What You Need to Know: 02.26.09
Obama Plans Major Shifts in Spending
"President Obama’s new budget blueprint estimates a stunning deficit of $1.75 trillion for the current fiscal year, which began five months ago, then lays out a wrenching change of course as he seeks to finance his own priorities while stanching the flow of red ink.
By redirecting enormous streams of deficit spending toward programs like health care, education and energy, and paying for some of it through taxes on the rich, pollution surcharges, and cuts in such inviolable programs as farm subsidies, the $3.55 trillion spending plan Mr. Obama is undertaking signals a radical change of course that Congress has yet to endorse."
U.S. jobless claims tally tops 5 million mark
"New jobless claims rose more than expected last week and the number of Americans continuing to receive unemployment benefits has topped 5.1 million, fresh evidence the recession is increasingly forcing employers to shed jobs.
The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time requests for unemployment benefits jumped to 667,000 from the previous week's figure of 631,000. Analysts had expected a slight drop in claims.
The 667,000 new claims are the most since October 1982, though the labor force has grown by about half since then. The four-week average of initial claims, which smooths out fluctuations, rose to 639,000, the highest in more than 26 years."
Falling Revenues Threaten Rebuilding in Iraq
"In few nations around the globe are the consequences of the financial crisis as potentially sobering as they are in Iraq. Both oil revenues and American financial support have plummeted just as the country has the chance to take advantage of its increasing stability to improve basic services and upgrade its ruined infrastructure.
Now, projects are being put off as Iraq struggles to pay for huge raises granted to government employees as well as the salaries and equipment for hundreds of thousands of new Iraqi security troops."
House OKs $410B bill to boost spending
"The Democratic-controlled House approved $410 billion legislation Wednesday that boosted domestic programs, bristled with earmarks and chipped away at policies left behind by the Bush administration. The vote was 245-178, largely along party lines.
Republicans assailed the measure as too costly — particularly on the heels of a $787 billion stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed last week."
"President Obama’s new budget blueprint estimates a stunning deficit of $1.75 trillion for the current fiscal year, which began five months ago, then lays out a wrenching change of course as he seeks to finance his own priorities while stanching the flow of red ink.
By redirecting enormous streams of deficit spending toward programs like health care, education and energy, and paying for some of it through taxes on the rich, pollution surcharges, and cuts in such inviolable programs as farm subsidies, the $3.55 trillion spending plan Mr. Obama is undertaking signals a radical change of course that Congress has yet to endorse."
U.S. jobless claims tally tops 5 million mark
"New jobless claims rose more than expected last week and the number of Americans continuing to receive unemployment benefits has topped 5.1 million, fresh evidence the recession is increasingly forcing employers to shed jobs.
The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time requests for unemployment benefits jumped to 667,000 from the previous week's figure of 631,000. Analysts had expected a slight drop in claims.
The 667,000 new claims are the most since October 1982, though the labor force has grown by about half since then. The four-week average of initial claims, which smooths out fluctuations, rose to 639,000, the highest in more than 26 years."
Falling Revenues Threaten Rebuilding in Iraq
"In few nations around the globe are the consequences of the financial crisis as potentially sobering as they are in Iraq. Both oil revenues and American financial support have plummeted just as the country has the chance to take advantage of its increasing stability to improve basic services and upgrade its ruined infrastructure.
Now, projects are being put off as Iraq struggles to pay for huge raises granted to government employees as well as the salaries and equipment for hundreds of thousands of new Iraqi security troops."
House OKs $410B bill to boost spending
"The Democratic-controlled House approved $410 billion legislation Wednesday that boosted domestic programs, bristled with earmarks and chipped away at policies left behind by the Bush administration. The vote was 245-178, largely along party lines.
Republicans assailed the measure as too costly — particularly on the heels of a $787 billion stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed last week."
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