Today in Washington, D.C. - Aug 6, 2010 - No Good News Today!

Summary: No Good News except for the Senate being in recess; but unfortunately, the House is being recalled..

After doing too much last minute damage, the Senate has adjourned for its August recess and will reconvene on Monday, September 13^th. Yesterday, the Senate voted 63-37 to confirm liberal Elena Kagan as to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, While it was the lowest confirmation vote for a Supreme Court nominee from a Democrat president, the results are the same. She is now on the Supreme Court for life and based on her past record and comments barring her personal conversion to the causes of liberty, individuals freedoms under the Constitution may be continually at risk.

Also yesterday, the Senate voted 61-39 to pass a $26 billion bill (H.R. 1586) to bail out states and provide $10 billion for education in a bail out for teachers’ UNIONS. Several Senators up for reelection, like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, ignored the majority of their constituents and voted to support Barack Obama agenda. Prior to passage, the Senate rejected two motions from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to suspend the rules (on post-cloture amendments) and make changes to the bill. Both failed by votes of 42-58. The first DeMint motion would have permanently extended the 2001 tax cuts, and the second would have permanently extended the tax cuts on the top marginal rates for small business owners.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi posted on her Twitter that "I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers' jobs and help seniors & children." She is using one of the oldest lines (lies) in politics -"its for the children." The Hill reports that "A K Street lobbyist said the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pushed Pelosi to call back the House for the vote. States would have to lay off thousands of teachers if Congress doesn’t approve the money by the end of August. Schools have laid off teachers in significant numbers throughout the year. Senate Democrats fear a delay in state aid could lead to additional firings." So the UNIONS have more clout with Pelosi and the Democrats than protecting THE UNION. Congress has again ignored the Constitutional fact that education is a State responsibility and not that of the Federal Government. It is not the business of an Arkansas, Missouri or any state Senator or Congressman to be underwriting the cost affecting the laying off, hiring or firing of state and local employees with those states. But. it is the responsibility of Congress and the Federal government to protect the borders of  "The Union" (United States of America) and to stop the invasion of our country.

Just three days after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner declared in a New York Times op-ed, “Welcome to the Recovery,” The Wall Street Journal reports on another dismal monthly employment report: “The U.S. economy shed more jobs than expected in July while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.5%, a further sign the economic recovery may be losing momentum. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 131,000 last month as the rise in private-sector employment was not enough to make up for the government jobs lost, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. Only 71,000 private-sector jobs were added last month while 143,000 temporary workers on the 2010 census were let go.”

This bad news follows Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement in June of the White House’s “Recovery Summer” message and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s exclamation last month, “Welcome, everyone, to the summer of recovery!” But the news between then and now hasn’t been much better. Bloomberg News reported yesterday, “[t]he number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May . . . .” And the Los Angeles Times reported in July, "The number of U.S. homes taken back by banks through foreclosure hit a record high in the second quarter ... for a record total of 269,952 ...."

Clearly, the Obama administration’s economic policies, centered around the $862 billion deficit-financed stimulus bill, have failed to produce the recovery Democrats and administration officials predicted when the bill was passed in early 2009. Recall that key White House economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted in January 2009 that the “unemployment rate with … the recovery plan,” would not exceed eight percent “with recovery plan.” Well, Romer announced last night she is leaving the administration and going back to teaching. While we can't image how Romer is going to spin her failures back in the classroom, this is one Obama cheerleader we won't miss.

Regardless, the Democrats appear convinced that more of the same actions will somehow spur a recovery. Their latest piece of legislation is a $26 billion bailout for states, which includes $10 billion for teachers, and $16 to meet unfunded federal Medicaid mandates. As mention above Speaker Pelosi is actually calling the House back from recess to vote on the bill. But in a must-read editorial today, The Washington Post blasts Democrats’ effort: “The crusade for an education jobs bill, led by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress, has always struck us as more of an election-year favor for teachers unions than an optimal use of public resources. Billed as an effort to stimulate the economy, it’s not clearly more effective than alternative uses of the cash.”

And then there are the job-killing bills that Democrats have spent most of the past 18 months working on. Pelosi actually said Democrats’ health care bill, which the NFIB says will “devastate” small businesses, their student loan takeover, which has already cost thousands of jobs, and their national energy tax proposal, which could cost more than two million jobs, “they are all three pillars of job creation.”

We must agree with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who laid out just what Democrats’ Washington agenda has meant for American jobs: “Enough is enough. Democrats can call say these bills are a response to the jobs crisis all they want. But the American people have already issued their verdict. The American people have seen the bitter results of the Democrats’ so-called economic agenda. Every bill they pass only adds more burdens on the people we need to get us out of this economic ditch. Whether it’s the health care bill or financial regulation, every bill they pass seems to have as a prerequisite that it kills more jobs. If a bill doesn’t kill jobs or make it harder to create them, they’re not interested.” Today’s jobs report is just another indicator of the failed economic policies of the Obama administration and the Democrat majority in Congress.

Projection: There is potential Good News on the horizon - November is Coming! Will the American people say enough is enough and bring real change - sanity - back to the US Congress?

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Tags: US Senate, US House, Washington, D.C., Elana Kagan, SCOTUS, bailouts for states, teacher's unions, the economy,, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!