economic stimulus package

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States Ignoring $5B in Stimulus Cash for Needy

Say they can't afford matching funds, despite benefits

(Newser) - About half of US states are passing on a $5 billion pool of federal stimulus funds because of a requirement they put up 20% of the money, ProPublica reports. Only 27 states have applied for money under the program, which gives them wide discretion on how to distribute it—some...

Manufacturing Drives Global Recovery

US production grows for first time since Jan. '08

(Newser) - The world may be manufacturing its way out of the global recession, with new figures showing a faster-than-expected recovery from the US to Europe and Asia. The Wall Street Journal reports that American factory output is growing for the first time since January 2008, while separate surveys showed expanded manufacturing...

States Pass on Stimulus Money for Unemployed

$3.1B sitting unused in federal coffers

(Newser) - More than $3.1 billion in stimulus money earmarked for the unemployed is idling in federal coffers, USA Today reports, because 23 states haven’t expanded their unemployment benefits in order to qualify. Another 350,000 workers could receive benefits if they did, according to one worker advocacy group. But...

Why Stimulus Gets a Bad Rap
 Why Stimulus Gets a Bad Rap 
OPINION

Why Stimulus Gets a Bad Rap

(Newser) - The Democrats’ $787 billion stimulus package is less popular than ever—even though it’s already working, writes David Wessel for the Wall Street Journal. The case against it is weak: Fed rate cuts hadn’t slowed the recession, already a year-old at that point, making the stimulus an appropriate...

Hutchison Kicks Off Bid for Texas Governor

Texas senator says Rick Perry has had his chance

(Newser) - Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison announced her bid for Texas governor today and began a 5-day string of stumping appearances around the state, the Dallas Morning News reports. Talking at her old high school, Hutchison attacked fellow Republican Gov. Rick Perry for allowing property tax rates to rise and for failing...

Soros: Time for Philanthropists to Step Up in Public Sphere

Gives $200 to every underprivileged NY kid

(Newser) - George Soros is giving $200 to each and every underprivileged kid in New York state, the billionaire announced today, for a total $35 million bill that will make the state eligible for another $140 million in stimulus money. Some have criticized it as a welfare-style handout, but Soros tells Time...

Alaska's Legislature Overrides Palin Stimulus Veto

Legislature barely hits rare 75% consensus

(Newser) - Alaska’s legislature voted yesterday to override Sarah Palin’s veto of $28 million in stimulus cash to defray energy costs, the Anchorage Daily News reports. Such an override requires the support of 75% of votes; the measure passed by a hair. “Instead of being the last state in...

Big Government Prevented Great Depression II
Big Government Prevented Great Depression II
OPINION

Big Government Prevented Great Depression II

...And Republicans kept demanding that it step aside and allow it

(Newser) - The economy isn’t in great shape, but we’re going to avoid Great Depression II, writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times. “What saved us? The answer, basically, is big government.” Unlike the private sector, the government didn’t decrease spending as its income decreased, which...

Only 2nd Stimulus Can Save US: Stiglitz
Only 2nd Stimulus Can Save US: Stiglitz
OPINION

Only 2nd Stimulus Can Save US: Stiglitz

But Wall Street bailout has made it a dirty word, writes economist

(Newser) - Pundits can't help but ask whether the winter's fiscal stimulus has failed, and for Joseph Stiglitz it has—because the Obama administration made "political compromises that caused it to be less effective than it could have been." For the Nobel Prize-winning economist, there is no option but a...

Duncan Poised to Be Most Powerful Ed Sec Ever

Tight with prez, Duncan holds keys to $5B in stimulus funds

(Newser) - Tight with President Obama and with $5 billion at his disposal, Arne Duncan may become the strongest education secretary in history, writes Nia-Malika Henderson for Politico. “Never ever have they had $5 billion to decide what to do in the education system,” says an education advocate. And it’...

Stimulus Worked: Economists

 Stimulus Worked: 
 Economists 

Stimulus Worked: Economists

Good news for prez ahead of today's job-loss report

(Newser) - President Obama’s stimulus package appears to have helped the economy bottom out more swiftly, an economists’ report says. Analysts hold that the stimulus boosted economic growth by about a percentage point in the second quarter—not enough to keep the economy from shrinking but enough to slow the pace...

Obama: the Economy Is on the Mend (if Slowly)

(Newser) - Citing fresh evidence that the economy is on the road to recovery, President Obama this morning credited his $787 billion economic stimulus program for helping "put the brakes on this recession," and cautioned that full recovery will take many more months. The country's future economic prosperity depends on...

Biden: Recovery Act Is Working
 Biden: Recovery Act Is Working 
OPINION

Biden: Recovery Act Is Working

Critics attacking 'pet programs' have 'misconstrued' the effort

(Newser) - Those who dismiss the Recovery Act as “being spent on pet programs” are wrong, writes the man tasked with administering it. Writing in a New York Times op-ed, VP Joe Biden contends that the stimulus has “brought us back from the precipice.” Two-thirds of it “goes...

Jindal: Dems' Health Care Reform 'Devastating'
Jindal: Dems' Health Care Reform 'Devastating' 
OPINION

Jindal: Dems' Health Care Reform 'Devastating'

(Newser) - President Obama “is currently just flinging stuff against the wall, in trillion-dollar chunks, to see what sticks,” and his plans for health care are no different, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal writes on Politico. Thanks to failed bailouts and a “trillion-dollar stimulus that has not stimulated,” America...

Economy 'Back From the Abyss:' Summers

(Newser) - President Obama's top economist is confident that swift action by the administration averted disaster, ABC News reports. “We were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year,” Larry Summers says, “but we have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss.” Summers credits...

Economy Is on an Upswing, Says Dr. Doom

Roubini predicts end to recession, sends markets jumping

(Newser) - The financial crisis is over and the worst of the recession is behind us, writes Nouriel Roubini, the extremely pessimistic economist who was among the few who predicted the scale of the downturn. "The light at the end of the tunnel is for once not an incoming train,"...

Sanford Disappeared Last Year, Too, Emails Show

Commerce secretary didn't know where to reach guv

(Newser) - Mark Sanford’s recent Argentine excursion wasn’t the first time he had gone missing: His commerce secretary didn’t know where to reach him in June 2008, either, emails reveal. “Need contact number for (Sanford) ASAP,” the secretary wrote to a Sanford staffer on the 28th—a...

White House Gets Tough on Congress' Critics, Skeptics

Obama defends stimulus, pushes health reform

(Newser) - The White House is cracking down on its critics—and on laggards within the Democratic Party, too. Republican naysayers on the economic stimulus and health care are getting the roughest treatment, Politico reports. After Kentucky Sen. Jon Kyl railed against the efficacy of stimulus spending, four Cabinet secretaries wrote to...

Stimulus Cash Isn't Making It to Hard-Hit Minorities

African-Americans, Hispanics pummeled by recession

(Newser) - With unemployment at 14.7% among African Americans and 12.2% among Hispanics, the recession is hitting minority communities particularly hard. But as is often the case with so-called “colorblind” spending, stimulus funds, intended to be equal-opportunity, aren’t making it to these groups. The government must “start...

This Sign Is Wasting Your Money—and Killing People

(Newser) - The federal government has mandated that every road project funded by stimulus money proudly tout the association with road signs, and that really steams Tait Trussell. The signs, “designed to meticulous federally dictated standards,” go for about $1,000, Trussell writes on Front Page. “So, publicizing thousands...

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