Economy
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October 8, 2010
Thune Statement on September Jobs Report
WASHINGTON, DC—U.S. Senator John Thune (R-S.D.), Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, made the following statement regarding the Department of Labor’s September employment report released today.
“Today’s poor employment report is yet another sign that the Democrats’ economic policies are failing America. For the last two years, the policies of the Obama administration, supported by Democrat majorities in both chambers of Congress, have stifled economic growth. As the national unemployment rate continues to hover over 9.5 percent for the 14th straight month, the American people are rightfully angry at the failed Democrat leadership coming out of Washington.”
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September 29, 2010
Fact Check on Insurance Premium Increases
Sen. Harkin claimed on the floor recently that analysis of the new regulations taking effect this year would only raise premiums by 1-2 percent. Despite multiple articles and studies finding that premiums will rise by more than 2% next year as a result of the law, whether premiums rise by 2 percent or 22 percent due to PPACA misses the point. The real point is that President Obama repeatedly promised an average $2,500 reduction in family insurance premiums – and, by admitting that the law will raise premiums by *only* one or two percent, Democrats have implicitly admitted this promise will not be kept. -
September 21, 2010
Washington Post on tax debate
The Washington Post reports this morning that letting current tax policy lapse (thus raising taxes on all Americans on January 1 next year), would generate enough revenue to “bring the country within striking distance of meeting President Obama’s goal of balancing the budget.”
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September 20, 2010
The drumbeat gets louder
•Over the weekend, Obama economic advisor, Mark Zandi of Moody’s economy.com, published new research wherein he estimates that letting the tax cuts on small business and high-income earners expire would reduce GDP by 0.4 percent in 2011 and would reduce payroll employment by 770,000 by mid-2012. -
September 1, 2010
WSJ: Tax Cuts Weighed to Spur Economy
It’s interesting that the White House is spinning its wheels trying to devise new ways to stimulate the domestic economy when private industry has been very clear about what it needs: (1) clarity on the direction of EXISTING tax policy, and (2) agency guidelines that specify how the new health care and financial regulations will be implemented.
Instead of creating a wholly new to-do list, perhaps this White House should focus on the one it already has.
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August 5, 2010
Taxpayers Cannot Afford More State Bailouts
After their failure to bring a budget to the floor, Senate Democrats are attempting to shove not one but two bailouts for states before leaving for the August recess. Although many state and local governments have been hurt by the economic downturn, they - like the federal government - are facing difficult decisions because of unsustainable spending. This irresponsible spending will only get worse if the federal government continues to bail out states.
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July 30, 2010
Fed Reserve President Agrees: Raising Taxes During Recession is a Bad Idea
St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard was on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning and when asked about preventing the Democrat’s tax increase, Bullard replied “Increasing taxes when the economy is trying to recover is not a good plan.”
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July 30, 2010
Democrats in Retreat Over 1099 Tax Reporting Requirements
The Wall Street Journal this morning reports on the troubles that the 1099 business tax reporting requirements included in Section 9006 of the health care law are causing for Democrats in Congress. Under the provision, vendors and small businesses are required to file Forms 1099 for any goods purchases that total over $600 in the aggregate over the course of a year – which will force all businesses, including small businesses, to file tax forms listing the amount of their annual transactions with vendors like their paper supplier, bottled water distributor, caterer, etc. The National Taxpayer Advocate has noted this provision will affect 40 million businesses – ten times the number of firms the Administration asserts will benefit from small business tax credits – and has called the paperwork requirements “disproportionate” and “burdensome”. -
July 14, 2010
Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation Conference Report is Deeply Flawed
Using the Senate-passed financial services regulation bill as a starting point, the conference committee’s final agreement – one opposed by every House and Senate Republican conferee – adds troubling new requirements to the legislation and fails to correct harmful provisions in the Senate-passed text. In the end, the bill fails to deliver the reforms needed to prevent the next financial crisis, adds unnecessary burdens on American financial institutions, and increases costs for American consumers. -
July 7, 2010
Rationing With Open Eyes:
The Consequences of Donald Berwick’s Agenda
Donald Berwick, President Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has a history of support for government rationing of health care resources on cost grounds. He has spoken favorably about Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which denies patients access to life-saving treatments the National Health Service (NHS) deems too expensive. The American people should have their eyes open to the ramifications of NICE-style rationing in the United States as part of Democrats’ brave new health care world. -
July 6, 2010
Where is the growth?
Gerald Seib asks the right question in his Capital Comment column in the Wall Street Journal this morning: “What about economic growth?” As lawmakers and policy wonks debate the merits of fiscal stimulus versus deficit reduction, we’re losing sight of the key objective: economic growth. Growth will help “stimulate the economy and reduce the deficit at the same time,” says Seib. Unfortunately, Seib doesn’t take his argument much further. -
July 6, 2010
CEOs think Obama is anti-business
Fareed Zakaria had an article in Monday’s Washington Post discussing President Obama’s “CEO problem.” With $1.8 trillion in cash on domestic corporate balance sheets, why aren’t businesses spending? First and foremost, companies are worried about economic uncertainty, but there is also a fear of new taxes and regulation—a government that has reached too far. At their core, many large company CEOs feel the President is anti-business. -
July 6, 2010
Why Orszag quit
WH failure to push for greater cost controls lead Obama Budget Czar to the exit
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June 30, 2010
House Dems: "The tax code should be one giant annual extender"
We’ve all heard stories about how uncertainty over the direction of US tax policy is killing business investment and job creation. Now, House Democrats just whacked the consumer, the biggest driver of US economic growth. -
June 29, 2010
How the Obama Administration’s New Regulations Give Insurance Companies More Control Over Small Businesses
President Obama and Democrats in Congress claim that their government takeover of health care will curb insurance company abuses. But in reality a series of new rules will give small businesses struggling to afford coverage for their workers even less ability to control skyrocketing premiums. Instead of being able to negotiate with insurance companies for more affordable coverage, small businesses face a “choice” of either accepting their current carrier’s premium increases or purchasing new, costlier coverage mandated by the health care law. -
June 16, 2010
More on Dishonest CBPP attack on Thune amendment
The extremely liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is out with a disingenuous attack against the Thune Amendment #4333 to the Democrats’ extenders bill.
According to CBPP, the Thune amendment would result in a 22 percent cut to total FY2010 appropriated funding and, in their words, “shut down much of the federal government for final months of fiscal year.” They arrive at this conclusion through sleight of hand and fuzzy math, which needs to be corrected. -
June 16, 2010
Liberal CBPP attack against Thune Tax Extender Amendment is patently false.
The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has launched an attack against Senator Thune’s GOP tax extender alternative amendment that is plainly untrue.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Senator Thune’s GOP tax extender amendment cuts taxes by $26 billion, cuts spending by over $100 billion, and reduces the deficit by $68 billion.
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June 15, 2010
State Bailouts
An article of note from Congress Daily discusses the Administration’s request for roughly $50 billion in state aid – a $23 billion state bailout ostensibly for teachers that may get added to the supplemental in the House and a $24 billion in FMAP money currently in the Senate “extenders” bill. The article quotes the Senate Minority Whip Kyl raising some good points:
Citing spending for state and local governments in the 2009 stimulus package he said "spending billions of dollars on state and local governments hasn't helped them to solve their financial problem thus far." He noted that 7.4 percent of private-sector jobs have been lost during the recession, while local governments have lost less than 1 percent.
To Democrats, the loss of 1 percent of the local government workforce is a tragedy that calls for immediate bailouts paid for with tax increases and more debt, neither of which do anything to help the more than 14 million unemployed private sector workers.
Cato points out the enormous increase in federal grants to states in the last decade, taken from the Administration’s Analytical Perspectives:
Table Source: Cato Institute
Before the budgetless Democrats continue this trend, perhaps someone should remind them that the country is broke.
RPC Analyst Jon Lieber
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June 15, 2010
Tester's unemployment insurance suggestion
Congress Daily highlights Senator Tester’s effort to drop the $25/week additional benefit from the unemployment extension, in an attempt to find a bill that is palatable to 60 Senators. This would save roughly $6 billion of the $41 billion UI extension. CongressDaily wryly points out that since the GOP alternative contains these additional benefits, “Tester's amendment would be less generous to the unemployed than the GOP substitute.” The GOP substitute, which, by the way, is fully paid for with spending cuts, lowers the deficit $68 billion (according to a revised CBO score), and doesn’t raise taxes a dime.
RPC Analyst Jon Lieber