Rivlin Stresses Need For Job Growth

Former White House budget chief Alice Rivlin assures the Senate Budget Committee that getting U.S. citizens back to work so that the nation’s standard of living doesn’t erode is an achievable task. (0:48)

Listen

Unemployment Rate Not An Indication Of Recovery Act's Failure, Says President's Economic Advisor

“Unemployment is substantially higher and job loss has been greater than most observers predicted last winter...unemployment is likely to rise in coming months,” said Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Friday. He claimed, however, that “this does not provide a basis for concluding that the Recovery Act is falling short of its goals," since the peak impact of the stimulus on jobs is not projected to be achieved until the end of 2009. (0:30)


Listen

Conference Call: New polls used to analyze possible Election 2008 outcomes

Ron Faucheux, associate professorial lecturer at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, holds a conference call with Lake Research Partners Presiden Celinda Lake and Tarrance Group Vice President Brian Nienaber to discuss the implications of GWU's new Battleground Poll which evaluates national attitudes towards race, the economy, and the Iraq War. The participants use the data to analyze potential outcomes of the 2008 presidential election.
Listen

Colombia: "If you're for free trade, you take it wherever you can get it"

At a Brookings Institution discussion on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says that “if you’re for free trade, you take it wherever you can get it.” He said that the ideal situation would be to strive for a “worldwide agreement, secondly regional, and only lastly bilateral” but that trade in general is “necessary for the rest of the world know that the United States is in the game.” (0:30)
Listen

Senator says there is "no downside" to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement

At a Brookings Institution discussion on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says there is “no downside” to the agreement, and that it is “pathetic” that the agreement has not been passed already. (0:24)
Listen

Murtha says Iraq has distracted U.S. from "bigger picture worldwide"

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) said at a Center for American Progress discussion on Iraq that the U.S. is so “entangled” in Iraq that it has “become distracted from the bigger picture worldwide.” He says Iraq has led to a multitude of domestic problems for the U.S., and its “worldwide reputation is in the tank.” (0:46)
Listen