Where is the US economy headed?

I think it will come down to who Americans think they can trust as we plod along.

It saddens me to think that abortion is not considered an important issue when a few million take place on every President's watch with official approval.

When asked simply if Congress should pass the legislation or not, 30 percent of respondents answer yes, while 22 percent say no; 44 percent have no opinion.

But when the legislation's details are included in a follow-up question -- that it would cut payroll taxes, fund new road construction, extend unemployment benefits, and that it would be paid for by increasing taxes on the wealthy -- 63 percent say they favor the bill and 32 percent oppose it.

What's more, 64 percent of respondents agree with the statement that it is a "good idea" to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations, because they should pay their fair share and can afford to pay more to help fund programs and government operations.

It is not up to any president or any part of the US government to approve or not approve a woman having an abortion.

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills

You do realize that even if the Senate had approved this jobs bill 100-0, it would mean nothing.

I refer you to article 1, section 7 of the US Constitution...

Quote:

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills

So since this bill would be new spending, and since it would also include a tax increase (raising revenue), it has to come from the House first.
So until the house acts, the Senate vote means nothing.

America feels a gloomier place today than when I arrived two years ago.

It is not hard to work out why. Most, including the president and the White House, expected people would be feeling the effects of the recovery by now.

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has written a fascinating analysis of what went wrong.

"The promised recovery was always just around the corner, but it never quite came. Eventually, the American people stopped listening. A September poll showed that 50% of Americans thought Obama's policies had hurt the economy."

But a report from Sentier Research out today suggests the gloom isn't just down to punctured expectations.

People are actually poorer.

The report says that household income has gone down more in the period officially labelled as a recovery than in the recession itself.

The authors, Gordon Green and John Coder, who used to work for the US Census bureau, write that during the official recession, the real median annual household income fell from $55,309 (£35,287) to $53,518, a difference of 3.2%

But between June 2009 and June 2011 - a time when the US economy was in recovery - that same indicator of household income fell by an additional 6.7%, from $53,518 to $49,909.

Not surprisingly the figures indicate the unemployed suffered the largest drop in income (18.4% decline in median average income), but single-parent families (7.3%) and African-Americans (9.4%) also did badly.

The report found from the entire period of December 2007 to June 2011, real median annual household income has declined by 9.8%

"A decline of this magnitude represents a significant reduction in the American standard of living," the report authors say.

Being told the economy is officially in recovery when personally it feels nothing of the sort underlines the sense of disconnection between politicians and people.

This report is important because it suggests that this is not a question of mood, or the experience of some, but a hard fact of life for the average, or even median, American