Press release from U.S. Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin
For Immediate Release
April 9, 2009
DURBIN AND ILLINOIS DELEGATION ASK DOT TO SUPPORT REVIVAL OF ILLINOIS TRAIN CAR INDUSTRY
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) today led the Illinois Congressional Delegation in asking [...]
Matt Yglesias has an interesting piece about educational levels around the Great Depression compared to today that reflects on Paul Krugman’s pessimism about the economy and Ryan Avent’s optimism. The question is where will our economic recovery come from (and how soon)?
I’m no economist, but my sense is we are not likely to recover [...]
Tonight Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal channeled the worst of Al Gore and Bert (of Bert and Ernie fame) in his GOP response to President Barack Obama’s economic address to congress. The contrast with Barack Obama’s speech made things even worse. Obama was gracious and addressed major issues with the maturity and importance that [...]
Senator Charles Schumer says we should stiff governors who want to take only selective stimulus money for political gain. I agree – this isn’t a game, it’s a world depression. Take the money and do some good – or don’t take it and face your voter’s wrath.
Some federal legislation is confusing and hard to evaluate. Sometimes it’s due to complexity – other times it’s because opponents create complexity to mislead the public. Congressman Peter Roskam recently decided to confuse what the recently passed stimulus package does – and then criticize it for what it doesn’t do.
The federal stimulus package [...]
We’d rather continue to substantially cut taxes, especially those at the upper end, while sacrificing our society’s future economic competitiveness and health through reduced infrastructure spending, reduced education spending, and reduced health care spending among others. On that latter topic, Ezra poses the challenge:
“A decent society doesn’t spen[d] $70 billion on an upper-class tax [...]
Washington, D.C. – Republican Senators accused of obstructing the national economic stimulus package pointed out that with 142,099,000 Americans employed in January, and job losses that month of almost 600,000 people, they could keep their own jobs for about 20 years with similar monthly job losses before no one was employed in the United States. [...]
Almost absent from the dominant discussion of the federal stimulus package (and bailouts) is any attempt at progressive change that goes beyond the surface of ‘what we buy.’ I spoke yesterday about tying taxpayer expenditures to a living wage – but I’ve been thinking about this type of thing for a while agreeing with [...]
Today President Barack Obama capped executive pay for companies receiving U.S. taxpayer bailout money. In his speech, President Obama said,
“We’ve all got to pull together and take our share of responsibility. That’s true here in Washington. That’s true on Wall Street. The American people are carrying a huge burden as a result of this [...]
Today, responding to news about a stimulus amendment giving tax breaks to car buyers that increase with the price of the car commenter “Car Free Nation” at Streetsblog said,
“So 11 billion to pay for cars for the rich (it’s a tax break, the more you earn, and the more expensive the car, the more we, [...]
