Happy Birthday to the stimulus! Unemployment stands at 8.3% (up from 7.6% on the day the stimulus was signed, but down from a high point of 10% just 8 months after the stimulus was signed – and years of 9%+ unemployment), there are nearly 13 million Americans unemployed and millions more underemployed or that have [...]

The goal: train 124,893 people for green jobs and place at least 79,854 (63%) of them into jobs. Let’s suspend the fact that spending $500 million on training grants with only a little more than 50% placement goal seems like a bad return on investment. Even worse than the initial goal is that now, 17 [...]

A recent Associated Press survey of economists found that the vast majority give President Obama “fair” or “poor” marks: “Half of the 36 economists who responded to the Dec. 14-20 Associated Press survey rated Mr. Obama’s economic policies ‘fair.’ And 13 called them ‘poor.’ Just five of the economists gave the president “good” marks. None [...]

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing this week on the “Long-Term Surface Transportation Bill,” also known as the highway bill. The bill would hold surface transportation spending at current levels (which have increased dramatically since the stimulus) but also overhaul how highway funding is distributed. In his 2012 budget – [...]

Our own Dan Holler is out with a new column this week, taking a look at the impending vote to increase the loan limit that Fannie and Freddie will insure home loans to $729,750. It’s an issue that is flying under the radar, because it is very complicated, but Dan breaks it down like this: [...]