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Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has made it clear that the Fed is most concerned about the first two of the above. Paul Krugman illustrates the reasons why this makes no sense at all:

So, here’s what we’re supposed to be deeply worried about. First, bond market confidence:

Second, inflation:

Meanwhile, we’re not supposed to worry about unemployment:

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Please see the below fact check of Mitt Romney’s remarks at the Americans for Prosperity forum in Manchester, NH:

ROMNEY RHETORIC: “And as a result of the business I started or helped to start, I was involved with some startup businesses and some very large businesses, some in trouble, sometimes successful, sometimes not. But one thing I learned was how jobs grow in this country and how they go elsewhere. And how you compete with other countries and I learned how you can try and make America more competitive place with more jobs to grow.”

REALITY: ROMNEY’S PRIVATE SECTOR CAREER CONSISTED OF PROFITING OFF OF LAYING OFF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS

Romney’s Fortune “Was Made On The Backs Of Companies That Ultimately Collapsed, Putting Thousands of Ordinary Americans Out On The Street.” [New York Post, 2/19/11]

Romney-Led Bain Capital Closed US Factories, Caused Hundreds Of Layoffs And “Pocketed Huge Fees Shortly Before The Companies Collapsed.” [Los Angeles Times, 12/6/07]

Romney’s Tenure at Bain “Resulted in the Loss of Thousands of Jobs Through Layoffs And Bankruptcies.” [CNN.com, 1/30/08]

Former Bain Partners: Romney Had Chances To Fight To Save Jobs But Didn’t.  [Boston Globe, 1/27/08]

REALITY: ROMNEY’S JOB CREATION RECORD IN MASSACHUSETTS WAS ONE OF THE WORST IN THE COUNTRY

During Romney’s Tenure as Governor, Massachusetts’ Economic Performance Was “One Of The Worst In The Country” On “All Key Labor Market Measures.”  [Boston Globe, 7/29/07]

Factcheck.org: “Romney’s Jobs Record Provides Little To Boast About.” [Factcheck.org, 1/11/08]

In Romney’s Four Years As Governor Massachusetts Ranked 47^th Out Of 50 In Jobs Growth. [Marketwatch, 2/23/10]

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Report finds that 90 percent can afford premiums and costs under Affordable Care Act; out-of-pocket costs will still be a concern for some families

Ninety percent of American families living above the federal poverty level will be able to afford health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report by Jonathan Gruber and Ian Perry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The report finds that new subsidies available through health insurance exchanges established under the law will make premiums affordable for most families. But the authors also warn that high out-of-pocket costs will likely mean some families will still be unable to afford health-related expenses.

“The Affordable Care Act is very good news for millions of Americans who are struggling to afford health care, going without health insurance, or skipping the care they need because they can’t afford it,” said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. “The new law makes health insurance and health care affordable for nearly all families, and introduces delivery system reforms that have the potential to greatly improve quality and efficiency. If implemented well, new entities like accountable care organizations may bring even greater savings and affordability than this report predicts.”

The report, Will The Affordable Care Act Make Health Insurance Affordable? uses consumer spending data to analyze family budgets across income levels, and compares them to the costs of purchasing health insurance through the health insurance exchanges scheduled to begin in 2014, and typical out-of-pocket health care spending. The analysis finds that the vast majority of American families, even lower-income families, have room in their budgets for premiums and typical out-of-pocket costs. For example, households between 100 percent and 150 percent of the poverty level (up to $33,525 for a family of four) spend 75 percent of resources on necessities—including child care, food, housing, taxes and transportation—leaving most families in that income range able to afford some health-related expenses.

However, in each income range that the authors examined, some families would still struggle to afford all their health care because of high out-of-pocket costs. For example, 10.8 percent to 17.5 percent of families with incomes between 100 percent and 200 percent of poverty, and about a quarter of families earning between 200 percent and 300 percent of poverty, who have high out-of-pocket costs could not afford all their necessities plus health-related costs. Families with incomes over 500 percent of poverty, or $111,750for a family of four, have room in their budgets for health care, even with high out-of-pocket costs.

“Our analysis is promising, as the vast majority of people will be better off because of the premium subsidies and cost-sharing limits in the Affordable Care Act,” said Jonathan Gruber, professor of economics at MIT and lead report author. “However, the concerns about high out-of-pocket costs are notable and should be addressed so that people who become very sick don’t face out-of-pocket costs that they are unable to afford.”

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Here are three reasons why not from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

# Businesses won’t hire new employees unless there is greater consumer demand for their goods and services. Tax cuts for businesses won’t stimulate that demand.

# State and local business taxes constitute less than 2 percent of a firm’s costs, on average. Trying to encourage employers to hire more workers by trimming this already-small cost further is akin to trying to wag a large dog by a very short tail.

# States’ concerns that not cutting business taxes will place them at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis tax-cutting states are misplaced. As Delaware Governor Jack Markell recently wrote after visiting hundreds of businesses: “The number of business leaders who asked me to lower their taxes can be counted on one hand. . . . What I hear most from business leaders is that they want the government to continue to improve our schools, reduce the time it takes to issue permits and licenses, enhance our transportation infrastructure, protect our arts community, strengthen linkages between our institutions of higher education and local companies. . . . We’ve never succeeded as a country by racing to the bottom…. Now’s not the time to start.”

The same logic applies to national business taxes.

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Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, had a press conference yesterday. This isn’t what he said, but it’s what Ben Bernanke should’ve said:

Let me be very clear: 8.8 percent unemployment in the second year of a recovery isn’t a problem or a cause for concern. It’s an absolute, unmitigated catastrophe. It is millions and millions of people who are suffering unnecessarily — people who we know will have lower lifetime earnings, more depression and suicide, more arrests and divorce. In fact, it’s worse even than that: We know their kids will suffer, too, with lower earnings over the course of their entire lifetimes. And we’re not doing nearly enough about it.

There’s a lot more really good stuff from Ezra Klein there, so click on the link. Oh, and what did Bernanke say – basically that he’s really worried about inflation and doesn’t want to let it go above 2%!

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From Wisconsin to Florida and everywhere in between Republican House Members are under fire from angry constituents at town hall meetings for voting for a budget that slashes critical initiatives for seniors, the young, the poor and working families while preserving subsidies for major oil companies and tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Much of the anger being expressed at GOP House Members stems from Republicans’ effort to end Medicare as we know it and require seniors to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket to preserve tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

While the President’s plan calls for shared sacrifice, the GOP plan put forward by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and passed by the Republican dominated House, places the burden for getting our fiscal house in order on middle and working class Americans, seniors and young people while protecting the wealthy and big oil. It’s no wonder the GOP budget plan isn’t selling very well back home.

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The White House Blog

President Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate

In 2008, in response to media inquiries, the President’s campaign requested his birth certificate from the state of Hawaii. The state sent the campaign the President’s birth certificate, the same legal documentation provided to all Hawaiians as proof of birth in state, and the campaign immediately posted it on the internet. That birth certificate can be seen here (PDF).

When any citizen born in Hawaii requests their birth certificate, they receive exactly what the President received. In fact, the document posted on the campaign website is what Hawaiians use to get a driver’s license from the state and the document recognized by the Federal Government and the courts for all legal purposes. That’s because it is the birth certificate. This is not and should not be an open question.

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting. President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate can be seen here (PDF):

Correspondence with the Hawaii State Department of Health can be seen here (PDF).

At a time of great consequence for this country – when we should be debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, was once again distracted by a fake issue.  The President’s hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country.

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I love the work Jonathan Pelto is doing analyzing the Democratic budget proposals rolling around Hartford – here’s his latest:

Quick, turn away… you don’t want to see what they are doing to our democracy

by Jonathan Pelto

Cross posted from here:
http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/news/blogs/peltos-point/nh-quick-turn-away-you-dont-want-to-see-what-they-are-doing-to-our-democracy-20110426,0,3012592.story

Democracy is for losers! That is the message hidden inside the Connecticut budget deal.

It is nothing short of a dishonest effort to destroy Connecticut’s best-in-the-nation public financing program, the very system Democrats rightly took credit for over the past few years.

Decades in the making, the Connecticut General Assembly adopted the Citizens Election Program in 2005 and our state rightly took its place at the very head of the list of those seeking to ensure fair, honest, clean and competitive elections. The action was truly monumental.

At a time when our national election system is increasingly under the control of special interests and the very accuracy of elections is under assault, Connecticut stepped forward with an approach that today serves as the model for what governments can do to promote democracy.

But now, in 2011, after Governor Malloy and Democrats campaigned in support of the Citizens Election Program we learn of a new “deal” that would make the program unworkable by splitting it apart and eliminate effective oversight, thereby ending a system that is not only working, but working well.

Gone is the promise to preserve the independence and fundamental mission of Connecticut’s campaign finance law.

Instead a plan emerges, from behind closed-door discussions, that shifts key parts of Connecticut’s landmark program to the Office of the Secretary of the State, moves vital oversight functions to the Auditors of Public Accounts and transfers the remaining bits to a so-called Office of Governmental Accountability.

In the end, a nonpartisan system is replaced with one where an elected official hands out the campaign finance grants and the state auditors (who are former state legislators and appointed to the job by the legislature) are responsible for ensuring the grant program and individual grants are properly handled.

The whole notion would be truly laughable, but incredibly this plan is not only real but attached to the budget that Governor Malloy and the Democrats are rushing to pass before there is sufficient time to fully comprehend what has been added and changed by the “budget deal” cut last week by Malloy and the Democratic Leaders.

As someone who has watched the campaign and election process in Connecticut for more than 35 years, it is inconceivable that a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Legislature would decimate the extraordinary work that was done to make Connecticut’s elections fairer.

The plan that has been attached to the budget is nothing short of a death sentence to what Democrats have worked so hard to achieve.

Out of touch with reality and what is truly important doesn’t begin to describe the aura that surrounds this secret deal.

For additional background, take a look at the commentary piece written by the Chairman of the State Elections Enforcement Commission in Sunday’s CTNewsJunkie about this emerging effort to turn the clock back on Connecticut’s historic effort to promote fair and clean elections.

The piece [Chairman Cashman on Democratic Plan] should be required reading for every legislator before they are allowed to cast their vote on this budget deal between Governor Malloy and Democratic legislative leaders.