Rep. Rod Blum (R-IA) “used a familiar trope among politicians this week: He slammed D.C. at the expense of the nearly 700,000 people who live here,” the Washington Post reports.
“Blum tweeted a picture from his personal account of cranes towering over the $2 billion redevelopment of D.C.’s Southwest waterfront, saying the city is ‘being built on the backs of U.S. taxpayers’ and ‘needs a recession.’ His congressional account later retweeted the message.”
New York Times: “Donald Trump’s blistering critique of American trade policy boils down to a simple equation: Foreigners are ‘killing us on trade’ because Americans spend much more on imports than the rest of the world spends on American exports. China’s unbalanced trade with the United States, he said Tuesday night, is ‘the greatest theft in the history of the world.'”
“Add a few ‘whereins’ and ‘whences’ and that sentiment would conform nicely to the worldview of the first Queen Elizabeth of 16th-century England, to the 17th-century court of Louis XIV, or to Prussia’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in the 19th century. The great powers of bygone centuries subscribed to the economic theory of mercantilism, ‘Wherein we must ever observe this rule: to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value,’ as its apostle, the East India Company director Thomas Mun, wrote in the 1600s.”
Leonard Steinhorn: “And here’s why: the economic and social wreckage wrought by the Great Recession of 2007-2009, which flat lined the lives and aspirations of so many, barely registered on the lifestyle Richter scale of media and political heavies.”
“Some of these elites may have seen their bull market portfolios or 401(k) plans dip, and for those trying to sell vacation homes they saw demand soften a bit. But as economic growth recovered so did their assets, and for the most part the recession to them was a talking point, a dinner party topic.”
“Not so for the vast majority of Americans. The recession’s economic pandemic may have caused the establishment only seasonal sniffles, but it has had an ongoing, debilitating, and personal impact on working and middle class Americans. And to young people raised to believe in a buoyant America and bigger future, a pinched economy is all they have known.”
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Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), a former U.S trade ambassador, announced that he “opposes a sweeping 12-nation Pacific Rim trade agreement, dealing a setback to a deal that is seen as a key part of President Obama’s economic legacy,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Ohio Republican is facing a difficult re-election campaign against Ted Strickland, an anti-trade former Democratic governor, in a state that has seen a steep decline in manufacturing as a result of companies moving operations overseas. The announcement is a significant but not fatal blow to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which is protected by fast-track rules that ensure it cannot be filibustered in the Senate.”
Donald Trump “sees economic clouds hovering above the U.S. economy,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Trump: “Remember the word bubble? You heard it here first. I don’t want to sound rude, but I hope if it explodes, it’s going to be now, rather than two months into another administration.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “dealt a significant blow” to President Obama’s trade agenda, “declaring that a sweeping pact with 11 Pacific Rim nations should not be sent to Congress for approval until after the 2016 elections — and maybe not until after Obama leaves office,” the Washington Post reports.
Said McConnell: “Yeah, I think it would be a big mistake to send it up before the election.”
Washington Post: “McConnell’s comments should serve as a reality-check antidote to optimism that has come out of the White House on issues like criminal justice reform and from Speaker Paul Ryan, who dreams of passing a bunch of big-ticket items to demonstrate that Republicans can govern.”
Washington Post: “On Tuesday, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released a poll showing that a full 72 percent of Americans believe that the economy is in a state of recession… And Wednesday, Bloomberg News released a poll showing that a full 34 percent of Americans mistakenly believe the unemployment rate is now worse than it was when Obama took office, right after the economic collapse had already sucked up millions of jobs. For Republicans, that figure is 53 percent — a majority.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 271,000 jobs were created in October — significantly higher than expectations — while the unemployment rate fell to 5%, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Seething at the Export-Import Bank’s expiration, 62 Republicans voted with 184 Democrats Monday on a rarely used procedure to force a vote to reopen the bank with some modest reforms. Final passage will be Tuesday, sending the legislation to the Senate, where its outcome is unclear but where it counts the support of almost 70 of 100 senators,” the Washington Post reports.
“It was a remarkable turnabout for the several dozen establishment Republicans, who have seen their agenda largely stymied by the House’s right flank. Yet the renewal of Ex-Im’s charter largely became possible because the right wing had so much success in helping oust Boehner and blocking the ascension of his top deputy, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).”
In a major break with President Obama and her own past statements, Hillary Clinton told the PBS NewsHour that she doesn’t support the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.
Said Clinton: “What I know about it, as of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it.”
Though she helped negotiate the treaty, Clinton now says she isn’t convinced the deal would produce new jobs, raise wages and protect national security.
Jonathan Chait: “Is anybody going to believe that she will actually oppose the treaty as president? Sure, she might slightly mollify some supporters in labor, who would like cover to support her candidacy even though they disagree on the agreement. But she will also do more damage to her overall credibility and reputation for conviction — which happens to be the biggest single problem she faces right now.”
ABC News: “The U.S. unemployment rate fell to a seven-year low in August as employers added a modest 173,000 jobs, a key piece of evidence for the Federal Reserve in deciding whether to raise interest rates from record lows later this month. The Labor Department says the unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent from 5.3 percent, the lowest since April 2008.”
New York Times: “Not long ago, the United States was considered the tortoise of the world economy, at least in comparison to emerging powers like China and Brazil. Lately, however, slow but steady seems to be winning the race. The American economy continues to chug along, while the onetime hares in Asia, South America and elsewhere are flagging.”
“The latest evidence of this shift came on Thursday, as the Commerce Department revised sharply upward its estimate of economic growth in the second quarter to a healthy annual pace of 3.7 percent, from an initial estimate of 2.3 percent. At the same time, the Labor Department, in reporting another drop in weekly unemployment claims, provided further evidence that the job market was on the mend.”
Asked if his flat tax plan would further separate the haves from the have-nots, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that income inequality is the result of some Americans working harder than others, rather than economic policies, the Huffington Post reports.
Said Pauul: “The thing is, income inequality is due to some people working harder and selling more things. If people voluntarily buy more of your stuff, you’ll have more money.”
“Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations were headed toward failure Friday, with difficult talks on the largest regional trade agreement ever breaking down over protections for pharmaceutical companies and access to agriculture markets on both sides of the Pacific,” the New York Times reports.
“Negotiators will return to their home countries to obtain high-level signoffs for a small number of final sticking points on the agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with bilateral talks reconvening soon. But the breakdown is a setback for the Obama administration, which had promoted the talks here as the final round ahead of an accord that would bind 40 percent of the world’s economy under a new set of rules for commerce.”
Hillary Clinton blamed Republicans for “35 years” of policies that have exacerbated income inequality by giving “more wealth to those at the top” through tax cuts and corporate loopholes, the New York Times reports.
Said Clinton: “Twice now in the past 20 years a Democratic president has had to come in and clean up the mess.”
“Barack Obama’s policies have given us a zombie economy where no matter what else happens, most Americans are falling behind… Now comes Hillary Clinton, and her economic agenda could be summarized easily: Whatever Obama is doing, let’s double down on it.”
— Jeb Bush, writing on Medium.
The U.S. economy added 223,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell to a seven-year low of 5.3 percent, Bloomberg reports.
Wall Street Journal: “Some Democrats wanted a multiyear highway-funding program connected to the trade bill. Members of the congressional Black Caucus asked Mr. Obama to use his executive authority to steer money into high-poverty districts—a commitment Mr. Obama never made when asking for their votes. Republican leaders resisted pressure to promise votes on other legislation.”
Said Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA): “To the best of my knowledge, he never offered anybody anything.”
“Instead, both sides built a winning coalition based on shared interests in passing trade promotion authority, a piece of legislation that makes it easier for the White House to get congressional approval for trade deals. The law’s final passage Wednesday, after a bumpy few weeks in which it was declared dead, represents the first time Mr. Obama and the Republican Congress successfully negotiated to pass a major piece of legislation.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.