting news today.
For the first time since September, 2008, the government’s monthly receipts outpaced its expenditures, resulting in a $59 billion budget surplus in April. The end of the 42-month drought does not mean Washington has solved its budget problems. Indeed, for the first seven months of this fiscal year, $720 billion in cumulative deficits have been racked up.
But you’ve got to start somewhere and April’s result hinted at a slowly improving economy. Other such bits of evidence surfaced in government data released on Thursday: New applications for jobless benefits fell last week and March trade figures showed consumers gobbled up foreign goods at a fast clip while U.S. exports surged to a record high.
House Speaker John Boehner, the highest ranking elected Republican, wasn’t convinced that it was “Morning in America” for the U.S. economy (to steal a phrase from the ever-optimistic Ronald Reagan). “The American people are focused on the economy and they are asking the question, ‘where are the jobs,’” Boehner said at a press conference.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Romney looks to give Bernanke the boot
“I’d be looking for somebody new.”
Those words from the U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney may give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke some pause – or at least thinking about some other job prospects if the GOP frontrunner wins the Nov. 6 election.
As we report, Romney, a former business executive who’s made the economy the cornerstone of his campaign, has made it clear that if he wins the White House he will try to replace Bernanke. The Fed chief’s term ends in January 2014 – a year after the next president takes office. Although Bernanke was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, Democratic President Barack Obama give him second term in 2009.
Bernanke, who was back in the spotlight on Wednesday as he defended current U.S. monetary as being on track, has been both vilified and revered for his role amid the Great Recession that began in 2008. Critics contend he is pursuing a reckless money-printing binge that exposes the world’s largest economy to a dangerous inflation risks while his defenders credit him with bold moves to stimulate growth that prevented a repeat of 1929-level depression.
Romney is signaling he wants the Fed – and the economy — to take a different direction. And that means giving Bernanke the boot, he says.
Getting rid of Bernanke would be about as clueless as every other portion of Romney’s economic incompetence. He didn’t even move into Bain – with other people doing the investing – until he had a 100% salary guarantee in case he screwed up.
The man has the courage of the average bear – none! He has the competence of today’s Republican Party – none!
Part of the success story of the stimulus package has shown up around the country in basic manufacturing industries and continues. Half the credit goes to the halfway measures Obama was able to force past the Party of No – before it became the Party of Never. The other half goes to Bernanke and the availability of greenbacks for industrial revival.
Ohio steel being the best example. Unemployment down to 7.5% in that state.
No privilege for most stay-at-home moms -poll
The recent flap over women voters — especially stay-at-home mothers — has sent both Republican and Democratic pundits scrambling and with good reason: many stay-at-home moms aren’t affiliated with either party and are a ripe target for swing votes, a new poll shows.
The survey from Gallup Inc also finds that moms who don’t work aren’t exactly a pampered lot, despite Ann Romney – the wife of a multi-millionaire businessman – being portrayed as their standard bearer. It found most moms who stay home are more economically disadvantaged than their working peers.
Women with more education and those with higher family incomes are far more likely to work after having children than lower-income women and those who have less schooling, the polling firm found.
“It does appear that stay-at-home mothers are more economically disadvantaged than working mothers, rather than more advantaged. And this may be directly related to education,” Gallup said in its poll released this week.
The dust-up over whether women who don’t work and instead stay home with their children are privileged arose last week when Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen made comments that seemed to criticize Ann Romney, whose husband Mitt is one of the wealthiest people to ever seek the U.S. presidency and who has never been employed outside her home.
According to Gallup, which interviewed more than 45,000 U.S. adult women over three months earlier this year, most mothers with children under age 18 work outside the home — 63 percent. Thirty-seven percent stay home.
The survey found 84 percent of moms with young kids who have postgraduate-level education also have a job along with 75 percent of college graduates and 66 percent of those with just some college coursework. That compares with 48 percent of those who have at most a high school education.
Obama – “I deserve a second term”
President Barack Obama said on Sunday he deserves to be re-elected despite having said three years ago that he’d be a one-term president if he didn’t turn the economy around.
“I deserve a second term, but we’re not done,” Obama told NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview broadcast before the Super Bowl game. Obama listed his administration’s economic achievements but said they weren’t finished.
“We’ve made progress, and the key right now is just, make sure that we don’t start turning in a new direction, that could throw that progress off,” Obama said.
Obama’s handling of the economy, which has seen a sluggish recovery since the 2007-2009 recession, is likely to be the top issue in the November 6 presidential election.
In the NBC interview, Obama also talked about the rising tension between Iran and Israel over Tehran’s nuclear program. (He wants a diplomatic fix.)
On a lighter topic of the day, Obama declined to pick a winner in the NFL Championship, saying he couldn’t call it and predicting that it would be a tough game. (The Giants won.)
Here’s the a clip of the interview, courtesy of of NBC Sports. The “second-term” discussion begins at 4:01
JayWilcos – You are completely delusional. He fails to negotiate, but he does negotiate and give everything away? The president is responsible for submitting budgets? There are massive job opportunities in the oil sector? Obama takes credit for the TARP bailout? Bush stated “the buck stops here” and ever took responsibility for anything?
If you have any evidence to back up any of this nonsense, please feel free to provide it. Which you don’t. Because none of it is true. Please do yourself a favor, put down the Kool-Aid and turn off your Fox News. You’ll feel much better, I promise.
Biden, Romney spar over economic policy
By Eric Johnson
CHICAGO — Vice President Joe Biden, in his first public criticism of a 2012 Republican presidential candidate, criticized Mitt Romney’s economic policies in an opinion piece in Iowa’s biggest newspaper on Friday.
“Romney appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind,” Biden wrote in the Des Moines Register, which last week endorsed Romney for the Republican nomination.
In the piece, Biden laid out his working-class background — which the Obama campaign will tout in rust-belt swing states in 2012 — and said he and Obama were champions of equal opportunity for all, not an entitlement society, as Romney alleged.
“The president and I firmly believe…that if you work hard and play by the rules, no opportunity should be out of reach,” he wrote. “That is a fundamentally different vision than what the other side has proposed.”
The jabs jibe with the Obama campaign’s focus on the former venture capitalist they see as Obama’s most likely challenger. They also provide a taste of what’s to come in a hotly contested general election.
when joey the clown speak, his alzaimer and parkinson going in 100% coordination, anyway monkey see, monkey does1
Romney camp hits back at DNC for “Mitt v. Mitt” attack ad
Mitt Romney’s campaign lined up a bevy of surrogates on Monday to respond to the DNC’s new “Mitt v. Mitt” ad campaign by pressing home their point that Obama is attacking Romney in order to avoid talking about the sputtering U.S. economy.
Although Romney had no public events scheduled for Monday, his campaign arranged a series of conference calls with supporters to “discuss President Obama’s record.”
Former Minnesota Governor and presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, three Ohio legislators, and New Hampshire’s state Senate Majority leader and House Majority leader were among supporters who set up at least six different press conference calls with reporters in states targeted by the DNC.
Their message: Obama is attacking Romney because he doesn’t want to talk about the high 9 percent unemployment rate.
“Before the first vote in the Republican primary is even cast, the Democrats are blasting Mitt Romney and trying to tear him down, and I think the reason for that is they don’t want to focus on their own failure,” said Pawlenty, who joined Romney’s team after ending his own presidential campaign in August. “The last thing they want to do is run against Mitt Romney.”
Photo credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Romney has, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, fallen into a distant 2ND place; and in THIRD place in Iowa polling (behind Gingrich and Ron Paul). Odd that while Newt is surging in the polls, Obama continues to go after Romney. They must think that at some point, Newt’s candidacy will implode.
Obama to middle class: Who loves you?
The middle class is back.
Amid the din of Republican cries of class warfare, the Occupy Wall Street movement and a fresh economic report that America’s rich are getting much, much richer, one phrase punctuated weekend remarks from President Barack Obama and his campaign strategists: the middle class.
As the Democratic president struggles to reconnect with his base — liberals, black Americans and younger voters — he is taking up the middle class mantra to target the crucial voting bloc.
This weekend there was no escaping who the Obama team’s message was aimed at.
Obama used “middle class” five times in his radio broadcast on Saturday that cited a new report on U.S. income inequality from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
In acknowledging the country’s growing income gap: “In fact, the average income for the top 1 percent of Americans has risen almost seven times faster than the income of the average middle-class family.”
Democrats have always, will always love the middle class. Democrats know what decisions are best for us, always have our best interests at heart, always protect us, always give us what we need, and know best how we should manage our money and lives.
Americans are finally, finally, realizing that we only need the Democrats in office. Voting for anyone else is pretty much treason and a disservice to yourself and country.
Vote Democrat…or don’t bother voting at all.
Perry, Bachmann shine star power at Iowa dinner
Newly-minted Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry (and his black campaign bus) rolled into Waterloo Sunday, where the Texas governor made a campaign pitch to Iowa voters.
Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann showed up at the same event. They weren’t on stage together but Perry ending up sharing the spotlight.
Perry spoke first at the Black Hawk County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner and acknowledged another Republican presidential hopeful in the room, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum .
Fresh from her weekend victory in Iowa’s Republican straw poll in Ames, Bachmann (blue bus with white lettering and red stars) managed to fit the GOP fundraiser into her Sunday schedule but she said it had nothing to do Perry appearance in her hometown.
Bachmann told Radio Iowa the dinner was something she had always hoped to put on her schedule.
“I had a family reunion … north of Waterloo today,” she said.
He and Bachmann may be intra-party rivals, but Perry kept his focus on their mutual opponent: President Barack Obama, whose vulnerabilities include stubbornly high unemployment.
I agree with the previous poster. I’m not a fan of the tea party, but if you want to report facts instead of spin, these faux tea partiers (Bachmann, Perry, et al) have usurped Ron Paul’s message, one that he has been making for years.
Where’s the reporting on Buddy Roemer, Gary Johnson, Jon Huntsman, or any of the other candidates? When Jon Huntsman gets mentioned, it’s always in conjunction with Mitt Romney. And don’t get me started on the Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann comparisons.
There really is a hunger out here for smart reporting. We can catch all the scoop on “Bachmann’s Birthday Blunder” on TMZ or other reality show programs/newscasts. I hold Reuters to a higher standard.
U.S. religious leaders urge moral solution to debt talks
Don’t balance the U.S. budget on the backs of the poor and sick, religious leaders said, suggesting that their churches’ charity work is already overstretched and social havoc could result if the government’s social safety net is abandoned.
Representatives from Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and interfaith groups and churches expressed their collective disappointment with the tone of blame in the debt debate between President Obama and congressional negotiators.
The faith groups have organized a vigil alongside the U.S. Capitol and released a letter appealing to the president and Congress to consider the poor and vulnerable in their negotiations.
“The middle class are being crushed. The poor see no hope from getting up from the doldrums of despair and whole communities are facing struggles with joblessness, crime, addictions, violence, and lack the basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing, and adequate education. While these struggles exist in communities, we are witnessing our president and Congress engaging in political posturing, while bickering for power and control,” Rev. Herbert Nelson of the Presbyterian Church USA said.
“It’s time for people of faith to step up and say we as Americans can do better,” The Reverend Canon Peg Chemberlin, president of the National Council of Churches said. She could not believe Americans would abandon the poor to “maintain tax loopholes,” illustrating the support among the faith leaders for more revenues favored by Democrats. However, they also pointed to the need to examine the defense budget for savings.
The concern, Nelson said, should be that social havoc could follow draconian budget cuts. “Poverty isn’t going to be contained,” he said. “No bars on windows, no gated communities are going to stop people desperate to feed their families.”
Nelson said he has spoken to people with wealth who are willing to pay more in taxes if it would help people, and he said he was surprised at the resistance to the rich paying more.
Few would defend the integrity and ethics of most of our elected leaders. Yet such qualities of the highest order are precisely what the American People have called for, for two decades now. As long as the Oligarchs(bankers) maintain their patrons in congress(democrats and republicans), I have no expectation of anything resembling moral conduct regarding public policy to come from Washington.
Washington Extra – Seven up
Ready… Set… Go… And they’re off to the races for 2012. The Republicans went north. The Democrat went south.
Seven Republicans go head-to-head in New Hampshire tonight in the first major debate in the battle for their party’s presidential nomination.
The One they hope to unseat next year, President Barack Obama, sought a head start by talking jobs (he said the word 21 times) in the battleground state of North Carolina, before attending three back-to-back Miami fundraisers in fickle Florida.
“Today, the single most serious economic problem we face is getting people back to work. We stabilized the economy. We prevented a financial meltdown. An economy that was shrinking is now growing. We’ve added more than 2 million private sector jobs over the last 15 months alone,” Obama said at Cree, Inc. in Durham, North Carolina.
That’s probably not quite how the Republicans see it. They are likely to criticize Obama’s economic performance and harp on the stubbornly high unemployment rate.
Will the Republicans who would be president propose specific ideas for turning the economy around or simply criticize the other guy?
Here are our top stories from Washington…
