U.S. economy picks up speed to 2.5 %

U.S. economic growth picked up speed to 2.5 percent in the third quarter of this year, reduction of recession, but experts held that the economy was confronted with a slew of domestic and international challenges.

The growth rate of the real gross domestic product (GDP) in the June-September period was the best quarterly performance since the start of this year, a welcome relief for the world's largest economy, which was on the edge of a double-dip recession for the first half of the year.

The growth speed was in line with economists' expectations and was a big acceleration from the revised 1.3 percent growth rate in the second quarter.

Katharine Abraham, a senior White House economist, said "We are, nonetheless, at a fragile moment in the world economy, and cannot afford to do anything to undermine our economic recovery," on Thursday in a White House blog article.

Full Story

Barack Obama: All U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq

U.S. President Barack Obama ordered a complete withdrawal from the country, almost after nine years the invasion under President George W Bush. About 39,000 US troops remain in Iraq, down from a peak of 165,000 in 2008. He has announced that, “All U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year”.

The US and Iraq were in "full agreement" on how to move forward, Mr Obama said, adding: "The US leaves Iraq with our heads held high."

"That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will end."

According to the Department of Defense, there have been 4,408 American military deaths in Iraq ever since March 2003. Mr Obama spoke at the White House following a video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

He promised assistance and "a strong and enduring partnership" with Iraqi government. The US declared the end of its combat mission in Iraq in 2010. The deadline for complete troop withdrawal by end of 2011 was set during former President George W Bush's term in office.

However, the issue of a full pullout had been the subject of an ongoing debate. Iraqi leaders had wanted 5,000 US troops to remain in a training capacity. But those trainers would not have received immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.

Full Story

Obama sells jobs plan in Silicon Valley

President Barack Obama is on the road selling his jobs plan and his re-election hope to plugged-in networkers in Silicon Valley and about the country.

He was to appear Monday at a town hall-style event hosted by the career-focused social networking site LinkedIn to pitch his nearly $450 billion jobs proposal as he travels from end to end California scooping up campaign cash.

The town hall, the White House's latest effort to meld old-school campaigning with new media capabilities, will allow Obama to take questions from LinkedIn users online as well as a live spectators at the Computer History Museum close to the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

Tax the rich, Obama says; class warfare, says GOP

Drawing clear battle lines for next year's elections, a aggressive President Barack Obama on Monday demand that the richest Americans pay higher taxes to help cut soaring U.S. deficits by more than $3 trillion he promise to veto any effort by congressional Republicans to cut Medicare reimbursement for the elderly without raising taxes as well.

"This is not class warfare it's math," Obama declared, anticipate Republican criticism, which was quick in coming "Class conflict isn't leadership," House Speaker John Boehner said, in Cincinnati.

Obama's speech marked a new, challenging stance toward Republicans after months of cooperation that many Democrats complain produced too many concessions even as the plan stands little possibility of passing Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believes the public can support.

Full Story

useful links: transport rankings

Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue

President Barack Obama's proposal to decrease long-term deficits with $1.5 trillion in new taxes is less an opening bid in a compromise than it is an opening salvo in a struggle to draw sharp contrasts with congressional Republicans.

Obama's proposal is aimed predominantly at the wealthy and come just days after House Speaker John Boehner ruled out tax increases to lesser deficits it also comes amid a clamor in his own Democratic Party for Obama to take a tougher stance next to Republicans and while the plan stands little chance of transient Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believe the public can support.

The core of the president's plan totals just more than $2 trillion in deficit decrease over 10 years it combine the new taxes with $580 billion in cuts to compulsory benefit programs, as well as $248 billion from Medicare.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

White House worried about Solyndra default

White House officials discussed the political ramifications of a likely default by a troubled solar energy company that received more than $500 million in federal loans, recently released emails show.

Emails released Thursday night show that Obama administration confidentially worried about the effect of a default by Solyndra Inc on the president's re-election campaign.

"The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad," an representative from the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a Jan 31 email to a senior OMB official, "The timing will possible coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up."

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

House probing $528M loan to failed solar company

House Republicans questioned Wednesday whether the White House hurried approval of a half-billion-dollar loan guarantee for a now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer just the once cited as the kind of renewable energy company worthy of federal stimulus money.

Solyndra Inc. was a major presence in Washington and spends millions of dollars on lobby there, particularly about the Energy Department's loan assurance program and its executive raised thousands of dollars for Obama and Democrats in Congress.

The collapse of the Fremont, Calif.-based company once touted by President Barack Obama ultimately left taxpayers on the fastener for $528 million, raising questions if the loan was hurried to accommodate a company event in September 2009 that featured Vice President Joe Biden.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

Obama to propose $300 billion to jump-start jobs

The economy weak and the public seething, President Barack Obama is predictable to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and centralized spending Thursday night to get Americans working again, Republicans offered Tuesday to compromise through him on jobs but also assailed his plans in progress of his prime time speech.

In effect, Obama will be hitting cleanup on a condensed holiday week, with Republican White House contender Mitt Romney release his jobs proposals on Tuesday and front-running Texas Gov. Rick Perry hoping toward join his presidential rivals Wednesday evening on a nationally televised debate point for the first time.

Lawmakers began returning to the Capitol to tackle legislation on jobs and centralized deficits in an unforgiving political season spiced by the 2012 presidential crusade adding to the mix a bipartisan congressional committee is slated to grasp its first public meeting on Thursday as it embarks on a quest for deficit cuts of $1.2 trillion or more above a decade if there is no agreement, automatic spending cuts will take effect, a view that lawmakers in both parties have said they would like to avoid.

Full Story

useful links: transport rankings

Senate debates debt limit bill, passage likely

Emergency legislation to permit the government to borrow more money headed toward passage in the Senate Tuesday with just hours to spare previous to the national debt bumps against its ceiling. Expected approval sends the bill to President Barack Obama, prevention a potentially disastrous, first-ever government default and making a down payment in the direction of taming out-of-control budget deficits.

"Finally Washington is taking responsibility for expenses money it doesn't have," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said at the begin of debate.The legislation, which easily passed the House on Monday, is virtually assured to clear the Senate at noontime noon by a bipartisan tally. The White House promises that Obama will quickly sign the compute into law. Obama planned to issue a statement following the vote.

The legislation pairs an enlarge in the government's borrowing cap with promises of more than $2 trillion of budget cuts in excess of the upcoming decade. Its passage caps a long, difficult battle among tea party-powered House Republicans and Obama — with House Speaker John Boehner caught in the center more than once.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

Debt bill set for vote as White House urges compromise

A Republican deficit reduction plan headed to a lock vote in Congress on Thursday and the White House urged divided lawmakers to clinch a compromise agreement to head off the risk of a debt default by the world's largest economy.

President Barack Obama's priority was to "lift the cloud and create sure that the United States does not default," White House spokesman Jay Carney said, five days earlier than an August 2 deadline for raising the government's borrowing limit.Partisan deadlock among Republicans and Democrats over how best to reduce the U.S. deficit, and over what period, has barren an agreement so far to allow the raising of the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

A failure to raise the debt limit by August 2 could trigger a crippling defaulting that would shake the global financial system and might tip the United States back into recession.While most analysts hope a default will be avoid by an eleventh-hour deal, the risk remains for a destructive downgrade of the United States' top-notch credit rating, a move about that would raise U.S. borrowing costs and rattle global investors.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

White House threatens to veto Boehner's House plan

The White House threatened on Tuesday to veto emergency House legislation with the intention of aims to avert a threatened national defaulting, a pre-emptive strike issue as Republican Speaker John Boehner labored to line up sufficient votes in his own party to pass the measure.

Boehner faced criticism from a little conservative in advance of an expected vote on Wednesday.The bill would raise the debt limit by $1 trillion even as making cuts to federal spending of $1.2 trillion — reductions with the purpose of conservatives say aren't enough.

The measure also would establish a committee of lawmakers to advise additional budget savings of $1.8 trillion, which would trigger an additional $1.6 trillion enlarge in the debt limit.The White House objects to the condition for a second vote before the 2012 elections.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

Potential opening for long-term debt deal

One of the most influential Republican operatives on Thursday give conservatives in Congress a loophole on their "no tax" pledge that can keep prospects alive for a long-term U.S. deficit reduction deal.Grover Norquist, the originator of Americans for Tax Reform and godfather of a "no tax" pledge that most Republicans in Congress have signed, tell the Washington Post editorial board that allow the Bush tax cuts to expire would not constitute a violation of with the purpose of promise.

He later told MSNBC television he would oppose any modify to the 2001 and 2003 Bush-era cuts to personal income taxes, but there were ways to technically not break the pledge."There are certain things you can do technically and not break the pledge but that the general public would clearly recognize as a tax increase," Norquist told MSNBC television.

Norquist's stance appeared to be a shift from his previous location and it could be a game-changer in negotiations among the White House and Congress to raise the debt limit before America runs out of currency to pay its bills on August 2.It could make it easier to craft the "grand bargain" that includes a deficit decrease plan as well as an increase in the debt ceiling. Republicans have demanded deep spending cuts earlier than raising America's borrowing limit, but talks have broken down as Democrats insist taxes be a division of the agreement.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

Obama calls Democratic leaders to White House

President Barack Obama summoned top Democratic lawmakers back on the way to the White House Wednesday to resume negotiations on prevention a potentially crippling government default, as attention focused on a original bipartisan budget plan emerging in the Senate.

The White House also indicated Obama would be eager to sign a short-term debt limit increase — something he's opposed — if it's merely a stop-gap measure to permit time for a broader plan to get into place, something that likely couldn't be ended by the Aug. 2 deadline to increase the government's borrowing limit.

Obama's meeting with House and Senate Democratic leaders, designed for mid-afternoon Wednesday, marked a partial resumption of talks that ruined last week after five days straight of Obama huddling with lawmakers from both parties, with small progress to show for it. Republican officials said they expected a meeting among GOP leaders and the president later in the day.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

Lousy jobs number complicates debt deal for both Obama and GOP

June's woefully underwhelming augment in jobs is a climactic twist in the negotiations between President Obama and congressional Republicans more than federal borrowing, government debt and America's financial future.Best-case scenario, it's a Michael Bay twist: dramatic, explosive, but it all mechanism out in the end.Worst case, we're look at M. Night Shyamalan: quite jarring, and potentially very scary.

The Labor Department's report Friday morning that the financial system added just 18,000 net jobs last month, or roughly six figures under the consensus forecast from economic analysts, immediately hardened conservatives' and liberals' beliefs concerning why the recovery continues to sputter and what it needs to kick into gear. That hardening, and the political pressure with the intention of will ratchet up the length of with it, is the unwelcome twist in the endgame negotiations over raise the federal debt ceiling.

Whether his economic advisers acknowledge it or not, Obama now have got to confront new and persuasive evidence that he has, once again, overestimated the power of the recovery. The White House has said for months that the economy was past the point of needing additional help from the government, even as gas price rose and sapped consumer spending, and Japan's earthquake disrupted global trade. The president has mimicked Republicans in occupation for government belt-tightening, even as the public part steadily sheds jobs, including 39,000 more in June.

Full Story 

useful links: transport rankings

Obama cites progress in deficit reduction talks

The White House is counting on Republican lawmakers to hold new tax revenues as part of an overarching plan to reduce long-term deficit and pave the way to add to the government's borrowing authority. White spokesman Jay Carney thought Wednesday that President Barrack Obama is confident that there are adequate lawmakers from both parties to support a deal that would reduce the debt by as more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years with expenses cuts and tax increases.

Republican leaders include been adamant in public statement that they will oppose any tax hikes."The president believes, we believe, that there are adequate members of both parties in both houses who support the idea that a big deal has to be impartial and therefore include spending cuts in the tax code," Carney said, employing a saying White House officials use to describe ending tax loopholes and tax subsidies for convinced taxpayers and corporations.

The assertion reinforced and extended on Obama's comments Tuesday that back-channel talks with congressional leaders last weekend shaped new progress in advance of a White House session Thursday on deficit reduction. While suggesting progress, Carney said no ending deal should be expected from Thursday's meeting.

Full Story 

Netanyahu: Israel cannot return to 1967 borders

Israel's prime minister assured to present his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian peace in a talking before U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday, but vowed his country would not go back to mid-1967 borders that he termed "hard to defend."

Benjamin Netanyahu made this pledge in an address Monday to thousands of pro-Israel American Jews and U.S. lawmakers. His language drew roaring cheers and standing ovations, a sign of the commanding backing he enjoys in the U.S. as the White House pressure him to do more to refurbish stalled Mideast peacemaking.

The warm reception Netanyahu enjoy at the gala dinner of the American Israel Public Affairs commission contrast piercingly with the contentious quality of some of his new interactions with President Barack Obama accurately over border issues.

Full Story

Senate blocks bill repealing $2B in oil tax breaks

The Senate blocked a bill Tuesday that would cancel about $2 billion a year in tax breaks for the five major oil companies, a Democratic retort to $4-a-gallon gasoline that might fare better when Congress and the White House discuss a deal afterward this year to add to the government's ability to have a loan of.

The bill was beaten on a procedural vote. But Democrats hope to erect their case to contain the measure in a deficit-reduction package being negotiated by key lawmakers and the Obama administration. Lawmakers from both parties are challenging deficit reduction as part of deal to boost the government's capacity to borrow and avoid a record default on U.S. Treasury bonds.

"This bill says that yet the most rich and powerful between us must do their fair share to help us reduce the shortfall," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the bill's sponsor. "Their high-priced lobbyists cannot stop us from doing what is fair and what is right."

Full Story

Joyous Americans gather to mark bin Laden death

Joyous at the let go of a decade's aggravation, Americans streamed to the site of the World Trade Center, the gates of the White House and smaller but no less triumphant gathering crosswise the nation to rejoice the death of Osama bin Laden — cheering, waving flags and belting the national anthem.

Ground zero, more known these past 10 years for bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" and solemn speeches and point of outlook over what to build to honor the Sept. 11 dead, became, for the first time, a place of celebrations.

"We've been to come a long time for this day," Lisa Ramaci, a New Yorker whose husband was a temporary journalist killed in the Iraq war, said early Monday. "I think it's a relief for New York tonight just in the intelligence that we had this 10 years of aggravation just building and building, wanting this guy dead, and at the present he is, and you can see how pleased people are."

Full Story

Obama's tax return: Income down — to $1.7 million

President Barack Obama is creation less money than he used to, although it's still a lot: He and wife Michelle accounted income of $1.73 million last year, mostly from the books he's written, according to his just-filed tax return. That was down from the $5.5 million of a year previous.

The president, who has been agitation to raise taxes on the rich, paid the government $453,770 in federal taxes, regarding a quarter of the income. Just last week, he renewed his push to end Bush-era tax cuts for household with annual incomes above $250,000 — note that that would contain him.

The White House unconfined tax profits for the Obamas and for Vice President Joe Biden and his wife on Monday, the time limit for Americans to file.

Full Story

Congress OKs big budget cuts — bigger fights await

Congress sent President Barack Obama hard-fought legislation cutting a record $38 billion from central spending on Thursday, bestowing bipartisan hold up on the first major compromise stuck between the White House and lately empowered Republicans in Congress.

"Welcome to alienated government," said House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Republican point man in tough talks with the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that shaped a bill no one claimed to like in its total.

Leader of a rambunctious new greater part, Boehner said the cuts in domestic program were first-time. Yet he also called the measure a less-than-perfect first step in a long campaign against federal red ink, and dozens of rank-and-file conservative voted in opposition to it.

Full story