Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in the GOP’s weekly radio address this morning, blasted Democrats’ stimulus proposal while praising President Obama’s bipartisan outreach, accusing House Democrats of straying too far from Obama’s version of the plan. See the video of McConnell’s address below:

Read the full story at TheHill.com.

President Obama told Americans today in his weekly radio/YouTube address that his administration is dedicated to alleviating Americans’ economic woes, pledging to work with Republicans to pass the stimulus package that will move to the Senate this week. See the video below:

Read the full story at TheHill.com.

President Obama and Congress are right to take swift and bold action on the stimulus, but it is just as important to get it done right as it is to get it done quickly. To move the economy forward immediately, the stimulus should focus on spurring investments to drive economic growth and removing roadblocks that will make American companies more competitive in the global market.  With this in mind we have several concerns with the House version of the bill.

A truly effective stimulus package must have the proper balance of tax and spending provisions to trigger near-term economic growth while underpinning long-term economic growth. While we do support certain tax relief provisions in H.R. 1, the Chamber believes that the tax provisions in H.R. 1 are simply too small to have the desired impact. Read the rest of this entry »

Clinical trials are so critical for patients and or medical research, yet many patients find that their health insurance won’t cover the rest of their routine cancer treatment if they decide to enroll in clinical trials.  We’re not asking insurance companies to pay for clinical trials.  This bill simply state that insurers must continue to pay for routine treatments — that they would be paying for regardless — if patients enroll in a clinical trial.

No patient should ever have to fear exploring all treatment options at the cost of losing coverage.  We should be encouraging participation in clinical trials, not discouraging it by removing coverage for routine care.  Were it not for patients who have enrolled in past trials, the medial advancements we’ve experienced toward finding a cure for cancer would not be possible.

For a brief moment, when Congress authorized that $700 billion bailout for the Wall Street wise guys whose recklessness caused the financial crisis that we’re all suffering, federal officials actually considered giving part of the money to foreign banks.

Really.

They quickly backed away from using American tax dollars to prop up overseas financial institutions.

But now, the same issue is at stake with the $825 billion economic recovery package. Fifteen groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable want to give American tax dollars to foreign manufacturers to create jobs overseas.

That’s right. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants to spend the tax dollars of unemployed Americans to create jobs in China and Indonesia, Korea and India. Read the rest of this entry »

The Big Question is a feature where influential lawmakers, pundits and interest group leaders give their answers to a question that’s driving discussion in news circles around the country.

Some responses are gathered via e-mail, while others are gathered in person via tape recorder.

Today’s Big Question is:

Does massive government intervention mean a paradigm shift is taking place in the U.S. economy?

See responses below from Gillian Caldwell, Dean Baker, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Brad Woodhouse and Bertha Lewis.

See the last Big Question here.

Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, said:

By voting against the economic recovery package, Republicans appear to have learned nothing from the message sent to all of our elected officials in the most recent election that it’s time to set partisan games, politics and ideology aside and work for bold solutions to the daunting challenges facing the American people… Read the full response

Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change to Win and international secretary-treasurer of SEIU, said:

Last week, Americans across the country stood on the National Mall in the freezing cold to support a new president who would do whatever it takes to help the millions of people losing their jobs, including reaching out to House Republicans this week in an unprecedented way. Unfortunately, House Republicans won’t return the favor. President Obama and members… Read the full response

Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) said:

I think, outwardly, voting against it was a mistake. But they have the right to do that. I was proud of the president because of the kind of outreach he did with Republicans, even though you can’t quantify or necessarily make the connection between networking and votes… Read the full response

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said:

Republicans in the House voted as one to oppose allowing the Chicago boys to spend $800 billion of other people’s money to hire more Democrat precinct workers. Good idea or bad idea?

Is this a trick question?… Read the full response

Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, said:

Bad move particularly if it works. Also they ended up getting positioned as just opposed to Obama rather than thoughtful. They would have been better off to oppose him later and work on this.

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) said:

I hope and believe that they voted their conscience rather than politics, because the issue we face is so serious that it should be dealt with on the basis of substance. I happen to believe that the stimulus package, as presented in the House, would fail in its goal of providing the necessary stimulus… Read the full response

John Zogby, president/CEO of Zogby International, said:

One question I always get when I am out speaking is if the U.S. will ever see a third party. It is looking more and more as if that could happen. And its name: the Republican Party. The 2008 election was a transformation… Read the full response

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said:

It was a bad idea, because they seemed to have forgotten what the American people said this year — that they really wanted [bi]partisanship and to have change. I mean I’ve had my phones all lit up from Republicans and Democrats saying, “Don’t they know who won the election?”

Response obtained in person at the Capitol via digital recorder.

Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said:

At its best, politics is a multi-dimensional chess game with moves that must anticipate a murky future. First, Republicans are betting that the Democratic stimulus plan won’t work. That would enable GOP incumbents to say in 2010… Read the full response

Bertha Lewis, chief organizer of ACORN, said:

What a mistake the Republicans have made! Obama reaches out, with a popular proposal grounded in good policy, and they slap him down? Tactically, this is dumb. The recovery package was Obama’s first push; it was destined for passage no matter what the GOP did. The next few major issues are much heavier lifts for Obama, and with their rejectionism… Read the full response

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said:

The Republicans apparently have not been following the news. The Labor Department’s data show the economy losing more than 500,000 jobs a month in the last quarter. Because of the way the Labor Department imputes jobs for new firms not in the sample, the true job loss might have exceeded 600,000 a month, and it is accelerating in the current quarter… Read the full response

William Redpath, chairman of the Libertarian Party, said:

The answer to that question will matter come the Fall of 2010. Given the documented historical record (in an academic paper by Christina Romer, an Obama economic advisor, and her husband, David Romer) of fiscal stimuli not inducing economic recovery, it will probably be viewed as a good vote.

Both the House and Senate “stimulus” bills propose funding for high-speed broadband networks. Is such funding necessary?  Absolutely. In fact, the funding may fall far short of what the country really needs.

I recently published a report sponsored by The Century Foundation to make the point that broadband networks provide the foundation for our future. By providing high-speed connections to the Internet, broadband connections improve business productivity, reduce healthcare costs (e.g. through telemedicine), expand educational opportunities (e.g. through distance learning), generate innovate on-line services and applications, reduce pollution (e.g. through telecommuting) and enhance our national security. Read the rest of this entry »

A new report issued by the World Trade Organization reveals that key U.S. trading partners have taken steps to erect new trade barriers in the wake of the global financial crisis. While the report is relatively sanguine about the effect of protectionist pressures on international trade thus far, the impact on the trading system of countries’ responses to the global economic crisis may not be clear for some time and the current trajectory is not encouraging.

The report, dated January 23, has not been made public by the WTO though it has been circulated to reports and has appeared on at least one website.

It catalogues a range of measures which countries from Korea to Ecuador have undertaken in recent months which either complicate or restrict trade. Russia, for instance, has increased tariffs on automobile imports while Indonesia has restricted the means of entry of imports into the country. Read the rest of this entry »

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is a bill that recognizes the vital role clean energy can play in driving economic recovery. The bill makes an important down payment on solutions that will transform America’s economy and lead to a clean energy future that will benefit generations to come.

President Obama and the House have laid out a bold plan for stimulating our struggling economy by investing in clean energy technologies and green jobs. These initiatives are a win-win for a strong economy and a healthier environment. By focusing on critical investments in repair and modernization of infrastructure, and boosting production of renewable energy, they will create good jobs here in America and reduce our dependence on dirtier energy sources like oil and coal. Read the rest of this entry »

By a 244 to 188 vote, the House yesterday passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. If passed by the Senate, the bill would quadruple investment in energy efficiency for buildings and appliances and boost research and development funding for renewable energy sources by 225 percent, according to the Center for American Progress. A new Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee program would provide $8 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects. The full Senate is expected to take up its version of bill next week. Read the rest of this entry »