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When the $787 billion federal stimulus was signed into law exactly five years ago this Monday, the U.S. economy was losing almost 800,000 jobs per month. Now? More than 4.2 million jobs have been added since March 2009. Also at this time five years ago, the unemployment rate was 8.3% and would climb to a high of 10.0% just months later. Now it stands at 6.6%. But on this fifth anniversary of the stimulus – passed mostly along party lines in response to financial crisis and Great Recession – Democrats and the White House have responded so far with …...

Five years ago Monday, President Barack Obama visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his $800 billion stimulus bill. At the time, the U.S. economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month. In the fourth quarter of 2008, it had contracted at an 8% annual rate, a Depression-level free fall. “Today does not mark the end of our economic problems,” Obama said on Feb. 17, 2009. “But it does mark the beginning of the end.” And so it did. The stimulus quickly became a national joke, mocked by the right as a...

The Ivanpah solar power plant stretches over more than five square miles of the Mojave Desert. Almost 350,000 mirrors the size of garage doors tilt toward the sun with an ability to energize 140,000 homes. The plant, which took almost four years and thousands of workers assembling millions of parts to complete, officially opened on Thursday, the first electric generator of its kind. It could also be the last. Since the project began, the price of rival technologies has plummeted, incentives have begun to disappear and the appetite among investors for mammoth solar farms has waned. Although several large, new...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Newport Beach in California. Steve, I'm glad you called, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Rush, good to be here, love listening to your show, and again your comments this morning regarding the unions and the -- RUSH: Money laundering. CALLER: Exactly. That's the term I was looking for, the money laundering. It's exactly what's going on out here in California with the bullet train. The politicians in California, all the Democrats have given all of the public employee unions their payback, but they've got a problem. All of the private sector...

(CNSNews.com) - President Obama says he will use his upcoming State of the Union Address to "mobilize the country around the national mission of making sure our economy offers everyone who works hard a fair shot at opportunity and success." In his weekly radio address on Saturday, he outlined some of the steps he'll take to make 2014 "a year of action." "Working folks are looking for the kind of stable, secure jobs that went overseas in the past couple decades. So next week, I'll join companies and colleges and take action to boost the high-tech manufacturing that attracts the...

The city of Los Angeles could receive as much as $500 million in grant money over the next decade under a federal program to fight poverty and improve quality of life, according to reports. Under the Promise Zone initiative, LA and four other regions across the United States have been selected as part of the Obama Administration’s plan to combat high poverty in American communities, White House officials announced Wednesday. The initiative, which was first announced in President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union speech, is designed to bolster partnerships between local businesses and their community “to create jobs, increase...

When the Obama administration first proposed its “cash for clunkers” plan in 2009, the reaction was generally favorable. Congress would spend $2.85 billion to encourage drivers to swap their old gas guzzlers for newer, more fuel-efficient cars. … But, as it turns out, the critics were on to something. A new analysis from the Brookings Institution’s Ted Gayer and Emily Parker found that the program was fairly inefficient as economic stimulus and mostly pulled forward auto sales that would have happened anyway. It also cut greenhouse-gas emissions a bit—the equivalent of taking up to 5 million cars off the road...

Snip: Through the stroke of a pen, President Obama on Friday used his executive powers to elevate and take control of climate change policies in an attempt to streamline sustainability initiatives – and potentially skirt legislative oversight and push a federal agenda on states. The executive order establishes a task force of state and local officials to advise the administration on how to respond to severe storms, wildfires, droughts and other potential impacts of climate change. The task force includes governors of seven states — all Democrats — and the Republican governor of Guam, a U.S. territory. Fourteen mayors and...

**SNIP** If you have any questions, dial 800-645-8333 on your Obamaphone. There’s only one way to cope with this mean-spirited Republican attack on the leisure classes — get more EBT cards. You just go down to the welfare office and make a “self-declaration,” meaning nobody checks. That’s how come you read so often nowadays of illegals being pinched, and just before the traditional paragraph about the immigration detainer, you learn that the “dreamer” had two, or three, or even four EBT cards. Poor Campeo Armando Diaz-
Carola, sentenced to eight years in prison earlier this week after being caught with a...

U.S. food stamp cuts taking effect Friday are one of two stimulus safety-net programs ending, an economist said. The other is extended unemployment benefits. ... It was a temporary increase in the maximum amount of food stamp benefits people could get monthly as part of Washington's response to the Great Recession. ... Friday's change in the food stamp program, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, cuts monthly benefits 13.6 percent -- or, more precisely, ends a 13.6 percent increase in SNAP benefits from the stimulus act. Benefits to a family of four receiving the maximum amount...

Bridges for field mice, a disastrously over-budget philharmonic hall and a cycle path that stops in the middle of nowhere—a list published on Thursday reveals the bizarre ways in which the government has wasted German taxpayers’ money. The so-called “Black Book”, compiled by the German Taxpayers’ Alliance, lists the many and diverse ways where the state has spent billions of euros of public finances through poorly planned, questionable and absurd projects. The body’s head, Rainer Holznagel said: “Germany is richer than ever before. But far too much of our hard-earned money is not being spent efficiently.” … Most expensive of...

The government shutdown may be keeping furloughed federal workers at home, but on Monday the U.S. Army contracted to buy a mechanical bull. The $47,174 contract was awarded on Oct. 7 to Mechanical Bull Sales Inc. of State College, Penn. … Lt. Col. Hank McIntire of the Utah National Guard tells CNSNews.com that the mechanical bull is regularly used as a tool by recruiters at fairs and other events. …

The Food and Drug Administration would have greater oversight over large volume compounding pharmacies like the Massachusetts company that triggered a deadly meningitis outbreak, under federal legislation winning bipartisan support. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the Democratic chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said Wednesday that the bill calls for an “unprecedented tracing system that will track prescription drugs from manufacturing to distribution.” The FDA would be able to monitor the pharmacies much the way they regulate drug-makers, including through inspections. The system would replace what critics say is the existing patchwork of federal regulations over the...

The U.S. Department of Energy will put up for auction this week a $50 million loan awarded to the now-closed Vehicle Production Group LLC, an unusual move by the DOE that may give U.S. taxpayers a chance to recoup a portion of their investment. The auction may also mark a path for the government to offload non-performing loans made to other troubled, taxpayer-backed companies, including hybrid sports car maker Fisker Automotive, which owes the DOE $192 million and has so far failed to secure a buyer. "I just don't see a great argument for making the bid and resurrecting either...

The Ecotality case wasn’t the biggest payoff, but it was particularly outrageous because it got stimulus money when it was already under SEC investigation.The company received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission in October of 2010.The president of Ecotality North America Don Karner was sent an additional subpoena in December of 2011, which specifically asks for any and all documentation surrounding the public announcement of the first Department of Energy grant to the company for $99.8 million on August 5, 2009.Ecotality was awarded $99 million in 2009 and an additional $26 million in October 2011. Since the beginning...

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Most of the city’s 2013 mayoral candidates came together to broach public-transportation issues in back-to-back forums at Baruch College in Manhattan on Wednesday. Anthony Weiner was there, looking very determined to come across as thoughtful and focused rather than bored (as the press corps has branded him at previous debates). But it was John Catsimatidis, the grocery-store baron and long-shot Republican hopeful, who made the biggest splash of the morning when he called for building a monorail alongside the Long Island Expressway. “Not subway, ABOVE-way,” he said, dismissing the possibility of expanding the existing underground rail system as a pipe...

Fisker Automotive hasn't built a car in nearly a year. It fired most of its workforce, hired bankruptcy advisers and is seeking a buyer. Co-founder Henrik Fisker resigned in mid-March in a dispute with some of the directors. And despite raising $1.4 billion in private and public funds since its founding in 2007, the company is out of cash. For months, key investors have been footing the car maker's day-to-day expenses to keep it alive in diminished form. The Energy Department has repeatedly defended its handling of the Fisker loan. Nicholas Whitcombe, who previously led the DOE loan program, told...

This ought to make your day. Barack Obama’s massive “mother of all databases” includes information on your children.Barack Obama reads a book about himself to a group of children ages 3 to 5 back in 2011. (USA Today) Tea Party Nation reported: Speaking of databases, there’s one out there that’s more than a little bit disturbing. It’s but one more devious plan created by none other than Barack Hussein Obama to store personal information on our children. No wonder Maxine Waters spouted off that Obama’s database knew everything about everybody – this is one of the few times that Maxine...

The Energy Department has $9 million more taxpayer dollars to spend on projects that may make a very expensive car less expensive and more acceptable to consumers. The latest round of funding is intended to accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, backup power systems, and hydrogen refueling stations. … Ironically, the Energy Department credits cheaper fossil fuel with reducing the cost of producing hydrogen fuel cells: “Recent development of the United States’ tremendous shale gas resources has not only helped directly cut electricity and transportation costs for consumers and businesses, but is also helping to reduce the costs...