Senate Passes Unemployment Benefit Extension
The Senate voted Tuesday to pass a $10 billion measure to extend benefits for unemployed workers and fund road projects after Sen. Jim Bunning agreed to end his filibuster.
The 78-19 vote on the 30-day extension known as H.R. 4691 came minutes after the Kentucky Republican made a final plea on the [...]

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Unemployment Extensions to Millions Still Locked Up in Political Games
Jobless benefits suddenly ended for some laid-off workers, Medicare payments to doctors were delayed and 2,000 federal transportation workers were sent home Monday in a spending dispute tinged with election-year politics.
Adding its voice to the flap, the White House said it was trying to “shame” Republican [...]

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Obama is no FDR, We’re no Mass Movement.
It’s open season on Obama whom so many hoped would lead us out of the neo-liberal wilderness. He once was a community organizer and ought to know how working people have suffered through a generation of tax breaks for the rich, Wall Street deregulation, and unfair competition.
When the [...]

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The Other Plot to Wreck America
THERE may not be a person in America without a strong opinion about what coulda, shoulda been done to prevent the underwear bomber from boarding that Christmas flight to Detroit. In the years since 9/11, we’ve all become counterterrorists.
But in the 16 months since that other calamity in downtown New [...]

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That 1937 Feeling
Here’s what’s coming in economic news: The next employment report could show the economy adding jobs for the first time in two years. The next G.D.P. report is likely to show solid growth in late 2009. There will be lots of bullish commentary — and the calls we’re already hearing for an end [...]

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Lost Decade For U.S. Economy and Workers
For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. economy has grown at a steady clip, generating perpetually higher incomes and wealth for American households. But since 2000, the story is starkly different.
The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from [...]

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Ford Offers Buyouts to All UAW Workers
DETROIT, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) said on
Monday it is offering its 41,000 U.S. factory workers buyouts
and early retirement offers in a bid to reduce its payroll
costs as it aims to return to profit by 2011.
The buyouts mark the second round of such offers [...]

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