Most politically “red” states are financially in the red when it comes to how much money they receive from Washington compared with what their residents pay in taxes. A look at 2010 Census and IRS data reveals that the 50 states and the District of Columbia, on average, received $1.29 in federal spending for every…
Category: Economy
FCC Commissioner questions state attempts to limit municipal broadband
Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn has issued a statement saying that state efforts to limit municipal broadband deployments are new obstacles in meeting the goals of the National Broadband Plan. In a statement issued April 4, she wrote: “I have serious concerns that as the Federal Communications Commission continues to address broadband deployment barriers…
About The Affordable Care Act And The Deficit
The current law baseline assumes the expiration of all the Bush tax cuts, it assumes the spending sequester will take effect, it assumes huge Medicare cuts that Congress will never permit, and much more. If we follow current law, we don’t really have a deficit problem. No one believes we will follow current law. If…
Job Openings Report Signals Pickup In Hiring
U.S. employers posted slightly more job openings in February, suggesting that modest hiring gains will continue in coming months. The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers advertised 3.5 million job openings in February. That was a slight increase from a revised 3.48 million in January but still below the three-year high of 3.54 million in…
Economy has grown the most when Democrats have been in power
Earlier today, I linked to a Goldman Sachs research note arguing that the most fiscally conservative outcome in the 2012 election would be an Obama victory and Republican control of Congress. But their analysis was limited to deficit reduction. Last week, JPMorgan looked at this question using a broader lens: what happens to the economy…
26 Major Corporations Paid No Taxes For The Last Four Years
Last year, Citizens for Tax Justice found that 30 major corporations had made billions of dollars in profits while paying no federal income tax between 2008 and 2010. Today, CTJ updated that report to reflect the 2011 tax bill of those 30 companies, and 26 of them have still managed to pay absolutely nothing over…
Americans Disagree with the Ryan Budget’s Priorities
Conservative politicians have eagerly embraced Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) radical fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, which would slash social spending to the bone while preserving or extending all tax breaks for the wealthy. President Barack Obama, in contrast, is trying to make the case that the Ryan budget has its priorities completely wrong and that…
Taking Action on Clean Energy and Climate Protection in 2012
We must accelerate the economic transformation that has already begun and move forcefully into a completely new clean energy economic era defined by stronger industries, better infrastructure, and a steadily growing middle class. In this paper we propose how to do just that. We identify clean energy and climate solutions that are effective, strategic, and…
New Jobless Claims Drop To Another 4-Year Low
The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits fell to a four-year low last week, as layoffs slow and the job market strengthens. Weekly applications dropped 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 357,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the fewest since April 2008. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to 361,750, also the…
Despite History and the Numbers, Wall Street Wants Republican in the White House
The stock market may be up more than 75% since President Obama moved into the White House, but Wall Street is looking for a change come November. Stocks have historically performed better during a Democratic administration, yet a whopping 70% of investment strategists and money managers say a Republican president will be better for the…
Mark Zandi is feeling even sunnier about jobs in 2012 – The Washington Post
Add Mark Zandi to the growing chorus of economists who believe that the U.S. is finally headed for a real turnaround. The chief economist for Moody’s Analytics just revised his outlook for 2012, and the biggest change to his forecast involves the unemployment rate. Back in January, Zandi predicted that the rate, which is currently…
By 2025, three of the world’s richest cities will be in China
The McKinsey Global Institute explains what the new world order will look like in 2025: Just 600 cities will be responsible for about 60 percent of global GDP growth. And while urban centers in the United States, Europe*, and Japan are still dominant, cities in China and India, in particular, will have an outsized role…
A Business Bet on the G.O.P. May Be Backfiring
Business groups that worked hard to install a Republican majority in the House equated Republican control with a business-friendly environment. But the majority is first and foremost a conservative political force, and on key issues, its ideology is not always aligned with commercial interests that helped finance election victories. “Free market is not always the…
A New Energy Third World in North America?
The “curse” of oil wealth is a well-known phenomenon in Third World petro-states where millions of lives are wasted in poverty and the environment is ravaged, while tiny elites rake in the energy dollars and corruption rules the land. Recently, North America has been repeatedly hailed as the planet’s twenty-first-century “new Saudi Arabia” for “tough energy” — deep-sea oil, Canadian tar…
More states privatizing their infrastructure. Are they making a mistake?
But before getting too excited about the magical powers of private firms, experts warn that there are potential pitfalls to these arrangements. For one, as Robert Puentes of Brookings noted in a recent paper (pdf), these are complicated multi-decade financial arrangements. And “many states,” he notes, “lack the technical capacity and expertise to consider such…
Economic Snapshot for March 2012
The nation’s economy and labor market are gradually gaining strength. Job creation is up and the unemployment rate keeps falling. But American families need more months of much-stronger job creation to eliminate the massive economic pain that the crisis and its aftermath brought. Substantial trouble spots remain in the economy and in households’ economic security….
Sunshine State Bets On Sunset For Health Care Act
Scott holds that, until the Supreme Court decides the case, the Affordable Care Act is not yet the law of the land. In an interview with member station WUSF in Tampa, Scott says until then, he has no interest in setting up a health care exchange. “All it’s going to do is raise the cost…
Why the Republican budgets make the poor pay
But now cuts to those programs have to pay for the deficit reduction, the increased defense spending, and the tax cuts. That means the cuts to those programs have to be really, really, really deep. The authors have no other choice. In Ryan’s plan, for instance, revenues are approximately $2 trillion below the levels in…
The Health Care Law and Cost Control
The new health care law forces insurance companies to play by the rules, prohibiting them from dropping your coverage if you get sick, billing you into bankruptcy because of an annual or lifetime limit, or, soon, discriminating against anyone with a pre-existing condition. The new law also includes a number of key provisions designed to…
Investors Are Making Big Money On Renewable Energy
Although Congress recently dealt a blow to the wind energy industry by failing to extend the production tax credit that helped incentivize wind power investment and production, and make it price-competitive with carbon energy sources, Immelt remains bullish on renewables and with good reason. Clean energy investments in the U.S. will continue to be driven…