Information you should know

CBO Paints Black Picture If Republican Policies Are Continued

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is the nonpartisan organization that both parties use to see the effect of what their bills and economic policies would do to the American economy. While politicians might throw out unsubstantiated numbers glorifying their own bills, the CBO is tasked to look beneath and behind the rhetoric to determine the actual effects of those bills.

Posted by Ted McLaughlin
Reposted from Jobsanger

Lately, the Republicans have been ignoring many of the CBO projections, and after hearing the latest CBO projections, it is easy to see why. The Republican "trickle down" giveaways to the rich is responsible for much of our ballooning national debt and the continuing national deficit -- a deficit and debt that might be understandable if it was creating jobs, but it is not.

For 2011, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf (pictured) says that the deficit will be about $1.5 trillion (nearly one-third of which will be due to the massive Republican tax breaks for the richest 2% of Americans -- projected to be over $400 billion a year). So while complaining about the deficit, the Republicans actually increased it by nearly 50%. They promised in the last campaign to cut $100 billion, but now are only talking about cutting a little over $50 billion for 2011 (a drop in the bucket compared to the huge increase they created).

In spite of this, the CBO says that if current laws and policies are followed the deficit will fall in the next few years. While the deficit for 2011 will be about 9.8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), they expect the deficit to fall to $1.1 trillion in 2012 (7.0% of GDP), about $704 billion in 2013 (about 4.3% of GDP) and $533 billion in 2014 (about 3.1% of GDP). They then expect the deficit for 2015 through 2021 to range between 2.9% and 3.4% of GDP.

However, these figures will be true only if current law is allowed to continue. If, for example, the cuts in Medicare Advantage mandated in the health care law were not to take place (like the Republicans want), and the tax cuts currently in place were not allowed to expire at the end of 2012 as scheduled (and the Republicans are sure to want to extend them), then the baseline projection for 2015 through 2021 would at least double, and the total debt held by the public would reach 97% of GDP (the most since 1945).

From these numbers it's easy to see that a continuation of Republican policies of repealing health care and continuing to cut taxes for the rich would be a disaster for the national deficit, and even worse for the national debt. Republicans like to claim they are the party of fiscal responsibility, but a review of their recent actions and a look back at Republican administrations shows something different. The truth is that the Republican "trickle down" policies have consistently added to both the deficit and the debt -- not decrease them.

The CBO does warn that if current law was continued, although deficits would come down in the next few years, the national debt would continue to grow. Either further cuts in government spending would be needed (including no more Republican giveaways to the rich) or an increase in taxes would be needed, or both. There is no way to bring down the national debt without doing this. The obvious solution would be to cut the military some (the most bloated area of the American budget) and raise taxes on the richest Americans (beyond letting the current cuts expire). But Republican policy would not allow either of these things to happen.

The CBO also paints a rather dark picture for employment. They say that if the economy produces 2.5 million jobs each year between now and 2016, the unemployment rate will finally fall below 6% in 2016. Even this dismal projection seems to me to be overly optimistic. Remember, only 1.1 million jobs were created in 2010 -- a figure that barely kept up with the number of new people entering the work force.

Unless the increasing amount of job outsourcing is stopped (something the Republicans oppose and recently blocked in Congress), it is unlikely that the 2.5 million jobs a year figure can be reached. While they may be created (since the corporations and the rich are doing very well), the sad fact is that far too many of them will be shipped abroad (where good-paying jobs can be turned into poverty-wage jobs).

After viewing this latest CBO projection, it becomes even clearer that the Republican policies of giveaways to the rich and outsourcing of jobs are the biggest impediments to bringing this country out of the recession. Ordinary Americans are still hurting and still feeling the full effects of the recession, but the Republicans are only interested in helping the rich -- the only people doing well right now.

The Republican Clown Show

From Jobsanger

The number of hopefuls for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 was already a large and pretty crazy field. It included such people as Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels, Rick Santorum, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty, John Thune, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Judd Gregg, and Gary Johnson.

Then it turned into a real clown show in the last few days. Jim DeMint is now saying he would consider running, Michele Bachmann is making noises like she could be a candidate (and putting out feelers), and Donald Trump is tossing his hat in the ring. There is some serious crazy in the race now -- but evidently not crazy enough.

Yesterday we found out that Nevada's teabagger extraordinaire Sharron Angle may be considering a run. She showed up in Iowa for the preview of a fundamentalist christian movie, and would not say no when reporters asked her if she was running for the presidential nomination. She just said, "I'll just say I have lots of options for the future, and I'm investigating all my options." Then she told the Iowans present, "Please, just invite me back."

This is starting to get weird now (and very interesting). Who needs a circus with the show all these clowns will be putting on?

No Comment Necessary

Teabagger Congressmen Break Their Promise

Reposted from Jobsanger


It certainly didn't take the members of the congressional teabagger caucus to break their campaign promises. They campaigned on controlling the deficit by eliminating congressional pork, especially the practice of earmarks (where congresspersons insert millions of dollars of spending for their own districts into congressional bills). They, along with many other Republicans, pledged to end the practice of earmarking.

Of course only the most naive Americans actually thought they would carry through with their campaign promises. If nothing else, teabaggers are among the biggest political hypocrites. We are only a couple of weeks into the new Congress, and already many in the teabagger congressional caucus have asked for a ton of earmarks.

According to CBS News, members of the caucus have requested at least 764 earmarks for a total of $1,049,783,150. About 29 caucus members have asked for over $10 million each, and at least seven have asked for earmarks of more than $50 million.

The worst offender was Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Montana), who requested 88 earmarks totaling $100,514,200. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Alabama) requested 69 earmarks of $78,263,000, and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas) requested 39 earmarks for $63,400,000.

It just goes to show that congressional Republicans, even teabaggers, are enormous liars. Is anyone really surprised by this?

Fixed Noise - New results

Reposted from Jobsanger

by Ted McLaughlin

Public Policy Polling has just released its second annual review of how much the public trusts various news outlets. Last year Fox was trusted by nearly half of the viewing public with 49% of the public trusting them and only 37% mistrusting them -- giving them a +12 rating. But things were very different this year.

This year shows Fox News is trusted by only 42% (a drop of 7 points) and is now mistrusted by 46% (up by 9 points) -- giving it a change of -16 points (the biggest change of any network). And not surprisingly, the only group that gives Fox a high trust factor is old white conservative Republicans. This is because they obviously slant their programs to preach the Republican Party line.

Here is how Fox News fares when the figures are broken down by demographic groups (and the numbers show the people who trust and distrust Fox News):

CONSERVATIVES
Trust..........72%
Mistrust..........16%
Not sure..........12%

MODERATES
Trust..........28%
Mistrust..........60%
Not sure..........11%

LIBERALS
Trust..........6%
Mistrust..........82%
Not sure..........12%

WOMEN
Trust..........41%
Mistrust..........44%
Not sure..........15%

MEN
Trust..........42%
Mistrust..........48%
Not sure..........9%

REPUBLICANS
Trust..........67%
Mistrust..........22%
Not sure..........11%

DEMOCRATS
Trust..........22%
Mistrust..........65%
Not sure..........13%

INDEPENDENTS
Trust..........36%
Mistrust..........52%
Not sure..........11%

WHITES
Trust..........46%
Mistrust..........42%
Not sure..........13%

HISPANICS
Trust..........35%
Mistrust..........56%
Not sure..........9%

AFRICAN-AMERICANS
Trust..........25%
Mistrust..........63%
Not sure..........12%

18 TO 29 YEAR-OLDS
Trust..........38%
Mistrust..........52%
Not sure..........9%

30 TO 45 YEAR-OLDS
Trust..........43%
Mistrust..........46%
Not sure..........11%

46 TO 65 YEAR-OLDS
Trust..........39%
Mistrust..........49%
Not sure..........12%

65 YEAR-OLDS & OLDER
Trust..........48%
Mistrust..........38%
Not sure..........14%

No Comment Necessary

Reposted from Jobsanger

by Ted McLaughlin

Before the recession hit this country women were making some gains toward gender equality. They weren't there yet, but it was getting better (in spite of the fact that many in America still want women to be second-class citizens). Women still on average only earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, and there are still jobs that discriminate against women (especially in hiring and promotions).

Because women generally make less than men and many are stuck in low-paying dead-end jobs, there has been an impression that this current recession has not hit women as hard as it has men. That's just not true now (if it ever was). Consider the following statistics:

* Although women lost one in three jobs that disappeared in the recession between 2007 and 2009, they have gotten only one in ten job openings that were filled in the last year (2010).

* Although women make up slightly more than half of government workers, they made up 86% of those laid-off from government jobs in the recession (and more government lay-offs are expected this year).

* During 2010, the unemployment rate for women over 20 rose from 7.8% to 8.1% (while the unemployment rate for men fell 0.6% during the same period).

* On average, it takes women over 16 about 24.3 weeks to find a new job (compared to 20.7 weeks for men).

* For older women, the job search time extends to 39.1 weeks on average (compared to 29.6 weeks for older men).

The truth is that this recession has been an equal opportunity destroyer of jobs -- hurting both women and men. But it takes women longer to find work when they lose a job and that replacement job will pay less. And the recession is not over (except for the rich Wall Street bankers -- most of whom are men). The unemployment situation is not going to get better in 2011. The country will be lucky if it just keeps up with the new people entering the work force -- thereby keeping the unemployment rate about where it is now.

And like men, there are many women who have given up finding work or are working part-time because they can't find full-time work. That means the unemployment rate is really much higher than the official government figure of 8.1%.

The recession may have started by men losing construction jobs and the like, but as it continues it is affecting women more and more (and this is affecting children more, since women are much more likely to be single-parents).

Sadly, the Republicans have taken over the House and want to continue their policy of favoring the rich -- they don't seem to care about real job creation and are blocking new job stimulus bills.