The Free Speech Zone

ARTICLES:

Economy Grows at Slowest Pace in Two Years
Thursday, April 28, 2005; 9:41 AMThe U.S. economy grew at its slowest pace in two years in the first three months of 2005, the Commerce Department reported today, thanks to slowing consumer and business spending, rising energy prices and the expanding trade gap.

The Paris Hilton Tax Cut
"With so many other taxes around, it's hard to understand why this is the one Congress would repeal. It falls, in effect, on the heirs to the wealthiest Americans. Fewer than 1 percent of the people who died in 2004 paid an estate tax, and half the revenue from the tax came from estates valued at $10 million or more. Yet, because the wealthy have gotten wealthier over the past three decades or so, the estate tax produces a lot of money. Counting both revenue losses and added interest costs, complete repeal of the estate tax would cost the government close to $1 trillion between 2012 and 2021, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities."

Falling Fortunes of Wage Earners
Beginning in the mid-1990's, pay increases for most workers slowly but steadily outpaced the rate of inflation, improving the living standards for nearly all Americans. But an unexpected reversal last year in those gains has set off a vigorous debate among economists over whether the decline is just a temporary dip or portends a deeper shift that may cause the pay of average Americans to lag for years to come. Even though the economy added 2.2 million jobs in 2004 and produced strong growth in corporate profits, wages for the average worker fell for the year, after adjusting for inflation - the first such drop in nearly a decade.

The Bankruptcy Bill: a Tutorial in Greed
Lesson No. 1 -- Campaign cash is worth more than family values. Because they keep revamping and expanding the SAT, I'll propose a new economics puzzler for the test makers' consideration. Question: What is the difference between a loan shark and a banker? Answer: Not much. The former uses hired thugs to enforce repayment from the debtors; the latter employs the feds as paid muscle.

Making The Wrong Choices: The 2006 Budget
The president's 2006 budget makes the wrong choices for our nation. We should not be cutting investments that keep America strong and successful. We need a responsible budget that can bring together our nation, that builds and invests in America's future, and that provides opportunity for all Americans. This page will be updated daily with the latest news, analysis and commentary on the 2006 federal budget.

Bottom Dollar
The greenback's fall is stoking fears of a global crisis. Behind the slide: a world economy wildly out of balance If you've been following closely, you know that the dollar has been declining steadily against many foreign currencies. From recent highs—reached in mid-2001 or early 2002—the dollar has dropped 38 percent against the euro, 23 percent against the yen and 25 percent against the Canadian dollar. And most economists expect the slide to continue.

WHAT THE PRESIDENT’S BUDGET SHOWS ABOUT THE ADMINISTRATION’S PRIORITIES
The Administration’s new budget is, at bottom, a statement about national priorities. This budget’s priorities are clear: the budget features cuts in scores of programs that middle- and low-income families rely on, alongside large additional tax cuts for those at the top of the income spectrum who have benefited the most from the tax cuts already enacted.

Senate Passes New Bankruptcy Legislation
The House is expected to pass the measure next month, delivering to President Bush a second victory this year on pro-business legislation he had sought. The vote was 74-25 to approve the most thorough overhaul of bankruptcy laws in a quarter-century. "The short answer is fairness," declared Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "Those who can pay their bills should pay their bills. That's the American way." Congressional and industry backers of the legislation have been pushing for it for eight years but it repeatedly got stalled. This year, with Republican majorities increased in both the House and Senate in last November's elections, the bill's fortunes reversed. Before the vote and in Senate deliberations over much of the last 10 days, majority Republicans knocked down Democratic attempts to ease the impact of the legislation on people facing huge debts they cannot pay down, including single parents, the unemployed and the ill.

Credit Card Firms Won as Users Lost
In the eight years since they began pressing for the tough bankruptcy bill being debated in the Senate, America's big credit card companies have effectively inoculated themselves from many of the problems that sparked their call for the measure.

Greenspan: Budget Deficits Pose Big Threat
Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) said Thursday that future budget deficits pose a bigger risk to the economy than record trade imbalances and the country's extremely low savings rate. "The resolution of our current account deficit and household debt burdens does not strike me as overly worrisome, but that is certainly not the case for our fiscal deficit," Greenspan said in prepared remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

president's budget would increase the deficit by $1.6 trillion over the next ten years
The President's budgetary proposals would add $30 billion to the deficit that CBO currently projects for 2005, mainly as a result of the proposed supplemental appropriations. Over the 2006-2010 period, the cumulative deficit would rise by $104 billion under the President's policies relative to CBO's baseline projections. Higher defense spending during those years would be largely offset by lower nondefense spending; however, tax policies--such as those extending the reduced rates on dividends and capital gains that were enacted in 2003 and extending the research and experimentation credit--would reduce revenues by nearly $100 billion.

Open Fire On U.S. Consumers
U.S. consumers and freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena found themselves in the same position this week: under fire from those put in place to protect them. For Sgrena, the bloody barrage came from jittery U.S. soldiers. For consumers, it was jaded U.S. senators who pulled the trigger, about to pass a bankruptcy bill so hostile to ordinary American families that it could only have come about in a place as corrupt, cynical and unmoored from reality as Washington, D.C.

Bankrupt Bankruptcy Bill
With their strengthened majority, Senate Republicans have high hopes of finally legislating more stringent demands on harried credit-card consumers who seek relief through personal bankruptcy. Proponents focus on tales of materialistic families of mall rats who max out their charge cards and fecklessly file for bankruptcy to start anew. The truth is far more complicated - particularly for low- and middle-income families driven to bankruptcy by catastrophic medical expenses. But the overhaul bill under debate, long sought by banks and credit card companies, would ratchet up the collection powers of an industry that blankets the nation daily with aggressive offers of consumer credit.

Roll back intangibles tax, Bush says
On Monday's eve of the annual legislative session, Gov. Jeb Bush proposed repealing a tax on wealthy investors -- and backtracked from possibly slashing a health program for severely ill Floridians. Bush, in a series of changes to his proposed 2005-06 budget, called on lawmakers this year to eliminate the so-called "intangibles" tax, which some investors pay on stocks and bonds. Earlier, he had proposed phasing out the tax over two years.

Senate Rejects Efforts to Alter Bankruptcy Legislation
The Senate rejected several Democratic amendments to the bankruptcy legislation on Thursday, including one that would have closed a loophole that lets wealthy people protect millions of dollars in assets from creditors even after filing for bankruptcy.

JOB TRAINING FUNDS SLASHED: Twenty-five years ago, the federal government spent $27.3 billion on the federal job training program. Today, that's been cut by over 84 percent, to about $4.4 billion. Federal job training budgets have dropped $597 million since 2000 alone, making it that much harder for Americans trapped in poverty to find work and get off government assistance.

BIG DEFICITS MEAN LESS MONEY FOR EVERYONE: President Bush and his friends in Congress have been on a four year spending spree with tax cuts for the wealthy and preemptive war charged to the national credit card. When the nation reached its $7.38 trillion credit limit last month, reckless conservatives simply gave themselves a $650 billion increase in their credit limit. Why this matters: Large-scale borrowing by the federal government means less money is available for average Americans to borrow when they want to buy a house or a car, or pay for college tuition. That smaller pool of money available for loans leads to higher interest rates – which not only puts a squeeze on individual consumers but also slows the rate of economic growth. That means, in the long run, fewer jobs, low wage growth and less money coming into the federal Treasury. Also, interest payments on the mounting debt, which exceeded $321 billion in fiscal year 2004, means less money for other priorities like education and health care.

Kerry: Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Create Jobs
"Over the last four years, again and again, we were promised that tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals would create millions of new jobs," Kerry said in a speech prepared for delivery at California State University Dominguez Hills. "Instead, we've lost jobs, and these unaffordable tax cuts have led America into deficits as far as the eye can see." Since Bush took office, 1.1 million jobs have been lost, and last week, the government reported that just 32,000 net jobs were added in July, the smallest gain in hiring since December.

Admit it: tax cuts have failed to create jobs
The American public has heard it over and over the past three years: Cut taxes and job growth will ensue. The Bush administration has repeatedly pushed the theory that cutting taxes would result in more jobs and better pay for average Americans.
The opposite has happened. The jobs aren't there. American workers are making fewer dollars, on average. So it's time to get honest about the best way to create jobs in this country and change strategies to accomplish that goal.

Job Growth Meager, Markets Stunned
U.S. employers added a paltry 32,000 workers to payrolls last month, the government said on Friday in a startlingly weak report that led Wall Street to forecast a slower pace of Federal Reserve interest-rate rises. The Labor Department also cut its tally of job growth in May and June by a combined 61,000, adding to the weak tenor of a report that came as unwelcome news for an election-bound President Bush.

We are turning a corner

"When it comes to improving our economy and creating jobs, results matter"
- Bush

Yes Bush they do. So where are the results? The job numbers released today show a measly 3,200 jobs. That is a far cry from the 306,000 jobs Bush claimed his stimulus would bring. One tenth to be exact. And we all know how good this administration and the SCEP (So Called Elected President) are at predicting jobs.

What recovery?

I am sick and tired of hearing Bush go on and on about this wonderful economic 'recovery' that we are supposedly experiencing. Tired of hearing about how fast the growth is going.

I put it this way. let's say you have a hill 20 feet high. then a few years later some guy, let's call him "W", bulldozes the mountain and in it's place he digs a hole 15 feet deep. Then after a while he quickly throws 2 feet of dirt back into the hole. Can it be said that the hole is being filled? Sure. Can it be said it is filling at a pace faster than it was before he threw the dirt in? Of course. Is the hole as high as the mountain? NO.

This is the slippery slope the Bush team is working. They are bending, twisting and spinning so fast it makes me dizzy. But nothing they say can get me to believe that Bush is anything but one of the worst economic presidents in history. Period.

"It's one thing to have justice; it's another thing to go overboard with justice, because people start to lose work."

--President Bush, August 11, 2004
source