Lawmakers Split On Meaning Of New Job Numbers

By Rob Sanna - Talk Radio News Service

Two House members disagreed Friday over what the July job numbers really mean.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the committee’s ranking Republican, each offered their own take on the report during a hearing this morning that featured testimony from a senior Labor Department official.

“Along with the failure of the massive, failed Democrat stimulus to put people back to work, except in federal government jobs, families and business fear the…job killing, anti-growth policies coming out of Washington,” said Brady.

“The signal of this Democratic Congress is clear: we”ll spend whatever taxpayer money it takes to save a government job, the rest of you American workers can take a hike,” he added.

Maloney, on the other hand, called the new figures encouraging, citing job increases in the private sector since President Obama took office. Maloney said the nation is experiencing economic recovery, even if the amount of growth was not as pronounced last month as it was earlier this year.

“The policies of this Democratic Congress quickly put into place this last year are working,” Maloney said.

“Without the actions taken by the administration, Congress, and the Federal Reserve, this recession would have been another great depression,” she added.

Senate Breaks Filibuster On State Aid For Teachers

By Rob Sanna-Talk Radio News

The Senate voted 62-38 Wednesday ending debate on state and local government aid in order to prevent teachers, police, and figherfighters from being laid off.

“I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with governors. They’ve cut, they’ve slashed, this is an emergency,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “We’ve never had an economy like this since the great depression, and in some respects, it’s worse than the great depression.”

According to Reid, the bill is fully paid for by other budget cuts and touted that this legislation would cut the national debt by $1.3 billion.

The bill is currently awaiting a vote and when asked if the House would reconvene early to vote, Reid said that he thinks it will be “very difficult for the house to be away from Washington for 5 weeks while we have this legislation waiting for their stamp of approval.”

USDA Annouces $1.2 Billion Plan To Bring Broadband To Rural Areas

By Rob Sanna-Talk Radio News Service

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced 126 new Recovery Act projects aimed at providing broadband internet and media jobs in rural areas across the United States. The USDA plans to spend $1.2 billion of stimulus funds and they anticipate the projects to spur private investments of over $117 million in these rural areas.

“This investment in broadband is already putting Americans back to work,” Vilsack said in a phone conference with reporters, “We anticipate the investments we’ve announced to date will create somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 immediate and direct jobs.”

Added Vilsack, “The jobs that are being created today involve broadband service providers hiring works to lay down fiber, before and during construction works will be needed for engineering and design, and during construction and after completion there will be workers managing these installations repair lines and interacting with customers.”

In addition to bringing jobs to rural areas, the USDA also predicts the investments will boost small business’ ability to compete in the global market and expand education opportunities for children and college students.

Expert Blasts GOP's Economic Freedom Act

By Rob Sanna - Talk Radio News

Economic expert at Citizens for Tax Justice Steven Wamoff said Tuesday that the Republicans’ Economic Freedom Act, informally know as their jobs plan, would be extraordinarily expensive and only provide temprary relief to middle-class Americans. 

The plan permanently eliminates income taxes on capital gains, which provides a huge windfall to wealthy people who rely on return on their investment for income. It also erases the federal tax on property transferred after a person dies via a will.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress, Wamoff said the plan is “regressive” and that it cuts payroll taxes in half for one year, the only portion of the bill which would benefit the middle class and it is a short-lived provision.

Wamoff offered harsh criticism of the right-leaning legislation and said America would be “spinning its wheels if a bill like this were passed.”

He argued that the plan cuts 75% of corporate income taxes by allowing businesses to immediately write off purchases and reduces the regular corporate tax rate from 35% to 12.5%.

All of these changes in the tax code would cost about $7 trillion over 10 years, and Wamoff said if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, the total cost would be closer to $10 trillion.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) described the plan as “more of the Bush policies warmed over.”

“Americans don’t want to go back [and] they don’t want to return to the failed policies of the Bush administration,” Hoyer said. “They want to go forward, and very frankly we think the progess we have been making, and which we need to build on, are what the American public are going to vote on in November.”

Stimulus Has The "Summertime Blues"

By Rob Sanna - Talk Radio News Service

Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released a report Tuesday entitled “Summertime Blues,” which lists 100 stimulus bill funded projects that to do not create jobs.

“We have a total now of over 300 projects [and] over $15 billion,” said Coburn. “Could we have used that 15 billion in a way that would have given us a greater economic return, a greater multiplier effect and actually had greater impact on the country? I think so.”

With unemployment rates hovering in the ninth percentile, McCain said he believes that, coupled with sinking GDP levels, unemployment is set to increase throughout the year, digging the country a deeper hole to climb out of.

“The American people have the summertime blues, as unemployment is at 9.5%, over half the homes in my homestate of Arizona are still underwater, and we have seen a decline in the Gross Domestic Product,” he said. “That indicates we are in for a long, difficult year of high unemployment.”