The pharmaceutical and health products industry has long been the top dog on K Street. Since 1998, the industry has spent more than $1.6 billion on federal lobbying. Last year alone, it spent more than $234 million — a sum that translates into roughly $125,000 every hour that Congress was actually in session.
Read more:
http://globalbestpractice.blogspot.com/2009/07/big-pharma-big-lobby-big-money.html
And so the summer's come and they've broken up, heading off with promises made and friendships to be nurtured and sustained. But what did the G8 really achieve? After three days of talks and negotiations, it's time to give the group its final report on the issues that matter.
Read more: http://globaldevelopmentnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/g8-final-report-card.html
Related Articles: http://globaldevelopmentnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/g8-reaches-seminal-climate-change.html
Tags: G8 Canada 2010 Huntsville, Food Security, Climate Change, Global Development News, Global Trade, Global Financial crisis, Obama, Medvedev, Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Stephen Harper, Gordon Brown, Manmohan Singh, Lula, Hu Jintao,
Posted via web from Pulse Poll
And so the summer's come and they've broken up, heading off with promises made and friendships to be nurtured and sustained. But what did the G8 really achieve? After three days of talks and negotiations, it's time to give the group its final report on the issues that matter.
Climate change:
The G8 made some significant announcements about restricting the rise in global temperatures to just two degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels and made a commitment to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. One environmentalist described this to me as being "long term commitments by short term politicians".
There was, however, no roadmap on how the group hits it targets. It also failed to convince the emerging economies to sign up to a 50 percent cut in the same time scale. The establishment of a Carbon Capture Institute did little to excite the Green lobby who think that technology is unproven and won't be operational until 2030 at the earliest which they say is too late.
Verdict: Must make efforts to get on with others 5/10
Global financial crisis:
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and the host of the summit, said in his final news conference that the crisis was beginning to "peter out", which perhaps will come as a surprise to many. He also said that it would only continue, or deepen, if people remained too frightened to spend.
There are those in the G8 who are worried about governments continuing to pour billions of dollars into the economy. The Germans in particular would like to cut back but the US, France and the UK think it's still too early and recovery could be held back if funds were choked off now. The emerging nations also reminded the big eight not to protect their own economies at the cost of hitting global trade.
Verdict: Nothing really new. Steady as she goes. 6/10
Global trade:
Talks aimed at making global trade easier, which began in 2001, have stalled. The so-called Doha round has been mired in disputes about tariffs and subsidies. But the Americans are keen to make progress and believe a deal is achievable by 2010. So there will be more talks later this year, to iron out problems, clarify issues and lay the groundwork for the leaders to sign a deal.
Verdict: More work needed but showing progress 7/10
Food security:
This has been Barak Obama's, the US president, pet project and he arrived in Italy determined to get a deal. He put $4bn on the table and wanted other countries to follow suit. A total of $15bn was mentioned. In the end the G8 committed $20bn to the project.
Obama believes this will help poorer countries feed their own people and, in time, develop an agriculture sector which could boost trade. Food prices have rocketed in the past six months and, as one charity worker told me in the three days of the G8, one million more people have been "trapped in the prison of hunger". That's why it's such an important issue for so many people around the world. The G8 will be watched closely to ensure it keeps its promises.
Verdict: One of the few successes 9/10
The G8:
The member states used this summit to widen discussions with the emerging economies of India, South Africa, China, Mexico and Brazil - an acceptance perhaps that this 35-year-old organisation needs updating. Berlusconi admitted as much in his final news conference, talking about a G14.
Verdict: beginning to look tired. Needs fresh blood. 3/10
Normally outstanding issues have to wait to the next G8 meeting to be addressed. But the group will be back together again for the G20 in the United States in September. The next G8 is planned for Canada in 2010. It might be the last one.
Related Articles:
http://globaldevelopmentnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/g8-reaches-seminal-climate-change.html
Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/07/200971018111538988.html
Tags: G8 Canada 2010 Huntsville, Food Security, Climate Change, Global Development News, Global Trade, Global Financial crisis, Obama, Medvedev, Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Stephen Harper, Gordon Brown, Manmohan Singh, Lula, Hu Jintao,
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday promised that the White House will do its part to support grassroots organizations that are successful in their efforts to improve communities.
"Solutions to America's challenges are being developed every day at the grassroots. And government shouldn't be supplanting those efforts, it should be supporting those efforts," Obama told representatives of nonprofit programs during a White House gathering.
The president said he was asking Domestic Policy Council director Melody Barnes and the White House innovation team to travel across the country to discover and evaluate the best programs making strides in such areas as education, training and health care.
Obama noted that the community service act he signed into law contained a $50 million innovation fund that he wanted to use to provide aid to the most promising nonprofits in the country. "We'll invest in those with the best results, that are most likely to provide a good return on our taxpayer dollars," he said.
Obama also called on foundations, businesses and philanthropists to take an active role, saying they would require matching investments from the private sector. He added that the economic stimulus package also has a $650 million "what works fund" for the Education Department that will be invested in high-impact initiatives in schools and communities.
Among the nonprofits invited to the event were the Harlem Children's Zone, which helps children get an early start on a good education; Genesys Works, a Houston-based group that trains and helps low-income high school students get entry-level technical support jobs in major corporations; Bonnie CLAC, a New Hampshire organization that helps struggling people acquire fuel-efficient, affordable and reliable vehicles; and HopeLab, a California program using technology to help young people with chronic diseases.
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12723576?source=email&nclick_check=1
Tags: Obama, Social programs, Domestic policy council, Education department, White House, Harlem’s children, genesys works, Bonnie CLAC, HopeLab, Global Best Practice, US government policy, High impact social programs, social innovation,
Obama gets drug companies to cut senior drug bills by $80 billion. Suddenly, his plan is no longer dead
WASHINGTON -- Last week didn't bring much good news for the Obama administration's drive to overhaul healthcare. Congressional budget wonks announced the draft legislation the Senate was working on would cost more than anyone expected; the industry players the White House had worked hard to bring into the reform process started grumbling about the whole thing. By the weekend, conventional wisdom inside the Beltway had more or less already declared reform dead.
Which made Monday's announcement by President Obama that the lobbying arm for the nation's drug manufacturers had agreed to cut the costs of drugs for seniors by $80 billion over the next decade something of a confusing spectacle. If the chances for getting anything done on healthcare had dwindled away, what was the president doing bringing back his campaign slogans -- and, more confusingly still, smiling confidently?
"To those who, here in Washington, who've grown accustomed to 'sky is falling' prognoses and the certainties that we cannot get this done, I have to repeat -- revive an old saying we had from the campaign: Yes, we can," Obama said. "We are going to get this done."
So the deepest significance of the deal between the government and PhRMA, the drug lobby, may well have been what it meant politically. Yes, the announcement means Medicare patients will no longer have to deal with an odd "doughnut hole" in their drug coverage; before Monday, the government pays for seniors' prescriptions if their annual cost is under $2,700 or more than $6,100, but not if the price is in between.
But more important, the news gave the administration a public relations victory -- the president just saved the government, and seniors, $80 billion -- to kick off a week where Obama plans to play offense, not defense, on healthcare. On Tuesday, the president will hold a midday news conference, where he'll have a chance to pitch his plans, and on Wednesday, the White House will host ABC News all day, culminating in a live, prime-time town hall on health reform.
"There was this feeding frenzy last week," one administration official admitted. But White House aides -- who like to insist that they're not paying attention to day-by-day news cycle battles, even as they manage events carefully to fit them -- aren't close to panicking yet. "There will be lots of developments every day about little provisions, and ultimately [very little of it] matters until you get a final bill."
Obama certainly didn't seem ruffled on Monday. He repeated the administration's main theme about healthcare -- you may like the coverage you have, but if the current system isn't changed, you won't be able to afford it for much longer. "Our goal -- our imperative -- is to reduce the punishing inflation in healthcare costs while improving patient care," Obama said. "And to do that we're going to have to work together to root out waste and inefficiencies that may pad the bottom line of the insurance industry, but add nothing to the health of our nation."
Among healthcare policy experts, that's become common knowledge, but the administration isn't finding it as easy to sell to the rest of the country -- or even to Congress. Obama has taken to quoting liberally from a New Yorker article about healthcare cost disparities in two neighboring Texas cities; administration officials have realized the story lays out their case pretty well. What's tricky about pitching the reform plan is that surveys show most voters actually like the care they have. In the last two weeks, Democratic and Republican pollsters have both reported fairly broad satisfaction with existing healthcare options. Obama's challenge is to convince people the system will soon gobble up an unsustainable share of the budget -- both on the federal level and where their own paychecks are concerned -- unless it's changed.
That task won't be easy, but advocates say it's certainly still possible. "People need to put aside the instant gratification bug and appreciate that it's going to take a while to get through the details," said Jackie Schechner, a spokeswoman for Healthcare for America Now, a union-backed group pushing for reform. Even the price tag doesn't have to scare voters off. "They say it's expensive to fix it, and then somebody gets their next insurance bill." Republicans, though, plan to focus their rhetoric on how much the reforms would cost -- more than $1.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, though that number is likely to change once the legislation is finished.
Meanwhile, the aspect of the reform that Congress is most upset about doesn't seem to be particularly controversial with actual voters: including a government-funded insurance option to compete with private plans. A CBS News/New York Times poll found 72 percent of respondents liked the idea. "Free puppies and ice cream isn't as popular as that," the administration official joked.
Even Republicans had to acknowledge that the public seems less than terrified. "Indeed, 'government bureaucrats' are scarcely less appealing than 'insurance bureaucrats," a GOP polling memo by Whit Ayres and Ed Gillespie reported on Monday. By the end of this week, the pundits may start declaring healthcare reform is as good as done. Last week's panic was probably premature. This week's celebration will be, too.
Source: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/23/healthcare/index.html?source=rss&aim=/news/feature
Tags: Obama, Congressional Budget office, Phrma, Pharma lobby groups, Big Pharma, Healthcare for America now, GOP, New Yorker, Global Economic News, Pollsters, Senate, Beltway,
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Access to green technology is becoming a growing stumbling block in global efforts to fight climate change, with US lawmakers bristling at what they see as China's attempt to "steal" US know-how.
China and India have led calls for developed nations to share technology to help them battle global warming as the clock ticks to a December meeting in Copenhagen meant to seal a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The US House of Representatives this month unanimously voted to make it US policy to prevent the Copenhagen treaty from "weakening" US intellectual property rights on a wind, solar and other eco-friendly technologies.
Congressman Rick Larsen, a member of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party who authored the measure, said the United States was caught between concern both over the climate and its soaring trade deficit with China. "The US can be part of China's solution for the problems that they admittedly have with energy efficiency and emissions. And I think legitimately we want to be part of that solution -- we're the two largest emitters of C02 in the world," Larsen said.
"But we need to couple being part of that solution with making it part of the solution on the trade deficit as well," he said ahead of the measure's approval. Representative Mark Kirk, a Republican who joined Larsen on a recent trip to China, said that climate change was the most contentious issue during talks with Chinese leaders.
Kirk said the Chinese essentially were seeking "the stealing of all intellectual property" related to energy efficiency and climate change. Kirk warned that China's position could change the political dynamics in Washington, where promoters of a bill to force emission cuts say the United States stands to create millions of jobs in a new green economy. "Right now a number of green industries like the climate change bill coming out. But if an international treaty sanctions the theft of their intellectual property, then there will be hardly any green jobs built in the United States," Kirk said.
The United States is the only major industrialized nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol, with former president George W. Bush saying it was unfair by making no demands of fast-growing developing nations such as China and India. Despite a recession, President Barack Obama has vowed to work to halt the planet's warming, which UN scientists warn will threaten severe weather and the extinction of plant and animal species later this century if unchecked.
More than 180 countries promised at a December 2007 meeting in Bali, Indonesia to take part in the next global treaty with a "common but differentiated responsibility" for developed and developing economies. But 12 days of talks this month in Bonn came up with no visible progress, with top Chinese negotiator Li Gao accusing rich nations of reneging on sharing technology and watering down commitments to cut emissions.
"There is an attempt to obliterate the principle of 'common but differentiated responsibility' and to split up the developing countries," Li told China's state Xinhua news agency.
Shyam Saran, India's envoy on climate change, also criticized rich nations, which he said bore the historic responsibility for climate change. India has proposed setting up global "innovation centers" to work on green technology.
A report last month by experts for the UN climate body called for a "balanced" approach, stressing the importance of intellectual property rights but saying all nations needed to accept the terms.
Technology transfer "is certainly a big and important question that might be a roadblock" in global negotiations, said Daniel Kessler of Greenpeace.
The environmental group has called for public and private funds on climate change to be pooled into an independent global body, funded to the tune of at least 140 billion dollars a year. But such funding may prove hard to come by. The European Union, champion of the Kyoto Protocol, has come under fire from environmentalists for declining to put a figure on climate aid, saying it is waiting to see other nations' proposals.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090623/bs_afp/uschinaclimatewarmingtechnology_20090623022226
Tags: China, USA, Obama, Kyoto Protocol, EU, Greenpeace, Xinhua, Li Gao, Daniel Kessler, Shyam Saran, Global Development News, US House of Representatives, Copenhagen, Bali, Mark Kirk, Rick Larsen, Intellectual Property, Global Best Practice,
Even liberals are getting antsy about debt and government spending. Stop worrying. The deficit hawks are wrong.
By Robert Reich
It's the kind of thing I expect to hear from deficit hawks and chicken littles -- from the self-described "fiscally responsible" right, from the scolds Ross Perot and Pete Peterson, from my former cabinet colleague Bob Rubin. But yesterday I was shown slides developed by the putatively liberal Center for American Progress intended to make the point. And today's front page story in the New York Times, by the eminent David Leonhardt, entitled "Sea of Red Ink: How It Spread From A Puddle," puts the issue right before our progressive noses, so to speak.
The Great Debt Scare is back.
Odd that it would return right now, when the economy is still mired in the worst depression since the Great one. After all, consumers are still deep in debt and incapable of buying. Unemployment continues to soar. Businesses still are not purchasing or investing, for lack of customers. Exports are still dead, because much of the global economy continues to shrink. So the purchaser of last resort -- the government -- has to create larger deficits if the economy is to get anywhere near full capacity, and start to grow again.
Odder still that the Debt Scare returns at the precise moment that bills are emerging from Congress on universal health care, which, by almost everyone's reckoning, will not increase the long-term debt one bit because universal health care has to be paid for in the budget. In fact, universal health care will reduce the deficit and cumulative debt -- especially if it includes a public option capable of negotiating lower costs from drug makers, doctors, and insurers, and thereby reducing the future costs of Medicare and Medicaid.
Even odder that the Debt Scare rears its frightening head just as the President's stimulus is moving into high gear with more spending on infrastructure. Every expert who has looked closely at the nation's crumbling infrastructure knows how badly it suffers from decades of deferred maintenance -- bridges collapsing, water pipes bursting, sewers backed up, highways impassable, public transit in disrepair. The stimulus, along with the President's long-term budget, also focus on the nation's schools, as well as America's capacity to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. These public investments are as important to the nation's future as are private investments.
First, some background: Deficit and debt numbers mean nothing in and of themselves. They take on meaning only in relation to something else. And the most important something else, in terms of deciding whether the nation can afford such deficits or debts, is the size of the national economy.
Pay close attention, in particular, to the debt/GDP ratio. True, that ratio is heading in the wrong direction right now. It may reach 70 percent by the end of 2010. That's high, but it's not high compared to the 120 percent it was in 1946, after the ravages of Depression and war.
Over time, the basic way America has reduced the debt/GDP ratio is by growing the U.S. economy. GDP growth makes even large debts manageable. When the economy is cooking, more people have jobs and better wages. So they pay more taxes. And they require less unemployment assistance and other social insurance. That's why it's so important now, in the depths of depression, that government, as purchaser of last resort, steps in and runs large deficits. Without large deficits this year and next, and perhaps the year after, the economy doesn't have a prayer of getting back on a growth path, and the debt/GDP ratio could really get ugly.
That growth path, by the way, will be faster and stronger if the nation invests in our infrastructure, our schools, and our environment -- which is exactly what Obama aims to do. In this respect, national budgets are like family budgets. It's dumb for an indebted family to borrow more money to take a world cruise. But it's smart even for an indebted family to borrow money to send their kids to college. So too with the Obama budget. Public investments, just like family investments, build future wealth. They allow faster growth. They make the debt/GDP ratio even lower and more manageable over time.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about when it comes to long-term deficit and debt projections. I'm just saying now's not the time to worry, and we ought to temper our worries by understanding the larger context.
Not every expert agrees that a deficit-driven stimulus is the best and fastest way to get the economy back on a growth track, or that public investments can speed growth. Conservative economists, Republicans, and many Wall Streeters are skeptical because they don't think government can do anything well. But look at the record of the last seventy-five years -- look at how the nation got out of the Great Depression, and consider the critical role public investments have played since then in speeding the nation's growth, investments such as the interstate highway system -- and you have ample evidence that the deficit hawks are wrong. They were wrong when they convinced Bill Clinton to chuck a large part of his investment agenda (the nation is now paying the price) and they're wrong now.
So, back to the mystery. Why are the ostensibly liberal Center for American Progress and New York Times participating in the Debt Scare right now? Is it possible that among the President's top economic advisors and top ranking members the Fed are people who agree more with conservative Republicans and Wall Streeters on this issue than with the President? Is it conceivable that they are quietly encouraging the Debt Scare even in traditionally liberal precincts, in order to reduce support in the Democratic base for what Obama wants to accomplish? Hmmm.
Source: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/11/deficits/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/feature
Tags: Robert Reich, Salon, Debt, Deficit, Economics, Obama, New York times, Center For American Progress, Republicans, Democrats, GDP, Wall Street, Global Economic News, Bill Clinton, Budgets,
Samah El-Shahat, Al Jazeera's resident economist, will be writing a regular column analysing key elements that have contributed to the global financial downturn and its impact across the world.
In my last column I introduced the idea that America's handling of the financial crisis, and in particular the way it has refused to deal with the banks, is more in keeping with how an "emerging" economy might behave and act.
So this week, I will say that America has become a bank-owned state, allowing its banking oligarchs to suffocate the economy so they can survive at any price.
As a development economist, what always made developing and poorer countries stand out was the level of inequality between individuals. That is, the difference between how a small percentage, usually the country's capitalists, oligarchs and those close to people in power, were overdosing on wealth as the rest struggled to make ends meet, or even survive.
Everyone in the country knew it, from the poorest farmer on the street to the richest oligarch. It was in your face, unashamed, unabated and highly discomforting. Discomforting because it made all of us who witnessed it feel crippled at the power of the status quo, ruing the unfairness of life when merit always comes last, relative to who you know and who you are.
We took some relief from believing that this only happens because these countries were authoritarian, and not so accountable to their electorate. Yet, if we look closer at the leading capitalist economies such as those of America and the UK, we will find that inequity raises its ugly head equally, and as starkly, when you look at the numbers.
Kept in the dark
Here too, a small percentage have the lion's share of national income in their hands, while the rest of the population experience stagnant incomes, all within a democratic, rather than an authoritarian, political regime. Yet the real difference here is that, away from the numbers, the wider population and the electorate were mostly kept in the dark about this.
In 2006, the top one per cent of American households' share of all disposable income amounted to almost a quarter of all households' disposable income, according to Robert Hunter Wade, professor of political economy at the London School of Economics.
In crude terms, one per cent of the population have a quarter of all the wealth. Moreover, Wade found the average income of the bottom 90 per cent of the population remained almost stagnant after 1980, although consumption kept rising thanks to the build-up of private debt. This means that 90 per cent of the American economy were financing their American dream on debt.
In the UK, Wade found the pay gap between the highest and average earners had widened alarmingly. Back in 1989, chief executives pocketed 17 times more than average earners. By 2007, those same "captains of industry" were earning 75 times more than the average worker. That is one enormous leap and I wouldn't mind that happening to my salary!
What's good for Wall Street ...
Warning signs that the financial crisis would become the great recession were there for all to see for a long time. But where were the alarms in the system itself to say that these countries and the individuals in them were pursuing an unsustainable way of life?
Where were the signs that things were going to end disastrously and, worse still, that the most vulnerable might end up paying the heftiest and most disproportionate price than anyone else? I believe the status quo was allowed to go unquestioned because banks were benefiting obscenely from the interest on our debt, and governments were in cahoots with these banks.
Let's not forget that governments conveniently moved away from the provision of affordable healthcare, free university education and affordable housing while the banks entered our lives, aggressively, to fill that void. In addition, I think that this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible.
The whole issue was made invisible. It was kept off the radar screens of electoral politics. The American electorate were made accomplice to this because they were convinced that what was good for Wall Street, was good for America as a whole. It was a political sleight of hand of the highest order. And this explains the bipartisan agreement to the ill-designed deregulation of the finance sector that we have seen over the years.
America has become a bank-owned state.
Ann Pettifor, a fellow development economist who works for the New Economics Foundation, says the US administration has been hijacked, and democracy has been pushed aside in favour of what is good for the bankers, by what Abraham Lincoln called "the money power". And how right she is. The way the banks are being bailed out is a clear example of this political edifice.
Sucking the life out of tax-payers
The fact some of these failing banks have been thrown a lifeline is a testament to the hold they have over Barack Obama's administration. Some of the banks should be allowed to die because they are so insolvent and holding so much in toxic assets that they will forever need to be on taxpayer-funded life support.
The problem is, this life support is sucking the life out of the taxpayer in the process, as it weighs them down with ever-increasing debt. On top of that, the money could be used to restructure the economy in a way that is less reliant on the financial sector. Underlying this refusal to kill those banks in poor health is a faulty and, dare I say, convenient assumption, that is not backed up by reality or fact, that the banks are facing a liquidity crisis as opposed to them facing a solvency crisis.
A liquidity crisis means the banks are facing a credit shortage, and once that is sorted, all will be well. A solvency crisis means that the assets of many banks, firms and households are worth less than their debt. And this means that these banks have to be completely nationalised.
Which leads us to Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary, and his "stress tests". The tests were meant to give a clear and final assessment of these banks' balance sheets, telling us which were healthy and which would not be able to survive and would need more cash if the recession deepens.
As in any induced test, like the ones we undergo when we have our hearts tested, the "stress tests" were meant to simulate worse-case scenarios. Well, that was the promise at least. The hope was that some would be declared so bad, they would have to go under once and for all.
Unfortunately, the tests turned out peculiarly lacking in stress. Nouriel Roubini, professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, says: "The government used assumptions for the macro variables in 2009 and 2010 that are so optimistic that the actual data for 2009 are already worse than the adverse scenario.
"As for some crucial variables, such as the unemployment rate – key to proper estimates of default and recovery rates for residential mortages ... and other bank loans – the current trend shows that by the end of 2009 the unemployment rate will be higher than the average unemployment rate assumed in the more adverse scenario for 2010, not for 2009."
The unemployment rate used in the worse-case scenario was assumed to average 8.9 per cent in 2009 and 10.3 per cent in 2010. But unemployment has already reached 9.4 per cent this year, and looks likely to overtake 10.3 per cent by next year. So, there is nothing really challenging about these worse case scenarios at all.
Next week, I'll write about Timothy Geithner's plan to wipe toxic assets off the banks' balance sheets without getting rid of one single bank ... and how long before we say ENOUGH and really do something about it.
Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/06/20096995715625752.html
Tags: Al jazeera, Geithner, Nouriel Roubini, Stern School of Business, Mortgages, American banks, New Economics Foundation, Ann Pettifor, Obama, Robert Hunter Wade, political economy, London School of Economics, LSE,
U.S. President Barack Obama is stepping up the pace of government spending to stimulate the American economy. The goal is to create or save 600,000 jobs in the next three months.
The president says there has been modest progress since he signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law. But he says it is not enough.
"We are still in the middle of a very deep recession that was years in the making," he said.
Mr. Obama says the May unemployment figures released last week were not quite as bad as expected, but still show there is a great deal of work to be done to get the economy back on track. He says it is time to build on the roughly 150,000 jobs created or saved in the initial three months or so of the stimulus program.
"The goal here is that we are going to create or save 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days," the president said.
During a meeting with his cabinet, Mr. Obama instructed government agencies to accelerate the pace of stimulus spending. Much of the money will be poured into construction projects and summer youth programs.
Republicans have slammed the stimulus effort from the start, saying all the tax dollars being spent will send the federal budget deficit soaring and do little to promote economic recovery.
Tags: Obama, Biden, Economic Recovery Act, Accelerated Stimulus Package, Summer Youth Programs, Construction Projects, Unemployment, $787 billion economic stimulus package into law, GlobalEconomicNewsBlogspot,
