Steny Hoyer pen and pad session

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer repeatedly stressed a desire for bipartisan cooperation at a Capitol briefing.
The first item on his agenda is the Recovery and Reinvestment act. He confirmed that this the deepest recession in 70 years.
Mark Zandy, chief economist and cofounder of Moody’s Economy.com, was McCain’s financial adviser. This is important, Hoyer said, because Zandy recently described the proposed package as large enough to provide a real stimulus, but not so large as to drive interest rates up. “In other words, it’s just about right,” Hoyer said. The net effect may be enough to stop the downward slide, though the recovery is going to be a protracted process, Hoyer said. Only diligent, consistent government action can make a long-term improvement in the nation’s financial health, he said.
Hoyer said that the concurrence of McCain’s and Obama’s top advisers should encourage bipartisan support of the bill. He noted that the Democratic Congress had worked with Former President Bush on TARP in a way Republicans did not.

Campaign for America's Future calls for massive economic recovery package

The Campaign for America's Future hosted a conference call to discuss an economic recovery package to help America get out of its recession.

"It will take at least two years of expanded spending to get this economy going," said Robert Borosage, Co-Director for the Campaign for America's Future. "We can't go back to the high-consumption, stagnant income, high-debt model of the past."

The plan called for $900 billion to go towards to expanding public investment. Borosage also called for better health care policies, an increase in regulation of the financial sector, and more investments in a greener infrastructure.

Without support for automakers, job losses will be devastating

In a statement made before the House-Senate Joint Economic Committee, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Keith Hall said that the newest job report "may be the worst job report the BLS has ever produced." The committee was lead by Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) who said that retailers reported the worst November sales in over thirty years yesterday, and that economists are referring to this as "the Great Recession."

Joining Maloney was Congressman Phil English (R-Pa.) and Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). Cummings stated that the $700 billion dollar bailout asked very little of banks, but is asking a lot from automakers. He referred to this as a "different standard for white- and blue-collar jobs."

Hall said that approximately 115,000 jobs have been lost from auto dealers since December of 2007, while a national average of 419,000 jobs have been lost every month since December. The hearing concluded with an appeal by all three Representatives for an immediate and bipartisan solution to support the automakers and to prevent millions of more jobs being lost.

Recession sets in, outlook for Europe is not positive

"The notion of the euro is very much more a political concept rather than a concept based on sound economics," said Desmond Lachman, resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute during a discussion on "Assessing the Impacts of the Financial Crisis on Europe's Political Architecture" hosted by the Heritage Foundation. According to Lachman there is no positive outlook for the European markets and the euro. "There is no question now that Europe is in a recession...," Lachman said.

J.D. Foster, a Norman Ture senior fellow in the economics of fiscal policy at the Heritage Foundation, stated that Europe has always put more efforts into economic security than economic growth, underlining the reason why the economic crisis has had such an impact on the European markets. "Europeans put more emphasis on security and Americans traditionally put more emphasis on economic growth," Foster said.

Richard Rahn, director general of the Center for Global Economic Growth, mentioned several countries who will suffer tremendously from the economic crisis, for example Spain, Ireland and Italy. According to Rahn, countries like Estonia and Lithuania will not suffer as much from the crisis due to minor investments internationally. Rahn also mentioned that countries like Austria and the Netherlands are not in danger of going into in recession due to a majority of their investments being made in eastern Europe.

In conclusion, Rahn highlighted Norway, which due to its major oil resources, will be affected by the declining oil prices, but otherwise stay totally unaffected by the recession. "Norway shows what happens when you have a very small population and lots of oil, so the Norwegians have become very rich," said Rahn.

Are stimulus checks coming fast enough?

The House Committee on Ways and Means subcommittees on oversight and social security held a joint hearing focused on investigating the status of economic stimulus check distribution to needy Americans.

Members of Congress questioned Nina Olson, national taxpayer advocate at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), about the progress her department as made in helping to ensure stimulus checks are distributed more quickly to citizens hurting financially. The panel of Representatives paid particular attention to asking Olson about the IRS’ efforts to help senior citizens fill out information to get stimulus checks, and were assured by Olson that such efforts were being made.

Congressman debated the efficiency the IRS has had in informing the public about filling out and receiving checks, and the amount of time it takes to distribute them. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) argued that the Americans actually need to worry more about the appallingly high price of oil before focusing their attention on stimulus checks.