Recession

That's what tax outreach leaders today said this new report contributes to their efforts increasing Californians' awareness of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

Speaking this past week at the Ex-Im Bank, President Obama laid out his strategy for doubling American exports within five years, a goal he announced in his State of the Union Address. Naming it the National Export Initiative, he described the strategy as “an ambitious effort to marshal the full resources of the United States government behind American businesses that sell their goods and services abroad.” The Initiative calls for the creation of an Export Promotion Cabinet, made up of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor along with the United State

The FCC’s broadband plan is  released today (Tuesday 16th March), as the Great Recession slogs through its 27th month.  Central to the pitch for the plan is the economic impact of expanded Internet access: ubiquitous affordable broadband will grow businesses, spur innovation, and create jobs. 

Raise your hand if you think filing a federal tax return will bring you thousands of dollars. Or if you think tax time this year could bring a windfall of federal stimulus dollars to Fresno's economy.

Most hands, I predict, are down. Everyone dreads doing their taxes. But this year, every working family with an income of less than $48,000 could have a big reason to look forward to it. That's because of something known as the Earned Income Tax Credit. It could be called Big Bucks For Fresno.

It makes filing that tax return very, very worthwhile for many people.

Elizabeth Warren appeared at New America yesterday, discussing her vision for consumer protection, the reasons behind her position, and the current state of the Washington Debate, as well as other issues.

Meg Whitman says she wants to run California state government like a business.

Given all we’ve learned in the past decade about business — Enron, IndyMac, Bernie Madoff, Wall Street — some people hear that as a threat. I prefer to be hopeful. Long mired in consultant-speak and ideology, California government and politics could use a dose of the practices by which the best businesses thrive — open-eyed realism about a firm’s strengths and weaknesses; rigorous analysis; strategic thinking.

As the Senate takes up a greatly scaled down $15 billion jobs bill stripped of all infrastructure spending, the nation should consider the compelling case for public infrastructure investment offered by Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Ed Rendell (D-PA). Appearing on ABC’s "This Week" on Sunday, the bipartisan Co-Chairs of Building America's Future explained why rebuilding America’s infr

If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs.

The dream of owning a successful small business is still alive in America and remains an essential part of our national self-image. But along the main streets and rural byways of the country today, in place of countless small businesses supporting millions of families in tens of thousands of communities, the banners of a few giant corporations now fly.

As we celebrate or bemoan the first anniversary of the federal stimulus bill, we've seen a kabuki conflict over whether it was a good idea or a bad idea, and whether the economy needs another booster shot. I tend to think that the stimulus was poorly designed and dangerously expensive, but we can't lose sight of the fact that the really important debate is, as the libertarian thinker Tim Lee often argues, between the partisans of top-down and bottom-up.