West Virginia Blue
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We are not in a recession. This point bears repeating again and again. We are not in a recession.
When someone tells you that it's crazy to raise taxes during a recession, tell that person what I just told you: "We are not in a recession."
The recession ended in June 2009. The recession ended eighteen months ago. The "recovery" has been underway for a year and a half. I know it certainly doesn't feel that way. It doesn't look that way. At least not from here. But things look a lot different in Omelas, bright-towered by the sea.
It looks like Katy Coil a reporter for the Bluefield Daily Telegraph got a lot more out of our new Senator than most in an article printed in today's paper.
As far as the extension of unemployment benefits and the Bush Tax Cuts, Manchin said no agreement has been reached in the Senate.
“Nothing is done,” Manchin said. “It would sunset as of Dec. 1 and tax rates would return on Jan. 1, 2011 to what they were in 2001. From what I have seen, that money would not go to debut reduction but to increase operating costs. There should be a bipartisan compromise, but it’ll take a lot of work to be done. There’s a lot that needs to be repaired.”
On Saturday, two closure votes came up before the Senate. Manchin indicated he voted against the closure of the Baucus amendment, which would provide tax credits for Americans earning up to $250,000, and voted for the closure of the Schumer amendment, which would provide tax credits for those making more than $1 million a year. Both amendments were closed, though Manchin said the Senate is still looking for a way to resolve the issues surrounding the Bush Tax Cuts.
“We are looking at prudent and responsible way to take care of it,” Manchin said. “This provision would protect 99 percent of West Virginias. We didn’t lose one job and not one business would be affected. Both failed as of Saturday.”
Evidently the article was a day late regarding the compromise ransom agreement worked out by the President and the Republicans. I think our new Senator has a lot to learn about the way things are working now in Washington. The U.S. Senate does not work the way our two legislative branches work in West Virginia, and our Joe will find that he will have very little clout in trying to get Republicans to work with anyone who has a "D" after their name.
I sure would like to know where he gets the idea that tax credits help the economy when extended to the richest 2% of our citizens. He blusters his way through that issue....
Manchin said not extending the tax cuts would do more to harm the current state of the economy.
“I want to make it clear, I do prefer extending the tax cuts, but based on temporary, fine guidelines of time,” he said. “We must be prudent to make adjustments as needed. There’s going to have to be compromise. We can’t jeopardize in this economy the credits given to Americans.”
He also seems a little unclear regarding extending unemployment benefits as well as he tied improving unemployment to extending the Bush tax cuts...
“The next time we get to vote will be on legislation worked out between Democratic and Republican leadership, the president and the White House. If we don’t hunker down and vote, every American will be affected. In this most difficult time, with unemployment at 10 percent, we cannot afford to not make these cuts.”
You can read the article for yourself and attempt to understand his thinking. He has not made his mind up on DADT, and wil push for turning coal into liquid. I for one am even more convinced that he will be just another Blue Dog Democrat.
Update: Boy do I ever miss our great Senator Robert Byrd. He stood up for what he believed in and did not compromise his principles!
It has only been in the last couple of years that stores gave actually referred to "Black Friday" in their post-Thanksgiving-sale ads... There was a time that they didn't really want you to know that it was the point on the fiscal calendar when they went into the Black...or started to earn a profit, as opposed to being in the Red, or losing money. Once upon a time the retailers did not want you to know how tenuous their existence was... it would be more like begging than selling.
May 2009 unemployment figures announced. Here are the numbers for West Virginia:
LABOR FORCE DATA LABOR FORCE DATA
NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED
Table 1. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and metropolitan area
(Numbers in thousands)
Unemployed
Civilian labor force
State and area Number Percent of labor force
April May April May April May
2008 2009 2008 2009p 2008 2009 2008 2009p 2008 2009 2008 2009p
West Virginia........................... 810.1 793.0 813.2 796.0 33.6 62.8 33.9 67.7 4.1 7.9 4.2 8.5
Charleston............................ 140.7 137.2 140.6 137.5 5.0 9.4 5.0 10.3 3.6 6.9 3.6 7.5
Huntington-Ashland.................... 132.2 131.4 132.3 132.4 5.8 9.7 6.5 10.6 4.4 7.4 4.9 8.0
Morgantown............................ 63.7 62.2 64.6 62.5 1.8 3.1 1.9 3.4 2.8 4.9 2.9 5.4
Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna........... 79.6 79.4 79.8 79.5 3.6 7.4 3.7 7.5 4.5 9.3 4.7 9.5
Wheeling.............................. 69.0 68.6 69.0 68.5 3.3 5.9 3.3 5.9 4.8 8.6 4.8 8.6
For all of West Virginia, 3,000 people joined the civilian labor force (May 2009 projected of 796,000 less April 2009 of 793,000) and the number unemployed rose 4,900 from 62,800 to 67,700.
Charleston (+ 0.6%), Huntington-Ashland (+ 0.6%) and Morgantown (+ 0.5%) all saw large single-month increases in unemployment--pacing the state overall gain of 0.6% to 8.5% unemployment.
The already hard-hit areas of Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna (0.2%) and Wheeling (unchanged) saw relatively small changes in unemployment compared to the rest of the state.
West Virginia has lost a lot of jobs in the past year. Here's a list of Unemployment Rates, by Metro Area that include WV. (The first number is the April, 2009 unemployment rate, the second is year-over-year change since April, 2008).
Metro Area State - April Jobless Rate - Change from April 2008
Weirton-Steubenville WV-OH 11.7% +6.1
Hagerstown-Martinsburg MD-WV 9.3% +4.7
Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna
WV-OH 9.2% +4.7
Wheeling WV-OH 8.6% +3.8
Winchester VA-WV 8% +4.5
Cumberland MD-WV 7.8% +3.1
Huntington-Ashland WV-KY-OH 7.4% +3
Charleston WV 6.8% +3.2
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria
DC-VA-MD-WV 5.6% +2.6
Morgantown WV 4.9% +2.1
Thing are tough all over, with the panhandles and other border regions especially hard hit. In the Eastern Panhandle only the core DC area still has relatively low unemployment, all of the exurb communities (those near Winchester, Hagerstown, Cumberland) have been hit much harder already.
I'd like to say "thanks" to President Obama and the Democratic Congress for my tax cut in the stimulus package. Yep, got my weekly paycheck yesterday afternoon, April 2, and there it was: an extra $20.
Now, my math's not on a Paul Krugman level, but it's probably in the ballpark with Eric Cantor's, John Boehner's and Shelley Moore Capito's, so it seems to me that my amount works out to the equivalent of damn near a thousand bucks a year.
I've been watching Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R - Texas) debating John Kerry (D - Massachusetts) debating the economic stimulus bill and it's related problems with bipartisanship on MEET THE PRESS. Needless to say, Kerry is pushing for jobs, education and infrastructure employment. Hutchinson is pushing for tax cuts, of course, and is threatening another 100% Republican pullout. What stuck in my mind, however, was her statement that the Infrastructure has been well-funded so far and is not a problem.
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