recovery act Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

More jobs than we originally thought

This is unexpected good news. Oh, wait. There is a group of Americans who can’t stand any good economic news. This will be seen by Fox News as evidence that the Obama administration is playing with the numbers. Whatever. As far as I know, when the numbers are bad conservatives are plenty happy with the BLS. It is only when the numbers start to look better that they have a problem.

From TP:

New data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the private-sector added 450,000 more jobs as of March 2012 than previously thought. This means that the economy has crossed the threshold and more jobs have been created than lost during President Obama’s term.

This is a remarkable accomplishment—and one that would not have happened without the Recovery Act and other policies developed by this administration and passed by the 111th Congress in 2009. When President Obama was sworn in, the economy was losing jobs to the unprecedented tune of over 20,000 per day. Between the beginning of 2008 and February 2010 when the tide began to turn, the economy lost nearly 8.8 million jobs—4.3 million on Obama’s watch and almost 4.5 million under President Bush’s.

In February 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law and funds began almost immediately moving their way through the economy and the pace of job losses slowed, turning positive a year later. Since February 2010, including the newly revised data, the economy has added 4.4 million total payroll jobs, an average of 135,00 per month.

Even so, today’s data contained another glaring statistic: the economy has lost more than 700,000 public sector jobs since 2009, holding back the overall recovery. Without those losses, our unemployment rate would be at least a full point lower.

Wall Street Reform

I thought that this post hit the nail on the head.

From Political Animal:

It wasn’t easy, and it took a little longer than expected, but one of the pillars of the Democratic agenda — a sweeping Wall Street reform bill — cleared Congress today, and is poised to become law.

The Senate voted, 60 to 39, to approve an overhaul of the financial regulatory system on Thursday, heralding the end of more than a generation in which the prevailing posture of Washington toward the financial industry was largely one of hands-off admiration.

“We all know Wall Street isn’t going to reform itself,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)said today. “Those who vote ‘no’ are standing with the same bankers who gambled with our homes and economic security in the first place.”

The final roll found three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Scott Brown (Mass.) — joining the entire Democratic caucus, except Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), in supporting the bill. It now heads to the White House for President Obama’s signature.

There’s some confusion, apparently, as to exactly when that will happen. The Hill reports that the president may sign the legislation into law today, while the New York Times reports it’s likely to benext week. Given the fact that Obama is in Michigan today, I’d be surprised if the signing ceremony were ready for this afternoon.

Either way, the reform package, formally called the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” represents the biggest regulatory change for the financial industry since the Great Depression. Kevin Drum had a good item recently, highlighting several of its key provisions. He concluded, “Given the alternatives, anyone who cares about financial reform should support this bill.”

In the larger context, Wall Street reform also gets added to the list of breakthrough accomplishments of the last 18 months, a list that now includes health care reform, an economy-saving Recovery Act, a long-sought overhaul of the nation’s student-loan system, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, new regulation of the credit card industry, new regulation of the tobacco industry, a national service bill, expanded stem-cell research, and the most sweeping land-protection act in 15 years, among other things.

As Rachel Maddow recently observed, “The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that.”

Of course, the president’s leadership made progress on this agenda possible, but kudos also obviously have to go to the House and Senate leadership, especially on Wall Street reform, which looked to be in deep trouble more than once. Time will tell what happens in the midterms, but Americans haven’t seen a Congress as successful as 111th in at least a generation.