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"The question is, how can we get the ox out of the ditch?" Mr Skinner said. "In order to create jobs in America, you're going to have to cut taxes… particularly in the business community. "We pay some of the highest [corporate] taxes around

With the economy stagnating and unemployment high, where are the jobs of the future going to come from? A few years ago, it seemed as though the Green Economy could be a big part of the answer. New clean-energy sources could address environmental, economic and national security problems all at once. In his 2008 convention speech, Barack Obama promised to create five million green economy jobs. The U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated in April 2009 that green jobs could account for 10 percent of new job growth over the next 30 years.

The U.S. economy barely added jobs for the second month in a row in June and the unemployment rate rose to the highest level this year, adding to concerns the labor market will take years to recover.

Private businesses barely added jobs in May as large companies cut workers, according to a report released Wednesday. The news is sure to raise further fears about the second-quarter U.S. economy.

The United States economy added far more jobs than expected in April, but with more than 13 million people still out of work, analysts cautioned that it was too early to say whether the momentum could be sustained for a full recovery in the labor market. The Labor Department said Friday that 244,000 jobs were added last month after a gain of a revised 221,000 in March. The unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in April from 8.8 percent in March.

By John D. McKinnon, WSJ, As President Barack Obama pushes to raise income taxes on high earners, opponents are seizing on data that indicates these U.S. households already pay a large and growing share of taxes, even compared with high-tax European countries. And a new congressional study concludes that the percentage of U.S. households owing no federal income tax climbed to 51% for 2009.

It should be obvious by now that the president of the United States and his political allies are hoping to ride demonization of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's Medicare reform proposal all the way to electoral victory in November 2012. Following the president's April 13 campaign-style budget speech, in which he aimed his most intense partisan fire at the Ryan Medicare plan, the entire Democratic political machine has taken the cue and gotten cranked up. In recent days, the party's campaign committees began running attack ads against the Ryan plan -- a full year and a half before the next election. Professional agitators have been rounded up to heckle members of Congress in their districts. And a legion of administration apologists has filled the blogosphere and newspaper opinion pages with outrage -- outrage! -- at the "cruelty" of the Ryan plan.