Economy

And we can thank Tom Coburn for this:

Extended unemployment benefits will temporarily expire for thousands of Americans on Monday because the Senate went on its spring recess without approving a one-month deadline extension.

The extension, which had bipartisan support, would have cost about $10 billion, but a lone Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn, said no until the costs are offset.

The Oklahoma senator objected to a commonly used unanimous-consent agreement to pass the bill under emergency conditions, even if it increases the federal deficit. Coburn wants to eliminate additional government spending to pay for the bill.

Could you imagine if a Democrat did this on one of Bush’s bills for the Iraq War? People like Tom Coburn didn’t mind draining the bank book for that, but if a Democrat did block it, we would hear cries of traitor and treason from the right. 

But here’s something to ponder. A lot of the Tea Party people are unemployed. I wonder how many will see their benefits dry up today because of Coburn? I also wonder who quickly the Republicans will try to shift blame to the Democrats on this and if the Tea Party people will buy into it? In those two questions pose the reality that Tea Party people don’t really know what is happening in the government, or what the two parties really stand for.

Yes it is:

Unions and liberal groups have dismissed Sen. Harry Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill as "puny" while calling for larger stimulus measures.

More than two dozen organizations, including the AFL-CIO, National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) and National Council of La Raza, warned Democratic leaders in Congress to avoid tackling the troubled economy through incremental action.

They urged the Senate to pass the $15 billion jobs measure, which features a hiring tax cut for small businesses, but called for much more legislation to bring down an unemployment rate the White House projects to average 10 percent this year, more than 9 percent next year and over 8 percent in 2012.

"If this $15 billion was the only thing [that passed], that would be like having an amputated arm and sticking a Band-Aid on the end of it," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, on a conference call Friday.

This bill is 1/71 the size of the TARP bill. It’s another example of how the people of this country just don’t matter to the lawmakers in Washington.

Some good news on the unemployment front as the new numbers for January show a decline to 9.7%. Now we get to wait and hear the Republicans explain how this is a failure of the Obama administration.

New numbers came out today and one of them shows that inflation rose 2.7% last year. That’s pretty bad when people aren’t making us much money and we still have a big unemployment problem, but the problem doesn’t stop there.

Social Security recipients didn’t get a raise this year. The calculated that in June, so the inflation is mostly since June of last year. So these fixed income seniors will be stuck paying higher prices and not having more money. This is a serious flaw in the system. Add to that the cost sharing on prescription drugs went up a dollar for Medicare, seniors are going to have a really rough 2009.

Also it will be interesting to see what the new federal poverty level looks like. Currently it is at $10,830 for a single person. Will the 2010 level reflect real inflation? If so then it should be at $11,122 this year. It will be interesting to see if the number actually reflects real inflation. If history is any indicator, it won’t. To put this into perspective, the CBO estimates the FPL will be at $11,800 in 2016. Again – we have a seriously flawed system that needs to be fixed.

The last decade is by no doubt the Bush decade since he held office for 4/5 of it, so the fact that we had zero net job creating during the decade should really stick to his legacy. To put it in visual terms, check out this graph:

You can only blame 9/11 for so much of it. We did see an economic turn around after the attacks, but those were quickly erased by the lack of attention the Bush administration gave to Wall Street’s fraudulent activities, which resulted in the most job loses in decades. Way to go Bush!

Instead of letting Congress vote on one, the IRS went ahead and gave it to them:

The federal government quietly agreed to forgo billions of dollars in potential tax payments from Citigroup as part of the deal announced this week to wean the company from the massive taxpayer bailout that helped it survive the financial crisis.

The Internal Revenue Service on Friday issued an exception to long-standing tax rules for the benefit of Citigroup and a few other companies partially owned by the government. As a result, Citigroup will be allowed to retain billions of dollars worth of tax breaks that otherwise would decline in value when the government sells its stake to private investors.

I wonder if the IRS would be as generous to you or me? I know the answer to that as someone who has had to deal with them on back taxes.

This is total bullshit and will become another key issue in 2010. Americans are suffering and still can’t find work, yet the administration continues to pander to the people who caused this economic catastrophe. When will the regular citizens get the attention they so much deserve?

Adding… Considering the IRS answers to Treasury, which is lead by Timothy Geithner, how much more will the Obama administration support him? I think a great progressive issue to take up in Congress right now is getting rid of the incompetent jack-ass. President Obama likes to pressure Congress – now it’s Congress’ turn to pressure him. Fire Geithner or watch as we shut down the Congress. I’m sure that will quickly become a bi-partisan movement.

Bernie Sanders does what others should have done:

Sen. Bernie Sanders Wednesday placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.  “The American people overwhelmingly voted last year for a change in our national priorities to put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few,” Sanders said. “What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy.”  

As head of the central bank since 2006, Bernanke could have demanded that Wall Street provide adequate credit to small and medium-sized businesses to create decent-paying jobs in a productive economy, but he did not.  He could have insisted that large bailed-out banks end the usurious practice of charging interest rates of 30 percent or more on credit cards, but he did not.  He could have broken up too-big-to-fail financial institutions that took Federal Reserve assistance, but he did not.   He could have revealed which banks took more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed secret loans, but he did not.