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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal spending surge of more than $20 billion for roads and bridges in President Barack Obama's first stimulus has had no effect on local unemployment rates, raising questions about his argument for billions more to address an ''urgent need to accelerate job growth.'' An Associated Press analysis of stimulus spending found that it didn't matter if a lot of money was spent on highways or none at all: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless. And the stimulus spending only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, the analysis showed.

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 887 (Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined) H R 3962 RECORDED VOTE 7-Nov-2009 11:16 PM QUESTION: On Passage BILL TITLE: Affordable Health Care for America Act Ayes Noes PRES NV Democratic 219 39 Republican 1 176 Independent TOTALS 220 215 ---- AYES 220 --- Abercrombie Ackerman Andrews Arcuri Baca Baldwin Bean Becerra Berkley Berman Berry Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Blumenauer Boswell Brady (PA) Braley (IA) Brown, Corrine Butterfield Cao Capps Capuano Cardoza Carnahan Carney Carson (IN) Castor (FL) Chu Clarke Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly (VA) Conyers Cooper Costa Costello Courtney Crowley...

• Unemployment at 10.2% • President's top economic advisor admits this is by government design. • White House intends for unemployment to go down in an election year. Unemployment this morning topped 10.2%, even though the number seeking employment has declined. Many have just given up. Likewise, and more troublesome, the average hours worked in a week is at its lowest in decades - 33 hours. That suggests employers are going to just expand hours worked in the future, instead of hiring new people. So the unemployment number will stay high for a while. On January 18, 2009, Obama's top...

Most people have a general idea of the events that led to the current recession. Lax lending standards contributed to a housing bubble that peaked in mid-2006. As housing prices began declining, more and more mortgages were defaulted on, and bank balance sheets deteriorated rapidly. In September 2008, Lehman Brothers failed, and the financial crisis seemed to become much worse. A mild recession turned into one of the most severe since the 1930s. But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? Is it possible that we have fundamentally misdiagnosed the crisis? Some basic insights from modern macroeconomics suggest a very...

1. Know the Facts 2. Read the Bill 3. Vote As of Wednesday, October 14, there are some things we know, and some things we don't know. We know that the most recent economic projections forecast 10.3 percent unemployment as of next June and 8.5 percent unemployment through 2013. And we know that cost increases to businesses and families could make these numbers even worse. They will slow down the recovery and kill job creation. Now for what we don't know: As of Monday, we can no longer have confidence that we know what the true cost of the Left's...

House energy panel asks 52 companies to cough up info on everyone who makes more than $500,000 a year. Insurers cry foul. Does health CEO pay matter? WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- Earlier this year, public outrage boiled over with news of eye-popping pay to top executives on Wall Street. White House officials later acknowledged they had misjudged the velocity and volume of furor triggered by "bonusgate," which raised the profile of corporate executive pay. Could that happen now in health care? Some of the known salaries are pretty big. Last year, the head of Cigna (CI, Fortune 500) made $11 million...

In the 20th century, particularly since the end of World War II, there has been a shift away from the earlier synthesis between marketplace and commonwealth in two ways. On one hand, increasingly the states have been denied their historic constitutional powers to support any particular moral order other than that of the marketplace within their boundaries, by decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court has consistantly interpreted the federal constitution in such a way as to extend the marketplace into the commonwealths. Thus the powers of government, particularly the state governments, have been denied in matters connected with...

Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into motion when government imposes itself into the health care system. Speech given at the Mayo Clinic -- 1978

As of July 20, 2009: • The Brainroom counts 32 czars in the Obama administration, based on media reports from reputable sources that have identified the official in question as a czar. • In addition, President Obama has said that he will create the position of cyber czar, and there have been media reports that there could be a health insurance czar and a copyright czar. When and if those positions are filled, that would bring the total to 35. • Since czar isn't an official job title, the number is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. NOTE: positions...

In the United States, health insurance for those under age 65 is typically provided through group plans purchased by employers from commercial insurers. In the health insurance market, insurers provide complex multi-attribute services, and search frictions arise as employers undertake the costly process of finding appropriate health insurance for their workers. These frictions distort market outcomes by increasing insurance turnover rates, increasing the price of health insurance. Our empirical analysis indicates that frictions are most severe in the “fully insured” part of the health insurance market and that the magnitudes of the frictions in that market are sufficient to transfer...

Pat Toomey posted this link on his Fackbook site. http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=102823166700&h=X3VCP&u=2ikoj&ref=nf The direct YouTube link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbbCTJxT7MA&feature=player_embedded

Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and Bob Bennett (R-UT) held a press conference to announce Republican legislation to give individual taxpayers ownership of the federal government's share of the stock in General Motors and Chrysler acquired in the current bailout and bankruptcy proceedings.

Near the end of his term in office US president George W. Bush said: "I'm abandoning free-market principles to save the free-market system." But he had already significantly increased the size and scope of the federal government. His last act was to bail out General Motors and Chrysler. That trend is continuing in spades under President Barack Obama and the democratic majority in Congress. Federal spending in fiscal 2009 will approach 28 per cent of gross domestic product, and the US budget deficit is expected to be nearly US$2 trillion, or about 13 per cent of GDP. During the next...

There has been a flurry of controversy about whether Ronald Reagan is relevant to Republicans and conservatives in 2009. Some people have made the legitimate point that you cannot copy or imitate the solutions of 1981 for 2009's challenges. While imitation or direct copying a generation later will not work, learning the core principles of Mr. Reagan and learning the lessons of history is essential. The heart of conservatism ought to be a deep respect for the past and a willingness to think profoundly about how great leaders have met challenges and solved problems in their era. Because of our...

From the 1961 Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine as proposed by the Democrats, then a private citizen Ronald Reagan Speaks out against socialized medicine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

I just got back from "serving" on jury duty. I must say that thinking about this time I was called to serve and the last time, I felt quite out of place. Although today was different because I chose to stand up and speak my mind before they put me in the jury box and I was immediately placed back into the pool of waiting jurors; then excused all together. As we were being ushered into the court room, the defendant was sitting there watching us all file in. He was a very bright looking youg man, yet seemed a...

Call me Average Joann. I'm an unemployed corporate economist with plenty of time on my hands to look at what is happening between congress and the executive branch and what I see is giving me this empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. When Obama won the election in November, it hit me rather hard. Partly, because I'm positive that he is completely wrong for our country with the problems we have now, but also because I really didn't know what to expect from him. I had consciously set aside the notion that he would take us to extreme...

Mention of Keynes is omitted from press conference transcript. I am positive I heard it. The comment was made in the context of explaining the economic issues that were inherited. Although true, he did inherit this problem, I believe the rhetoric in which his economic discussions have been enveloped is highly uncalled for, is quite deceptive, and one can only guess at the real motivations behind it. In the beginning, not all of us, but some of us decided to take a lighter approach to the election results. We all have some understanding of the economic issues facing this country,...

The people have not created this disaster in our economy; the federal government has. It has overspent, overestimated, and over regulated. It has failed to deliver services within the revenues it should be allowed to raise from taxes. In the thirty-four years since the end of World War II, it has spent 448 billion dollars more than it has collection in taxes – 448 billion dollars of printing press money, which has made every dollar you earn worth less and less. At the same time, the federal government has cynically told us that high taxes on business will in some...