Stimulus

HILLSBOROUGH, N.H. - Mitt Romney rounded out a week focused on what he views as overspending by the federal government with a critique of President Obama's stimulus program during a speech in front of what opponents call New Hampshire's "bridge to nowhere. " Romney has argued throughout the campaign that Obama's $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was a waste of money that did little to jump-start the economy - and he has charged that the federal government has inflated the job numbers associated with various projects.

HILLSBOROUGH, N.H. -- Mitt Romney rounded out a week focused on what he views as overspending by the federal government with a critique of President Obama's stimulus program during a speech in front of what opponents call New Hampshire's "bridge to nowhere. " Romney has argued throughout the campaign that Obama's $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was a waste of money that did little to jumpstart the economy -- and he has charged that the federal government has inflated the job numbers associated with various projects.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray has been one of the nation's biggest advocates of federal spending to boost the foundering economy. Here at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the country's worst atomic weapons contamination site, Murray scored $1.9 billion in stimulus funds to speed cleanup and add 1,500 high-paying jobs in south-central Washington. But voters here have been ambivalent at best about all the money flowing in. During the primary, Murray trailed the local "tea party" candidate, who lost the GOP nomination to real estate investor and former legislator Dino Rossi.

BEIJING — After months of careful tinkering aimed at slowing China's supercharged economy, Chinese officials may have gotten more than they bargained for: The nation's economic engine is decelerating with alarming speed. Industrial production in April hit its slowest pace in more than three years, while growth in exports sputtered and imports were flat. In response, China's central bank over the weekend said it would ease reserve requirements for the nation's banks. The move frees about $70 billion for lending to stimulate the economy.

As part of the $787-billion economic stimulus package enacted in February, Washington sent a $250 check to every adult on Social Security. every adult on Social Security. The same amount went to those enrolled in Veterans Administration, Railroad Retirement and Supplemental Security Income benefit programs. The purpose of the one-time payments was to boost consumer spending and help revive the economy. But in President Obama's view, once was not enough. On Wednesday, he urged Congress to spend $13 billion on a second round of $250 checks, saying, "Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession."

The Federal Reserve may signal another round of stimulus Wednesday, which has already been condemned by Republicans in a rare move to further politicize the nation's central bank. The Federal Open Markets Committee is expected to announce it will replace about $1.6 trillion of short-term bonds with long-term ones, a form of quantitative easing designed to stimulate the economy. The Fed has already had two such rounds. Top congressional Republicans, however, question whether the previous rounds have done any good and whether a new move would be of economic value.

In February, when Congress approved President Obama's mammoth plan to stimulate the economy, transportation projects were supposed to be among the fastest-acting pieces of the $787-billion package. All 50 states moved quickly to qualify for their share of the money. But since then the pace has slowed considerably, particularly in California and Florida, where the effect of the economic crisis has been especially severe.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Thursday that the economy was in the midst of a recovery that could be imperiled if the government's support systems were removed too quickly. "A classic pattern in past financial crises is governments tend to put on the brakes too soon, withdraw support too early, and that's been a very costly mistake and we're going to be very careful to avoid that mistake," Geithner said at a conference sponsored by the Economist magazine. A robust recovery depends on businesses investing more in the economy, Geithner said, and it is the government's responsibility to give them the tools to do that.

In the grand global experiment now underway as countries try to cope with the economic downturn, Europe and the United States are going in opposite directions. As the Obama administration and Congress have pumped up government spending to stimulate the economy, European countries have launched austerity programs to try to bring their crushing budget deficits under control. Time will tell which economic strategy is more successful, but meanwhile, one thing is becoming clear in Western capitals from Washington to Athens: No matter what national leaders do to try to solve the crisis, they'll suffer politically.

When the Senate voted last week on whether its latest jobs bill would move forward, one Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, broke ranks and stood with Republicans to block the measure from getting a final vote. "I've got bailout fatigue," Nelson explained. " Washington needs to put a plug in deficit spending." A bill to extend unemployment insurance and save teachers' jobs shouldn't be this hard to pass. But this one started as a $140-billion stimulus package, was whittled down last week to $118 billion and is now headed below $100 billion.

Political upheaval in Europe reached a new apex over the weekend when French voters threw out their incumbent president and Greeks gave the heave-ho to the ruling parliamentary coalition. The results suggest that a new consensus is emerging in Europe in favor of more economic stimulus, but they also call into question the continent's ability to agree on a plan to keep its fiscal problems from spreading uncontrollably. European leaders had agreed to a series of pacts that would rescue Greece and other defaulting countries in exchange for steep reductions in their red ink, while also requiring every country that relies on the euro to shrink their debts and curb deficit spending.

WASHINGTON — Without the unprecedented stimulus actions by the federal government triggered by the 2008 financial crisis, the Great Recession might still be going on, according to a study by Fitch Ratings. Those incentives, however, came with a price: accelerated budget deficits and rock-bottom interest rates that hurt savers, according to the credit rating company. Still, the $700-billion bailout fund, the $831-billion stimulus package and the Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rates, among other federal efforts, continue to spur the nation's economy, the study released Wednesday concludes.

WESTERVILLE, Ohio - Europe has long been a pejorative in Mitt Romney's lexicon, a laugh line popular with conservative crowds as he has campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination. So it came as no surprise when he told an Ohio audience Friday that massive government borrowing and spending under President Obama was putting America "on track to becoming Greece. " Describing Obama's "government-dominated society" as a breach of America's tradition of letting free enterprise thrive, Romney said, "In my view, that takes us down a path to becoming more and more like Europe.

Herman Cain, who at one point was in the lead of the Republican presidential primary, has been trying to land back in the spotlight since dropping out of the race in December. His latest venture, Sick of Stimulus, intended to bring attention to the alleged wasteful excess of President Obama's stimulus packages. Instead, by showing a rabbit being shot out of the air, it ended up attracting the attention ofYouTube's moderators. Sick of Stimulus' ad, simply titled " Rabbit ," puts America's small businesses in the titular role, right before a girl places the rabbit into a catapult and launches it into the air, where it's soon shot to bits.

It has been three years since President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was enacted. The stimulus was one of the administration's first attempts to micromanage the economy with short-run policies instead of offering a long-run strategy for restructuring government. The president's proposed 2013 budget is the latest. If we learned anything from the stimulus, it's that the country would be better served if the president did less tinkering in his budget - like handing out tax breaks for manufacturing and "clean" energy - and more leading.

The city of Los Angeles lost out on more than $125 million in federal stimulus money because of a lack of oversight across the various departments pursuing the funds, City Controller Wendy Greuel said Monday. In an audit of the city's application processes for competitive grants from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Greuel found that the lack of a centralized body to oversee the city's scattered departments led to a series of oversights that reduced the city's share of the billions in funding awarded across the country.

After a protracted debate, the Senate passed a pared-down bill Thursday to provide $26 billion in aid to financially strapped states to help pay teachers salaries and Medicaid benefits. The measure signaled the unofficial end to Congress' efforts to stimulate the economy with borrowed money; the new spending in the state aid proposal was more than offset by eliminating a tax break for corporate earnings overseas, rolling back food stamp benefits to pre-recession levels and cutting Medicaid payments for selected drugs.

Re "GOP set to carve into stimulus," Feb. 3 Regarding the Senate taking up the economic stimulus bill passed by the House: I'd love to see bipartisanship rule the day. Post-partisanship, better still. But what I'd like to see even more: our battered country rescued and revived. Top corporate and individual tax rates have been cut repeatedly (led by Republicans, abetted by Democrats) starting under President Reagan in 1981. In the last 28 years, we've seen the wealth of working Americans redistributed to the richest and have felt our mighty economic engine shudder and backfire.

  Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou won reelection Saturday, receiving a mandate from voters that he vowed would spell closer economic ties with the island's old foe, China. Ma won 51% of the vote, compared with 46% for his chief rival, Tsai Ing-wen, after a tense campaign packed with criticism of his overtures to China. Ma had urged voters to see his attempts at rapprochement as a stimulus for the local economy, but was accused of getting too cozy with Taiwan's rival of more than 60 years.