The Obama administration boasts federal stimulus dollars “saved” or created jobs in 13 Iowa congressional districts.
The trouble is the last time I checked Iowa only had five districts. Not sure where the other eight districts are located. Where are they and why haven’t we heard about them before?
The federal Website that tracks stimulus dollars spent, recovery.gov shows $10.6 million spent – and 39 jobs created — in non-existent districts in Iowa.
Not sure if Gotham City, NY., Lake Woebegone, Minn. or Margaritaville, Fla. are among the cities where the administration claims credit for creating jobs.
Administration officials blame the faulty reporting on human error.
“We have been forecasting a 10.5 percent peak for the unemployment rate in mid-2010; given that it is already at 10.2 percent, this could be too low,” writes Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist for MFR Inc. in New York.
The $787 billion stimulus bill pushed by President Obama and passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress last February is looking increasingly like a failure of sorts. At the time, the Obama administration promised that passing the huge tax and spending bill would keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.
A recent administration claimed that the stimulus bill had created or saved more than 600,000 jobs (how do you accurately measure how a job is “saved.”) But media analysises of the documentation has found numerous errors that contributed to an inflated count, “White House tally appears to overstate stimulus jobs.”
For example, raises paid to some preschool teachers with stimulus dollars were mistakenly counted as saved jobs.
And a Kentucky shoe store that supplied nine pairs of work boots to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers counted the $800 expenditure as saving nine jobs.
That large of a bang for the buck was too good to be true.
The financial markets start off a new week on a down note, on nenewed fears about the economy and big banks. Worries pushed the Dow Jones below 7,000 Jones for the first time in nearly 12 years.
The credit crisis and recession have now slashed half the blue chip stock’s average value since it hit a record high over 14,000 in October 2007.
Survey: Outlook bleak for Plains, Midwest states
In his most recent survey of regional business leaders, Creighton University economics professor Ernie Goss reports companies producing durable goods continued to cut jobs in February and international sales remained weak.
In February, the overall index for the Mid-America Business Conditions survey increased slightly for the second straight month, to 34.6 from January’s 33.5. But the index remained below 50 in negative territory.
The Associated Press reports that the Obama administration, in its rush to include a health care safety net for laid-off workers in the recently signed stimulus bill, has not told employers exactly how to make it work.
At issue is the program called COBRA, the acronym for the law that allows workers to keep their company’s health insurance plan for 18 months after they leave their job, if they pay the premiums.
All eyes are on Denver today where President Barack Obama has traveled to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill that he repeatedly insists is essential to solving all our nasty economic troubles.
Obama pressed Congress to pass the most-expensive spending bill in the nation’s history in short order. After Congress gave final approval on Thursday, Obama spent the weekend celebrating Valentine’s Day with his wife in his hometown of Chicago.
In the latest in a flurry of campaign-like appearances lately, Obama elected to hold the bill signing ceremony in the Mile High City.
General Motors and Chrysler both want more of your tax dollars. Before Uncle Sam agrees to write another check, the struggling automakers must outline how they intend to again become viable and repay the government loans. As the Associated Press reports, they may not finalize those plans until after today’s federal government imposed deadline.
GM already has received $9.4 billion in government loans and Chrysler $4 billion. GM will pick up the second installment of its loans, another $4 billion, on Tuesday, according to Treasury Department official.
Sirius XM Radio, which had been on the verge of bankruptcy, announced this morning has signed a deal with Liberty Media, in which Liberty will invest $530 million in the struggling satelitte radio provider.
Sirius acquired rival XM Radio last year.
The deal is seemingly good news for hundreds of Siouxland workers. Sirius is one of the largest clients at Stream’s outsourcing call center in Sergeant Bluff.
With companies reporting shortfalls in their pension funds, the Associated Press reports that it’s all but certain that a little-known government entity, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., will be forced to take over the pension plans of a rising number of bankrupt businesses.
The PBGC already is struggling with an $11 billion deficit — though it has $63 billion in assets, it’s obligated to spend $74 billion on pension benefits in the coming years.
In an op-ed piece, Michael D. Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, notes that a little-noticed provision in the $787 billion stimulus bill could unravel the groundbreaking welfare reforms of the 1990s.
“One of the most important changes of the Clinton-era reform law was replacing the individual entitlement to welfare with a block grant to the states,” Tanner writes. “In the old system, the more people a state signed up for welfare, the more money it got from Washington. The block grant broke this link, creating an incentive for states to help people become self-supporting.”
The stimulus bill, which President Obama plans to sign Tuesday, includes a provision that establishes a new $3 billion emergency fund to help states pay for added welfare recipients. Plus, the bill would reward states for increasing caseloads, even if the growth came because the state had loosened its requirements for recipients to work.
At the encourgement of Journal online editor Thomas Ritchie, I signed up for Facebook for the first time last week. The vast social network seemed to be a prime source for sharing my content and driving more traffic to our Web site.
I’ve yet to invite any friends to join. Still trying to calculate who would accept and who would let me know through cyberspace to get lost. I came across the above Time magazine piece, which suggests only “old” people like me — 45 — would care about the site in the first place.
“There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook,” Time’s Lev Grossman writes. “That time has passed. Facebook now has 150 million members, and its fastest-growing demographic is 30 and up. At this point, it’s way cooler not to be on Facebook.”
The House version of the bill would have required anyone getting a contract paid for with stimulus money to use the government’s E-Verify program to ensure employees are citizens or immigrants permitted to work.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for pulling the plug on the E-Verify provisions.
“Nancy Pelosi, who was there representing the House in the version that was passed by the House, basically told the conferees that it’s coming out, no questions asked,” Mehlman said.
Many local business leaders support the electronic verification program, calling it an invaluable tool to ensure they only hire documented workers.
During last year’s lobbying trip to Washington, Siouxland Chamber of Commerce delegates heard from a top official in the agency within Homeland Security that adminsters E-Verify.
According to Homeland Security, 92 percent of new-hire queries are authorized in less than 5 seconds. The rest are blocked either because of mistaken information on file, or because the person isn’t authorized to work in the country.
By day’s end, the House and Senate are expected to give final passage to a $787 billion stimulus package aimed at helping pull the nation out of a deep recession.
What’s in the 1,071 page measure? Many of the details are sketchy at best. According to the Association Press, the massive bill — eight inches thick — ”was posted on an overburdened congressional Web site late Thursday, giving lawmakers just a few overnight hours to read it before debate resumed in both the House and Senate Friday morning.
Just on Tuesday, the House voted unanimously to recommend that lawmakers and the public have at least 48 hours to read the legislation before a vote
During a campaign-like stop in East Peoria, Ill. this week, President Obama claimed that the head of heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar had promised to “rehire some of the folks who were just laid off,” if Congress passed the stimulus bill.
But after the president left the event, Caterpillar CEO Jim Owens said the exact opposite.
Caterpillar announced 22,000 layoffs last month.
Asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs announced last month, Owens said, “I think realistically no. The truth is we’re going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again”
On the lighter side, check out this hilarious video, which skewers the Environmental Protection Agency’s suggestion it may tax animal flatulence as a way to help control greenhouse gases.
With Strauss’s “Blue Danube Waltz” playing in the background, the video, dubbed “Cows,” connects livestock flatulence with severe weather, while a hysterical federal bureaucrat insists, “There’s global warming everywhere” that must be stopped through taxation.
The 47-second video continues The Heartland Institute’s online marketing campaign to promote the second International Conference on Climate Change, taking place March 8-10 in New York City.
Remember the $500 per-worker tax credit ($1,000 for couples) that Barack Obama repeatedly touted during his presidential campaign? Hope you didn’t have plans for that entire amount.
During bargaining by the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House, credit contained in a massive stimulus bill was scaled back to $400 for individuals and $800 for couples.
Critics say low- and middle-income taxpayers got less than advertised so negotiators could add back in extra social spending and still keep the total package just below $800 billion.
Sandwich shop chain Quiznos, which has locations in Siouxland, says it will buy more eggs from cage-free chickens, more pork raised in crate-free environments and more turkeys that are killed using a method that PETA described as more humane, in which the birds’ oxygen supply is replaced by other gases.
The chain also removed eggs from three of its four cookies on the menu
Looking to buy some second-hand clothes or toys for your kids at area Goodwill stores? For now, the shelves and racks holding those items are bare.
Check out my coverage today online and in print on how Sioux City-based Goodwill is reacting to a new federal law designed to protect children age 12 and under from products with too much lead.
On the eve of a Senate vote on its version of the nearly $1 trillion bill, President Barack Obama travels this morning to Elkhart-Goshen region in northern Indiana, which has seen its unemployment rate soar to 15.3 percent.
Later tonight, the president hosts a prime-time news conference, where the controversial plan will be front and center.
Yahoo Finance examined ratings from Moody’s Investors Service and other sources to develop a short list of potential victims of the recessionary economy.
The list includes automotive giant Chrysler, which has tri-state area franchises, and several retailers hard hit by the slowdown, which also have a local presence — video-rental chain Blockbuster, satellite radio provider Sirius and teen-focused accessory retailer Claire’s Stores and pizza chain Sbarro. The latter two are tenants at Southern Hills Mall.
Tough times forcing you to cancel cable or satellite TV? You’re not alone according to this Associated Press story. With a weak economy invariably making people pinch pennies, viewing shows online has become a viable competitor to pay TV.