Both The Senate or the House are in recess today and will reconvene on Monday.
When the Senate returns it will resume post cloture consideration of S. 3414, the cybersecurity bill and will take up the nomination of Robert Bacharach to be United States Circuit Judge for the 10th Circuit. After an hour of debate, the Senate will vote on cloture on the nomination. Following the vote, the Senate will return to the cybersecurity bill. Yesterday, the Senate voted 84-11 to invoke cloture (cut off debate) on the motion to proceed to S. 3414, the cybersecurity bill.
Yesterday the House passed (245-172 ) H.R. 4078 — "To provide that no agency may take any significant regulatory action until the unemployment rate is equal to or less than 6.0 percent." The House also passed by voice vote, H. Con. Res. 134 — "Condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the heinous atrocities that occurred in Aurora, Colorado."
The New York Times reports today, “The United States economy grew by a tepid 1.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter, losing the momentum it had appeared to be gaining earlier this year, the government reported Friday. Growth was curbed as consumers limited new spending and as business investment slowed in the face of a global slowdown and a stronger dollar. . . . A slowdown in household spending was the primary damper on growth, as consumers increased their savings rate, a sign of increased uncertainty about the future.”
And the AP writes, “U.S. economic growth slowed to an annual rate of just 1.5 percent from April through June, as Americans cut back sharply on spending. The weaker growth adds to worries that the economy could be stalling three years after the recession ended. . . . Growth at or below 2 percent isn't enough to lower the unemployment rate, which was 8.2 percent last month. And most economists don't expect growth to pick up much in the second half of the year. Europe's financial crisis and a looming budget crisis in the U.S. are expected to slow business investment further. ‘The main take away from today's report, the specifics aside, is that the U.S. economy is barely growing,’ said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at BTIG LLC. ‘Along with a reduction in the actual amount of money companies were able to make, it's no wonder the unemployment rate cannot move lower.’”
Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson responded to today's report that the economy slowed in the second quarter to only 1.5 percent growth: "Gross Domestic Product numbers throughout 2008 failed to show that we were in a recession, when in reality the downturn had begun in the fourth quarter of 2007. And now, once again, the economy is visibly slowing down with only 1.5 percent growth, but are we already in another recession? At best, we're at stall speed, but we may already be contracting.
"Our early warning systems are broken, and economists are left only to extrapolate that we are in serious trouble. Meanwhile, Obama is doing nothing to get the economy back on its feet again. His only plan is to raise taxes on job creators, wage his war on business, and spend us into oblivion. The 'stimulus' has failed, and yet all the talk is the Fed will try to administer another dose of quantitative easing, or money printing, that will do nothing to get us out of this ditch. It is time for new leadership. We need a return to sound money, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and a complete unraveling of the environmental, labor, and health regulations that are strangling growth."
The tepid GDP numbers today only serve to highlight how misguided Senate Democrats’ vote yesterday to raise taxes on nearly a million small businesses was. Fifty-one Democrats voted to raise taxes, despite President Obama’s warning when he signed a full extension of current tax rates two years ago that automatic tax increases on every American “would have been a blow to our economy just as we're climbing out of a devastating recession.”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week, “[H]ere’s the Democrat plan for the economy: we’ll get this thing going again by raising taxes. Let’s take more money out of a small business and send it to Washington that’s how we’ll create jobs. . . . If you’re looking for the legislative equivalent of the President’s now famous view that ‘You didn’t build that’, this is it. They don’t think you deserve to keep what you’ve earned because you’re not responsible for earning it. They are. That’s the message Democrats are sending with today’s votes, that you’re not responsible for your success, Washington is. So give us your money, and we’ll handle it for you. That’s their tax plan. That’s their plan for the economy and jobs.”
Tags: Weaker GDP, GSP, failing economy, economy sucks To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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