31 States Have Borrowed Money From Federal Government To Cover Unemployment Benefits

The Debt Crisis Spreads To Cities And States
The housing crisis that was created by the Federal Government encouraging banks to make risky loans may have been the immediate trigger to the economic problems we have, but The Roots of the issue go much deeper. The fact of the matter is that we've spent much more money than we have in this country, we've done it across every level of our society, and we've done it for long that we've completely lost perspective. Most of us have focused on the mess that the Federal Government has been making o...

The $858 Billion Tax Cut Deal of 2010
On Friday, President Obama signed the $858 Tax Cut package, a deal negotiated with Republican Congressional leaders during the 2010 Lame Duck session. This deal extends the Bush Tax cuts through 2012, and the Unemployment Benefits through 2011. The tax deal also reduced Payroll taxes by 2%, adding $120 million to workers' spendable income, extended a College Tuition Tax Credit and included $55 billion in industry specific tax cuts. To partially pay for this, the 35% inheritance tax on the wealth...

States Scramble to Repay Feds for Unemployment Insurance LoansPlus Interest
Thanks to the stimulus bill, the 31 states that have borrowed more than $41 billion from the feds to pay Unemployment Insurance to jobless workers have not had to pay interest on those loans so far, as we’ve reported. That will change, however, when the provision that waived interest payments expires in the new year. The Federal Government estimates the collective interest on the outstanding loans will total about $2 billion in 2011, while continued state borrowing is expected to stretch t...

Who Will Struggle in 2011
For many Americans, the Recession is finally over. Economic Growth in 2011 is likely to exceed 3 percent, and perhaps even hit 4 percent. That would be the best performance in more than a decade. Workers who held onto their jobs during the Great Recession can finally exhale, with growing confidence that their Job Security is improving. Companies are grudgingly starting to hire back a few of the unemployed. And the latest stimulus and tax-cut plan out of Washington will put cash into practicall...

32 states borrow billions from feds to cover unemployment benefits...
BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN - Hawaii has applied to be the 32nd state to borrow from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration to pay state Unemployment Benefits. Hawaii will temporarily take up to $30 million this December to cover payments to the state’s 17,000 unemployed workers who lost their jobs within the last 26 weeks. That is the beginning of what will likely be an 18-month borrowing streak, says State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Interim D...

A Couple Thoughts About the Census
The Census Bureau released the results of the 2010 ennumeration and, from a political point of view, the GOP have to be pretty happy about the direction in which the population is moving. Seven states that voted Republican in the past three Presidential Election picked up House seats and five that did not lost seats. The biggest winner in that regard was Texas, which picked up four House seats. As Ed Morrissey notes, the big GOP gains will be important in next year’s reapportionment fights...

Jobless feel relief, anger for benefits extension
CLEVELAND — Kimberly Smith holds up the piece of paper that is the only thing keeping her from Bankruptcy: an application for extended Unemployment Benefits. She's not happy that she needs it. And she's upset that it was nearly taken away. "I do deserve it," the 49-year-old says. "I've done everything I could to try and get a job. I tried to get back into the retail industry. I made the effort to, at my age, go back to college." President Barack Obama extended Unemployment benefits f...

Unemployment benefits extension in tax-cut deal only goes so far
While Bipartisan tax Legislation signed by President Obama on Friday reinstates Unemployment Benefits for about 1 million it doesn't provide any additional help for those who have exhausted all 99 weeks. The $858 billion measure provides for an extension of federal Unemployment Benefits through the end of 2011 but only for those who have exhausted their 26 weeks of state jobless Insurance or who are working their way through the federal tiers. The White House, Democratic lawmakers and advoca...

Majority of tea partiers support extending tax cuts and unemployment benefits
So much for cutting the Deficit from those who said it was important to cut the deficit. So much for Democrats who opposed Tax Cuts for the rich. The poll question: Congress has passed and President Obama has signed into law a bill that would extend Tax Cuts for all Americans, reduce the Estate Tax, extend Unemployment Benefits, and reduce the Social Security tax that workers pay. Taking into account all of those provisions, do you favor or oppose that bill? Overall, 75 percent of respondents su...

Professor gets taxes wrong
Richard H. Thaler is a Professor of economics and behavioral science at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Too bad he never learned the basic terms of economics. Thaler — who works for a company that has a huge Tax Exemption — wants to stop actual Taxpayers from getting a Tax Deduction for the money they give to charities. OK, fine. Whatever. But in a column in the New York Times, Professor Thaler gets the basics about taxes wrong: Having decided that charit...

Bobby Jindal's "Leadership and crisis" is defined as hope.
Louisiana has been low on the US totem for both education and crime for so long, it will take an unprecedented amount of time and effort to make the needed changes. For those who left the war- zone called New Orleans in the middle seventies, it is well known. For those who saw the disparity and mean spirited ignorance during Katrina and the spill by a faction of our population, and the increase in crime that spread like a Cancer from one city to another, it is most evident. Bobby Jendal has his ...

Whoa: Senate Deal to Fund Federal Government Doesnt Include Any Money to Implement ObamaCare
Democrats last week sought $1 billion to expand federal agencies to cope with health-care demands as part of a proposed $1.1 Trillion spending bill. That measure died after Senate Republicans closed ranks against it under pressure from conservative Activists. The doomed Budget plan also included spending increases sought by Democratic leaders for two agencies granted new responsibilities by the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law, passed in response to the Wall Street crisis of 2008-2009. The $...

The Really Big Country Problem
Tue Dec. 21, 2010 11:34 AM PST Brad Plumer has a useful piece today about Sen. Tom Coburn's "Wastebook 2010," which allegedly exposes massive amounts of waste, Fraud and abuse in the federal Budget. You should read it, but I want to add a separate comment. Nearly all WFA discussions fall Victim to the Really Big Country problem. That is, the United States is a really big country, which means that no matter what kind of weird pathology you go looking for, you'll always find a fair amou...

308,745,538
While that number sounds big, the increase is actually smaller than the 13.2 percent jump that was recorded between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses. Anyway, proving once again that it’s growing much faster than it should be, the Federal Government spent a record $15 billion on this year’s Census - or three times as much as it spent in 2000. The federal Budget this year is also twice what it was in 2000, jumping from $1.9 Trillion to $3.8 trillion....

$2 Trillion Debt Crisis Threatens to Bring Down 100 US Cities
© Spencer Platt/Getty Images Shuttered homes and businesses in downtown Detroit, Michigan. American cities and states have Debts that could be as high as $2 Trillion. More than 100 American cities could go bust next year as the debt crisis that has taken down banks and countries threatens next to spark a municipal meltdown, a leading analyst has warned. Meredith Whitney, the US research analyst who correctly predicted the global Credit Crunch, described local and state debt as the bigges...

Obama's tax deal: read the small print | Dean Baker
President Barack Obama was forced to sign the bill on Tax Cuts and benefit extensions last week, despite admitting that he opposed some of its provisions. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images The enthusiasm of the US business press for the Compromise tax package worked out by President Obama and Republicans in Congress led to a mini-euphoria of upbeat economic projections for 2011. While The Economy will do better with this tax package than if no deal were forthcoming, much of the discussi...

Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Let's face it, most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are-- and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart. One of the biggest obstacles to Economic Recovery is that politicians and the media are both focused on how government can MAKE The Economy recover, rather than on how it can LET The Economy recover. One of the biggest deterrents to investments, and the jobs they could create, is uncertainty as to what new bright idea will come o...

Dave Johnson: The Debt-Ceiling Threat To Gut The Things Government Does For Us
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. The country's huge Debt was caused by Tax Cuts for the rich and increases in Military Spending. But debt-cutting recommendations from the D.C. Elite never suggest restoring taxes on the rich and cutting Military Spending. Go figure. Instead they suggest cutting the things government does for We, the People. The D.C. Elite is not We, the People. Let's stop this in its tracks...

The Debt Ceiling Threat To Gut The Things Government Does For Us
The country’s huge Debt was caused by Tax Cuts for the rich and increases in Military Spending. But debt-cutting recommendations from the DC Elite never suggest restoring taxes on the rich and cutting Military Spending. Go figure. Instead they suggest cutting the things government does for We, the People. The DC Elite is not We, the People. Let's stop this in its tracks. Just a week after the Senate voted to give a big tax cut to the rich, increasing the Deficit by more than $800 billion, a ...

Thomas Sowell: Political elites think they know more than they do
Let's face it, most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are-- and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart. make The Economy recover, rather than on how it can let The Economy recover. One of the biggest deterrents to investments, and the jobs they could create, is uncertainty as to what new bright idea will come out of Washington to change the rules in midstream. Is there some reason why football helmets have to be hard? Wouldn't a thick rubber helmet provide protection w...

Network Reporters and Sunday Hosts Rue Increased Deficit from Tax Compromise, As If Not Hiking Taxes is a Cost
Nearly 80 percent of the $858 billion “cost” of the Compromise tax bill signed Friday by President Barack Obama is, per a Congressional Research Service estimate, from the $675 billion over the next ten years the government would have received if Income Tax rates were raised, a perspective widely adopted by network reporters and hosts who assumed just keeping rates at their current levels should be counted as a “cost” to the National Debt and annual Deficits. “The $...

Biden defends Obama's tax deal with GOP
Vice President Joe Biden said on NBC’s "Meet the Press" Sunday that the Compromise tax-and-unemployment benefits package that President Obama signed into law last week was a matter of pragmatism. The president chose to "compromise to save people who are drowning," Biden said to NBC’s David Gregory. "There’s people out there drowning. There are two million people this month that can’t afford to go get a Christmas Tree, let alone buy any gifts, because their Unemployment h...

5 Big Money Uncertainties for Retirees
As 2010 draws to a close, people in or nearing Retirement face a particularly uncertain financial future. The government has approved a package of Tax Breaks, jobless benefits, and other stimulus spending. But these fixes will last only a year or two and virtually guarantee big shifts down the road. Meanwhile, the landmark health reform law will be under sustained legal attacks for years, adding to already existing questions about the effects of its implementation. Deficit reduction efforts ap...

Biden defends Obama's tax-cuts agreement with GOP
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Sunday defended President Obama's decision to extend Tax Rates for all Americans as part of wide-ranging interview on key national and international issues. Mr. Biden said that Mr. Obama still thinks extending the rates for the country's highest wage-earners is "morally troubling" and that the president broke his 2008 campaign promise on the issue only to help the Middle Class. "We couldn't get it done," he said in a pre-taped interview on NBC's "Meet t...

Reaactions to Obama and GOP Tax-Cut Deal
Who would have thought that our first black president could be brought down by Democrats? Unless there is a real attitude adjustment in the Democratic Party before 2012—a greater respect for the president’s ability to reach Compromises with very hostile adversaries—Obama’s own party will probably prevent him from getting a Second Term. If President Obama wanted to accomplish anything, he had to compromise. It seems that many Democrats would rather have a political civil...