Free Republic

Trucks hauling everything from cars to produce use Southeast Texas roads to deliver their goods, and when a proposed Interstate 69/Trans Texas Corridor is completed, local drivers could see even more of them, local transportation officials said. The proposed I-69 corridor stretches from Michigan down to Texas. Once in Texas, the corridor goes about 650 miles from Texarkana to Brownsville and Laredo and includes separate lanes for cars and semis and areas for trains and utilities. It doesn't cut through Beaumont, but local arteries like U.S. 69 and Interstate 10 would connect to it. Travelers and truckers just need to...

Sources of Growth in Tax Revenues ....The bulk of the revenue increase was associated with corporate income taxes: Revenues from corporate income taxes rose from 1.2 percent of GDP in 2003 (their lowest level since 1983) to 2.7 percent in 2006 (their highest level since 1978). ....Revenues from individual income taxes increased 0.6 percentage points, from 7.3 percent of GDP in 2003 to 8.0 percent in 2006. Corporate Income Tax Revenues. Roughly two-thirds of the increase of 1.5 percentage points in corporate income taxes relative to GDP can be attributed to increases in corporate profits, according to current measures in...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2008 – “Tremendous” growth in the Iraqi air force last year in terms of capability as well as capacity is expected to continue in 2008 as Iraq builds its air force from the ground up, a senior U.S. officer assisting that effort reported today. During 2007, the Iraqis stood up four air force training schools and graduated their first military pilots’ class since 2003, Air Force Col. Lyman “Lewie” Edwards, who also serves as chief of staff and deputy commander for the Coalition Air Force Transition Team, told retired military analysts via teleconference from Baghdad. Last year...

It's not often that an individual makes such a significant and undoubtedly lasting impact on a state as big as Texas, but my long-time friend and Chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Ric Williamson, certainly did. As most of you know, Ric died suddenly last month at age 55. It is true that as the state's transportation policymaker, he was a controversial figure. But, it has been my experience that people with visionary instincts and those who prefer to think outside the box are often considered different and unconventional. The world has a long legacy of resisting new ideas, even...

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal see increasing odds of a recession this year along with mounting inflationary pressures, an uncomfortable mix that could play a role in shaping the 2008 presidential campaign and complicate life for the Federal Reserve. In the latest monthly survey, economists put the chance of recession at 42%, up from 38% in December and 23% just six months ago. On average, the 54 forecasters who participated see the economy expanding at less than a 2% annual rate in the first and second quarters. Last month's survey estimated 2007 growth at 2.5%. "The U.S. economy...

Anyone whose feet are set in concrete against toll roads is going to get run over. Toll roads are here. They are coming. The need is undeniable, as is the rationale in many cases. But you can’t defend toll roads in every instance, and the proposed I-35 toll lanes through Waco sound indefensible. Two concerns present themselves immediately — one about Waco’s self-interest and one about fairness to motorists. First, the provincial concern: The proposed self-contained toll lanes would deliver a lot of travelers through Waco without access and egress to take advantage of what the city offers, even if...

The Club for Growth, an anti-tax advocacy group, will launch Monday a national advertising campaign depicting Mike Huckabee (R) as an eager proponent of tax increases while he was governor of Arkansas. The first round of advertising, costing $175,000, will run on broadcast and statewide cable television in Iowa, where Huckabee is leading the GOP presidential pack by a narrow margin. They will also run on statewide cable TV in South Carolina and nationwide on Fox News Channel. The ad shows a younger, portly Huckabee as governor in 2003 addressing a special session of the Arkansas legislature, which he convened...

If things are so bad, why are they so good? With all the gloom coming out of Wall Street, the Democrats on the campaign trail, and the mainstream media, a remarkable thing just happened: Real gross domestic product, the best summary report of the American economy, came in at a breathtaking 3.9 percent annual rate for the third quarter. In fact, following the 3.8 percent growth rate for the second quarter, the U.S. economy has posted its strongest quarterly growth in four years. The economy actually appears to be speeding up, following the relatively sluggish performance of the prior 18...

[...] November 2, 2007, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new jobs figures – 166,000 jobs created in October. Since August 2003, 8.31 million jobs have been created, with 1.68 million jobs created over the 12 months that ended in October. Our economy has now added jobs for 50 straight months – the longest period of uninterrupted job growth on record. The unemployment rate remains low at 4.7 percent. The U.S. Economy Remains Strong, Flexible, And Dynamic - Real GDP grew at a strong 3.9 percent in the third quarter of 2007. The economy has now experienced six years of...

Coin trays in Texas cars may actually get to see the faces of dead presidents. The much-discussed and controversial Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, has breathed life into the debate of toll roads in Texas. Plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor include TTC-Instate 35, which starts in Laredo and extends north to Gainesville, running along the eastern part of Texas; and Interstate 69/TCC, which has three openings in Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville and follows the coast to Texarkana. Much of the TTC will be privately operated toll roads, run by the Spanish firm Cintra. The TTC will not run through San Antonio,...

(2007 Grocery Manufacturers Association/Food Products Association Fall Conference) Renaissance Hotel Washington, D.C THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming. Thank you all. Please be seated. Billy, thank you. I asked Billy where he works. He said, well, I run Sunny Delight beverage company. I said, well, Billy, I quit drinking. (Laughter.) He said, that's not that kind of alcohol. I thank you all for having me. Billy, thank you for your kind words. He's from Cincinnati. I was in Cincinnati the other day, stopped off and got some ribs, and he tried to ask me to compare Texas ribs with Cincinnati ribs....

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007 Governor Mitt Romney Excerpts Of Remarks At The Club For Growth (Live Via Video) Washington, D.C. Governor Romney On The Line-Item Veto: Governor Romney: "I should also note that perhaps the best way to get our spending down was to be able to use the line-item veto. I used that 844 times as Governor of Massachusetts. I'm glad I had it." Governor Romney On His Conservative Blueprint To Lower Taxes: Governor Romney: "Let me tell you what I'd do, as opposed to what Hillary Clinton would do with regard to our tax and spending policies. First...

Still Made In America by: Nirmala Punnusami, October 09, 2007 There are the “Jeremiahs,” the prophets of doom, who assert that the manufacturing industry in the United States of America is declining, but panelists Bill Lane, Lloyd Wood, Robert Scott, and Dan Ikenson argued at the Cato Institute on Tuesday, September 25, 2007, that the manufacturing industry is, indeed, “thriving,” as “the revenues, profits, profit rates, return on investments , and exports and imports are all on the rise.” It was Daniel Ikenson who, in his informative paper “Thriving in a Global Economy: The Truth About United States Manufacturing...

Fact Sheet: September 2007 Marks Record 49th Consecutive Month Of Job Growth More Than 8.1 Million Jobs Created Since August 2003 In Longest Continuous Months Of Job Growth On Record"[L]ast month our economy added 110,000 new jobs. And that's good news for people here in our country. It's an indicator that this economy is a vibrant and strong economy. ... If you want this economy to continue to grow, and if you want to reinforce the fact that … entrepreneurship is strong and people are working, don’t raise taxes. And I'm looking forward to working with the Congress to set...

Orange County on steroids or Phoenix raised to an exponential power? That was one reaction to Wednesday's two-year study on job creation and retention by the Milken Institute that rated the Ontario-San Bernardino-Riverside area No. 3 among 200 large U.S. metropolitan areas. The Inland Empire trailed only Ocala, Fla., and Wilmington, N.C., two metro areas in low-tax, high-growth states, and was the only California entity in the top 15. "This study shows that this area is an economic powerhouse and will remain one for the next several decades," Ontario City Manager Greg Devereaux said. "This area is Orange County from...

"Senator Thompson’s eight-year record in the U.S. Senate demonstrates an admirable commitment to limited government and free-market principles. His record on entitlement reform and school choice is excellent, while his support for lower taxes and free trade is very good." What did the Club for Growth, a leading driver of free market reform in the US, have to say about the others? (Here is a quick rundown)

The U.S. economy bounced back in the second quarter, growing at a 4% annual real growth rate, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The upward revision to second-quarter gross domestic product is likely to have a minimal impact on financial markets, however, which are preoccupied by the credit crunch.

<p>PARIS -- French libraries are said to file their nation's constitutions -- there have been more than a dozen since 1789; the current one is a relatively ancient 49 years old -- under periodicals. Now Nicolas Sarkozy, France's peripatetic new president, has created a commission on constitutional reform. The commission includes Jack Lang who, as minister of culture in 1983 under President Francois Mitterrand, staged a sublimely unserious conference on the (supposed) world economic crisis, featuring the likes of Sophia Loren, Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer.</p>

A site for christians to have community together... growth, etc..

WASHINGTON -- Pessimism is a contagious affliction, born by fears of some cataclysmic result that is based on little or no compelling evidence -- usually in the face of a pile of facts to the contrary. That's the illness that spread through Wall Street last week, triggered by the continuing turbulence in the housing and credit markets amid fears that the situation is only going to get worse and drag the rest of the economy down with it. Some of the gloomiest traders on Wall Street have begun, once again, to talk about a recession, the dreaded r-word that rears...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2007 – Recent surge operations and a continued commitment to ownership by the Iraqi government are contributing to increased economic progress in Iraq, a senior officer responsible for economic development there said yesterday. During a conference call with online journalists and “bloggers,” Army Col. Tracy O. Smith, chief of the Economic Development Branch of Multinational Force Iraq, provided an operational update on economic progress being made in Iraq’s provinces. He explained that the recent surge of forces and operations has improved the ability of coalition forces to conduct non-traditional military operations in a number of areas simultaneously,...

I remember, back when I first became a Christian, hearing a Pentecostal TV preacher talking about how the Assemblies of God were the fastest-growing denomination in America. I remember, back when I first became a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the local campus minister telling me that the PCA was the fastest-growing denomination in America. I remember, back when I was first having Mormon missionaries over in order to evangelize them, them telling me that Mormonism is the fastest-growing denomination in America. As a result, I learned to be skeptical of "fastest-growing" claims, and to this...

Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, are booming in the global South. The rise is so great, in fact, that Christendom's so-called center of gravity - the point on the globe where roughly the same number of believers live to the north, south, east, and west - is shifting ever further from Rome, not to mention Jerusalem, where Christianity started. Today, according to a trajectory mapped by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, based in South Hamilton, Mass., the demographic heart of the Christian world has shifted to Timbuktu, in the mostly Muslim African nation of Mali. It...

Energy security relies not on independence, but a variety of domestic and international cooperative initiatives, a report from the National Petroleum Council says. The 400-page document, "Facing the Hard Truths About Energy," reviews the status of global oil and natural gas until 2030 and presents a list of possible solutions for avoiding an energy crisis as well as recommendations for increased energy security in the United States. These steps take the focus away from physical independence and shine the spotlight on healthy global energy activity: moderate demand, expand and diversify energy supplies, and strengthen global energy trade and investment. "Energy...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy snapped out of a lethargic spell and grew at a 3.4 percent pace in the second quarter, the strongest showing in more than a year. A revival in business spending was a main force behind the energized performance. The new reading on gross domestic product, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, marked a big improvement from the first three months of this year, when economic growth skidded to a near halt at just a 0.6 percent pace, the slowest in more than four years. Stronger spending by businesses and government powered the rebound in...

Anyone interested in the marvel of modern-day China and India routinely encounters a host of "gee whiz" factoids that illustrate each country's high-octane growth. Shanghai, for example, had 15 skyscrapers in 1978; by last year it had about 3,800, more than Los Angeles and Chicago combined. India, meanwhile, is home to three of the world's 10 biggest information-technology firms, and IBM employs 53,000 people there--an increase since 1992 of . . .53,000. Yet it's just as easy to uncover bad news. Sixteen of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China. And even if the country survives an environmental...

Job Creation Continues - More Than 8.2 Million Jobs Created Since August 2003 On July 6, 2007, The Bureau Of Labor Statistics Released New Jobs Figures – 132,000 Jobs Created In June. Since August 2003, more than 8.2 million jobs have been created, with more than 2 million jobs created over the twelve months ending in June. Our economy has now added jobs for 46 straight months, and the unemployment rate remains low at 4.5 percent. Americans Are Working And Taking Home More PayReal After-Tax Per Capita Personal Income Has Risen By 9.9 Percent – Nearly $3,000 Per Person –...

FORT HUACHUCA — The head of the Training and Doctrine Command says more soldiers will be coming to the Intelligence Center for training in light of the congressionally approved increase in the Army’s strength by an additional 65,000 people. But, Gen. William Wallace said, it’s unknown exactly how many additional soldiers will come, or if fine-tuning of the military intelligence community will lead to more being trained on the fort. “The simple answer is yes,” he said about an increase in training at the Intelligence Center. Intelligence is critical to fighting the war against terrorism, and with an increase in...

Despite what the Demonrats would have you believe, President Bush has done a tremendous job with the economy. The United States economy continues to grow solidly, though at a slower pace than before and long term challenges include labour force growth, fiscal sustainability, distortions in the housing market, performance of secondary schools and access to college, the results of the latest survey on the US economy carried out by the OECD and released today showed. This is an independent assessment. So now what are the Demonrats going to say?

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2007 – Economic expansion through the revitalization of domestic industrial capacity is a major factor for stability in Iraq, a senior defense official said May 18 during a call with “bloggers” and online journalists. Iraq’s state-run factories once served as the lynchpins of diversified regional economies, said Paul Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business transformation. Turning those factories back on not only would provide employment and wages for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, he said, but also would set off a ripple effect of smaller business generation throughout the areas in which factories are located....

Per FR excerpt policy, Bloomberg is link only.Read article here.

The Club of Competitors EU members turn on one another, all for the better. By Stefan Theil Newsweek International May 14-21, 2007 issue - If the reports are on target, Europe will grow faster than America in 2007—for the first time in six years. European Union countries created 2 million new jobs last year, cutting unemployment to its lowest since 1991. Better, growth is no longer confined to outliers like Britain, Spain or the Baltic mini-states. Europe's resurgence is driven by the behemoth at the continent's heart, Germany. After 15 years of malaise, the EU's traditional locomotive grew at almost...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy slowed sharply in early 2007, retreating to its weakest pace in four years under the weight of the housing slump, while inflation accelerated.</p> <p>Gross domestic product rose at a seasonally adjusted 1.3% annual rate January through March, the Commerce Department said Friday in the first estimate of first-quarter GDP.</p>

(IsraelNN.com) As Israel enters its 60th year, the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) provides some good news: The ground is being prepared for a major Jewish demographic boost, beginning in 2025. The Arab birthrate is down, while the Jewish birthrate - especially in the hareidi and religious sectors - is increasing. The effects are currently merely arithmetic, but these are expected to begin multiplying geometrically within a generation. At present, the Jewish majority is hovering around 80%, with the religious and hareidi populations each representing slightly over 10% of this amount. Latest Central Bureau of Statistics numbers show that there...

Columbus being outpaced by its near-equivalent in Indiana in population growth, jobs, economy There is a rivalry between Columbus and Indianapolis in which size matters. And Indy is catching up. In some regards they're mirrorimage towns: two Midwestern state capitals straddling I-70, each with two major-league professional sports teams. And both are growing. It's just that metropolitan Indianapolis is growing faster and could soon overtake Columbus and central Ohio, according to U.S. Census figures released today. Indianapolis had about 59,500 fewer people than Columbus. But from 2000 to 2006, it grew by 9.2 percent, compared with 7 percent for Columbus....

BOSTON (AP) - When early polls showed him trailing Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, Mitt Romney urged all listeners to watch his presidential campaign blossom over the long election season. On Monday, it burst into full glory after just three months. The former Massachusetts governor, still relatively unknown across the country, bested not only McCain and Giuliani in first-quarter fundraising, but posted a staggering $23 million that rivaled the $26 million previously announced by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who has amassed a sizable lead in national popularity polls of GOP candidates, reported raising $15...

Economy: If you've been waiting for a slowdown, you can stop. It's officially here. Growth in the last three quarters has been well below what the economy could be doing. Ben Bernanke, call your office. Much of the data we see these days look pretty weak. Over the past nine months, GDP grew at a 2.4% rate — well below the 3.5% average since 2003. Parts of the housing market are in recession, oil prices top $66 and job creation isn't what it was. Granted, we're coming off a period of powerful growth, thanks to the tax cuts that President...

FORT HUACHUCA — Friday was an eye-opener for some Arizona legislators. Nearly two dozen of them, primarily members of the Arizona House of Representatives, were given a snapshot of the fort’s missions and economic impact, as well as an explanation of the need for the Legislature to provide water protection tools to the local civilian communities to protect the post. While local legislators know the fort’s importance — three of the four representatives made the trip, Republicans Jennifer Burns and Jonathan Paton and Democrat Manny Alvarez — it was the first time many of the others from mainly metropolitan Maricopa...

"Creative class flies to Sweden Sweden is second to none when it comes to creativity in business and is "a talent magnet for the world’s most educated workers", according to business magazine Forbes. These claims are backed up with statistics culled from the book The Flight of the Creative Class by Richard Florida, which measures creativity in terms of talent, technology and flexibility. When these qualities were compiled in a global creativity index, Sweden came out on top of the pile, just ahead of Japan, Finland and the United States. In an article singing the praises of Sweden's "well-educated citizenry",...

Consolidation among companies that resell and distribute tech goods and services is continuing apace, as larger players look for growth in new product and geographic areas. At the same time, new resellers are popping up to deal with emerging markets such as unified communications and online video. The tech distribution and resale business remains strong thanks to hot product types such as notebook computers, wireless networks and data storage products, says Tim Curran, chief executive of the Global Technology Distribution Council. The council is a trade group for this field.

ABC's Betsy Stark highlighted applause lines in Bush speech on income gap, CEO pay. On January 31, President Bush became only the second sitting president to walk the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, just hours after the federal government released new data showing the economy grew at a healthy 3.4 percent growth rate last year. Yet network reporters downplayed the good economic news – particularly ABC’s Betsy Stark, who highlighted liberal-sounding applause lines in the president’s Wall Street speech on the “state of the economy” while leaving out the president’s defense of his tax cuts. CBS’s Katie Couric...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration urged skeptical members of Congress on Tuesday to support the president's new $2.9 trillion spending plan, arguing that the budget can be balanced without raising taxes. "We are submitting a budget that includes a surplus in 2012, which is achievable if we keep our economy growing," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the House Ways and Means Committee. Paulson disputed contentions by Democrats that the budget achieves its projected $61 billion surplus in 2012 by adopting overly optimistic economic assumptions. "While no one has a crystal ball, our economic assumptions are close to the consensus of...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy snapped out of a sluggish spell and grew at a faster-than-expected 3.5 percent pace in the final quarter of last year as consumers ratcheted up spending despite a painful housing slump. The fresh snapshot of business activity, released by the Commerce Department Wednesday, underscored the resilience of the economy; it has managed to keep on moving despite the ill effects of the residential real-estate bust. The economy's performance in the October-to-December quarter, which followed two quarters of rather listless activity, exceeded analysts' forecasts for a 3 percent growth rate. The economy opened 2006 on a...

The incipient implosion of Islam -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me start you off with a brief, exciting story about a jailbreak in Iran that beats anything Hollywood will do this year. And it's all true! Read about it here. Now, that was just a quick peek at the human drama and divine power you never hear about – despite the millions of noisy words pouring out of the media on Iraq, Iran and the Islamic menace. Last February, Joel C. Rosenberg gave us another astonishing glimpse into the real Muslim world: Last week I took my wife and kids to see the...

This is not just our opinion. Harvard's N. Gregory Mankiw, an economic conservative who served as chairman of Mr. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, has tested the hypothesis on which Mr. Bush's claim is based: He looked at the extent to which tax cuts stimulate extra growth and the extent to which that growth generates extra tax revenue that offsets the initial loss of revenue from the tax cut.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2006 – Americans from all walks of life played a role in the exceptional second year growth of America Supports You, as 2006 saw more than 6 million care packages sent to troops serving overseas and nearly $3.5 million raised by the community groups that make up the program. America Supports You is a Defense Department of program launched in 2004 aimed at showcasing support for members of the armed forces by the American people and communicating that support to military members and their families. Among the accomplishments of America Supports You was the creation of...

TOKYO -- The decline in Japan's population could undermine the country's economic recovery unless workers perform more productively, and the new economy minister is taking aim at inefficient industries and workers. Hiroko Ota, who took office in September, faces an economy that is back on track after more than a decade in a slump. Japan's big structural problems have mostly been fixed: The banks have cleaned up their bad loans, and prices have stopped falling. Japan's economy grew at an average of more than 2% a year from 2003 through 2005, and it is expected to grow another 2% or...

The truth of the assertion is in a chart near the back of the report. It shows that 83% of companies expect to support new workloads on Linux next year, against 23% for Windows. The move is slower for larger enterprises, but the direction is clear. At least in the server world, Linux has won.

Foreign investment in S. Korea drops sharply SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Yonhap) -- Foreign investors' exit from South Korea is accelerating amid worries over a worsening business climate here and the economy's falling growth potential, the central bank said Sunday According to the Bank of Korea, foreign direct investment in Asia's fourth-largest economy reached a mere US$790 million in the first nine months of this year, about one-fourth of the $3.42 billion during the same period a year earlier. Foreign direct investment tumbled to $4.34 billion in 2005 from $9.25 billion the previous year. "It is true that foreigners are withdrawing...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., discuss Medicare and prescription drugs at the Sunrise Senior Center, Tuesday, Oct.3, 2006, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Pointing toward midterm elections, Pelosi promised to raise the minimum wage while cutting taxes to spur economic growth and help the middle class. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell) AP - Oct 04 8:15 PM