Lame Duck Produces a Lame Economy

Rep. Steve King: Lame Duck a Pie in the Face of the American People
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: The anything-but-lame lame-duck Congress has drawn a fierce reaction from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, who claim that the burst of legislative action runs counter to the will of the American People. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told us on ABC’s “Top Line” that Republicans should vow to never pass such consequential Legislation in the period between an election and the start of a new Congress. “It’s unbelievable.  It's unpreceden

Senator Lindsey Graham On Lame-Duck Session: Harry Reid Has Eaten Our Lunch
There is a well accepted maxim in any sort of negotiation technique that states that its always best to let your adversary believe they’ve got the better end of the deal. This comes to mind after hearing the following interview between Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in which the Senator claims that it was Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) that got the better end of recent lame-duck session Legislation, and not his own Grand Old Party. Graham said “when it&#...

Steve King: Lame Duck Congress 'Unprecedented'
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) talks Presidential top contenders on "Top Line." Senior Congressional Corr. Jon Karl talks to retiring Congressmen on "Top Line." ...

Recession forces rise in low-wage families, report says
The Great Recession, responsible for boosting Unemployment to its highest levels in a generation, has sharply increased the percentage of working people who earn wages so paltry that they are struggling to survive, according to a new report. This Story Recession forces rise in low-wage families, report says User Poll: What economic issue are you most concerned about? The share of Working Families earning less than double the official Poverty threshold - $43,512 for a family of four - increase...

Obama assures Hispanics immigration reform a top goal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought to assure Hispanics on Tuesday that their goal to overhaul U.S. Immigration policy would remain a top priority, despite the recent failure of Congress to advance reforms. The issue is important for many Democrats and could help Obama mend fences with the Left Wing of his party, which is unhappy at his pact with Republicans to extend Bush-era Tax Cuts for richer Americans that he signed last week. Immigration may also play a role in the 2012 p...

Hoyer: Lame-Duck Not Lame
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says the current congressional session has been alright by him. "The Lame Duck as not been lame at all," Hoyer said to Fox News in an off-camera interview. Hoyer was also asked what his biggest regret was this Congress. Later, Hoyer said that he also regretted that the House "did not address the Health Care bill more quickly while the Senate was negotiating." He said the period of time it took to carve the deal on Health Care was "protracted."...

Hatch displays stunning lack of knowledge on unemployment insurance
Hopefully Orrin Hatch is reading the local, Capitol Hill news. Last week, he became one of the growing numbers of congresspeople who showed his vast ignorance on the topic of Unemployment Insurance. WASHINGTON -- Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said this week that extended Unemployment insurance "is well over 100 weeks now," making him the latest Millionaire member of Congress to publicly demonstrate that he does not understand the Unemployment Legislation he obstructs.... Hatch joins Sen.Joh...

Newt Gingrich Blames Nation's Problems On Unemployed People
Newt Gingrich, who is currently mulling a presidential bid in 2012, said at a political event in South Carolina on Thursday that most of America's problems can be blamed on the "leftist News Media," Hollywood, tenured academics, overpaid federal workers, and unemployed people. "I'm opposed to giving people money for doing nothing," he told the crowd of 250 cheering GOP Activists in a state with a 10.6 percent Unemployment Rate. The Los Angeles Times reports: Comparing Unemployment Benefits ...

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...

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...

Graham Berates GOP For 'Capitulation' Of 'Dramatic Proportions' In Lame Duck
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is not happy about the recent Productivity of the Lame Duck Congress, and blamed the GOP for allowing it to happen. "When it's all going to be said and done," he said on Fox News Radio today, "Harry Reid has eaten our lunch. This has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn't have passed in the new Congress." "The Lame Duck session was meant to basically transition from one Congress to the next, not take every special interest ...

Why we don't need lame-duck Congresses any more
The Washington Post looks at the history of the lame-duck sessions. The Twentieth Amendment set the date for when the new Congress needs to be called into session. That was ratified in 1933. There is even less need today to have a lame-duck Congress. All but a few seats are decided on Election Day. Give a couple of weeks for close Elections and the new Congress could be sworn in by Thanksgiving or maybe the following Monday. Sure it takes time for the new congressmen to get their staffs set up a...

Katie Courics Lame Duck Contract
The knives are out for Katie Couric - her wallet, that is.  Her staggering $75 million contract expires on May 31st of next year and CBS is flatly refusing to renew it.  Why should they?  She was paid that humongous Salary in expectation of her perky little smile bringing in tons of viewers.  But, to CBS’s horror, she’s done the opposite.  Since she began five years ago as anchor for CBS Evening News, the station has lost a whopping 25% of its viewers.&...

Graham: GOP to blame for 'capitulation ... of dramatic proportions' in lame-duck
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lashed out at fellow Republicans Tuesday for a "capitulation ... of dramatic proportions" to Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the lame-duck Congress. Graham said Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for allowing ratification of the New START Treaty and other Legislation in the period before new lawmakers are sworn in in January. "When it's all going to be said and done, Harry Reid has eaten our lunch," Graham said on Fox News r...

NY Lawmakers Hope To Pass 9/11 Bill During Lame Duck
NEW YORK (CBS 2) — The Senate is expected to begin debating the 9/11 health bill once more this week, the last week of the session, but as Kathryn Brown reports, New York lawmakers said this time they think they’ll succeed. “We believe we’ve secured enough Republican votes to prevail,” Senator Chuck Schumer said. “America will be watching very closely on how the senate votes on something that goes fundamentally to the issue of who we are as Americans and wheth...

The Tea Party Shoots Down a Lame Duck
Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was forced to withdraw his almost 2,000-page omnibus spending bill. This bill would have cost Taxpayers more than $1.2 Trillion—or twelve hundred billion dollars....

Sexual orientations ignored by lame-duck Democrats
The lame-duck Congress has now passed the Obama-endorsed Repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" – by a vote of 250 to 175 in the House and 65 to 31 in the Senate. In the House, the 250 votes in favor of recruiting self-announced Homosexuals into our Armed Forces contrasted with 175 votes against it. When the newly elected House convenes next month – so many of those Democrats who voted for Repeal will be gone – having themselves been repealed by an overwhelming majority of the v...

Obama's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year
(12-20) 21:11 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Barack Obama's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year got off to a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad start. There he was, on New Year's Day, on Vacation with his family in Hawaii, stuck on a secure phone with Counterterrorism officials, trying to figure out what screw-ups had allowed a would-be Terrorist to board a Christmas Day flight with explosives in his underwear. Things only got worse for Obama when he returned to Washington in between a pair...

Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 passes
(Dan here: I am traveling right now and am posting things late or maybe not as tidy as I would like. But posts are coming.) by Linda Beale Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 passes crossposted with Ataxingmatter No big surprise here.  The House on December 16 passed the Senate-approved TRA by a vote of 277-148, clearing it for the President's signature.  The bill extends the Bush Tax Cuts for two years and reduces the number of estates ...

1 in 7 Americans rely on food stamps
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The use of Food Stamps has increased dramatically in the U.S., as the Federal Government ramps up basic assistance to meet the demands of an increasingly desperate population. The number of food stamp recipients increased 16% over last year. This means that 14% of the population is now living on food stamps. That's about 43 million people, or about one out of every seven Americans. Email Print Comment In some states, like Tennessee, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oregon,...

1 in 7 Americans rely on food stamps
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The use of Food Stamps has increased dramatically in the U.S., as the Federal Government ramps up basic assistance to meet the demands of an increasingly desperate population. The number of food stamp recipients increased 16% over last year. This means that 14% of the population is now living on food stamps. That's about 43 million people, or about one out of every seven Americans. Email Print Comment In some states, like Tennessee, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oregon,...

Gee, ya think?
Why is it news that the American Workforce is becoming an Army of Temps? The preference for no-commitment, work 'em and out employees has been going on in Corporate America since the Reagan years: Despite a surge this year in short-term hiring, many American businesses are still skittish about making those jobs permanent, raising concerns among workers and some labor experts that temporary employees will become a larger, more entrenched part of the work force. This is bad news for the nationR...

Brandon Edwards: Congress: Don't Wait to Extend HIRE Act Before it Expires
As the dust settles on the tax deal, let's hope our legislators don't forget about the 15 million unemployed Americans who can use some help getting back to work. Lower income taxes don't really matter if one doesn't have an income. One of the most significant hiring incentive programs of the past decade has been the bi-partisan Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, which provides Payroll Tax savings and income Tax Credits to both for-profit and non-profit employers that hire peo...

Time to invest in tampons and Chardonnay.
image via Tampon Crafts. Women will recover faster from the Recession than men, which leads Economists to suggest investing in female-centered companies like Ann Taylor and Lululemon. Women will rebound from the U.S. Recession faster than men because females didn’t lose as many jobs as men did during the recession, the report said. Some of the industries most affected by The Economy, such as Manufacturing and construction, had more male than female workers. The Unemployment Rate for wome...

Go "long on women" for profits, BofA Merrill says
WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:25am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Recession wounds are healing faster for women than for men, so there is money to be made for companies that cater to women, Economists at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said on Tuesday. The Unemployment Rate for women is almost two full percentage points lower than the rate for men, and women dominate fields such as healthcare that are expected to see the biggest job growth in the next eight years. Women also earned the majo...