The sun is setting on America's faith in Congress

In August, as we learned on Friday, job growth in the United States of America was an astounding zero. There was no increase in overall jobs and no change in unemployment.

The more than disappointing numbers are a clear indication that the recent political battles in Congress have done nothing beneficial to the economy.

The talks between Republicans and Democrats have centered on who would improve the economy more and lead to more jobs being created throughout the nation. To say that the two parties are on opposite sides of the debate about how to address the economy is an enormous understatement.

Republicans are playing the same old tune of cutting back on spending in order to bring down the national deficit. Democrats are still talking about stimulating job growth and improving the economy.

Slowly, but surely, much of the American public has lost confidence in Congress. It has gotten to the point where many are becoming self-dependent and choosing to sink or swim on their own instead of waiting to see if the government will provide more jobs.

President Obama is scheduled to speak on the current job situation in America next week. However, with a Congress so split in a way where any progress is highly unlikely, even a pep talk from Obama might not do much anymore.

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Thursday, the stock market dropped and dropped hard. As soon as the opening bell rang Thursday morning, almost two hundred points disappeared from the Dow Jones.

All over the world, including the United States, many are fearing economic collapses. As a result, the stock market is falling.

On Thursday, reports on the economy by Morgan Stanley came in worse than previously thought, reports on the housing market came in negative, and reports on American manufacturing expressed a decrease in progress.

According to financial expert Frank Davis, “it’s a war zone out there and there’s just too much uncertainty about the economy.”

At the end of the day, the Dow Jones fell below 11,000 points to 10,991. It was a drop of 420 points. The S&P 500 fell 53 point to 1,141. And the Nasdaq dropped 131 total points to finish at 2,380.

For those investing in gold there was some good news, the material ended the day at a record end of day high of $1,822 per ounce.

The economy, as illustrated by the stock market, has been slipping hard as of late. With growing problems in both the American economy and the international economy, the near future is without a doubt cluttered in doubt.

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The downgrade of the S&P 500 leading to the United States credit rating slipping from a AAA rating to a AA+ rating for the first time in nearly a century has caused a sudden and major decline in the stock market.

At the end of the day on Monday, Wall Street reported the biggest single day declines since the stock market crash of late 2008.

Monday, the Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 each fell over five percent. The Dow Jones is now back down to less than 11,000 points. That is the lowest the Dow Jones has been since November 2010.

With the American stock market dipping a grand total of fifteen percent in the last two weeks alone, there is a new fear of a new recession. In addition, the rising debt of European states is not helping international trade and the international economy.

At the end of the day, the Dow Jones dropped 635 points to 10,810. The S&P 500 fell 80 points to finish at 1,120. And the Nasdaq Composite lost 175 points and ended the financial day at 2,358.

With the United States not sitting at a AAA credit rating for the first time ever, President Barack Obama sees it as a sign to make sure that the deficit is addressed and the economic problems are not put off any longer by political bickering.

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Thursday night, the Republican Party imploded. Speaker of the House John Boehner gave his most recent proposal about curbing spending in order to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling by August 2^nd without further increasing the spending problem.

The Republicans of the House made Boehner pull his plan and return to his office to revamp the proposal once again. The demands of the Republican Party are too high and unrealistic in terms of how much and what they want to cut. Boehner is trying to reach a median with his fellow members of Congress on the Democratic side.

However, Republicans are not supporting their own choice to have Boehner lead them and Boehner is not representing the ideas that those Republicans possess.

Republicans took the majority from the Democrats vowing to improve the economic situation in the United States. Instead, they have worsened it with their inability to not only work with Democrats, but with themselves.

There is no leadership in the Republican Party. There is no unity in the Republican Party. For years, Republicans have not been willing to bend to accommodate Democrats on proposals. Now, they are maintaining their own unrealistic demands despite the fact that in just a few days, a true crisis might intensify beyond belief.

Any changes Boehner makes to please his fellow Republicans would only distance his proposal further from anything that Democrats in the Senate would ever accept.

The pressure is now on Boehner and the Republicans. Either they come through in the final seconds of the final hour, or they prove that despite all of the talk before the 2010 Elections, they simply do not have what it takes to get the job done.

The state of the American economy is in a state of flux. The time remaining to reach a deal about how to reverse the debt problem and bring an end to the spending deficit is running out and running out fast.

President Barack Obama is painfully aware of the looming deadline of August 2^nd. That is exactly why President Obama is getting ready to hold a meeting on Thursday right in the White House. Obama has invited Republicans and Democrats from both the Senate and the House of Representatives to come together to make more progressions on the talks pertaining to the debt and the debt ceiling, which needs to desperately be raised.

According to Obama, a great deal of work has been done already and a deal in close in sight. Obama’s exact words on the meeting for Thursday were that it is meant to “drive toward a final agreement.”

A few of the important names already said to certainly be coming to the vital meeting are John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader of the Senate Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell who is the Minority Leader of the Senate.

John Boehner has made it crystal clear that under no circumstances would the Republican Party approve of any plan that would include the raising of taxes.

It goes without saying that the two parties are still far apart on a few issues, but according to both sides the positives are outweighing the negatives in the negotiation room, as a final deal is appearing more and more realistic.

Talks have been going on for weeks, including a meeting between Obama and Boehner this weekend. The two men are essentially the leaders on the opposing sides to the debate that will dictate where the American economy moves in the near future.

It seems that for one of the few times in recent history, Republicans and Democrats might come to an agreement of great importance without waiting for the last possible second or creating multiple short term deals to buy more time.

In the coming days, the hope is that the final agreement comes together as quickly as possible. The spending deficit and the national debt have grown so large that the time is now or never to save the future of the United States of America. Can Obama and the men and women of Congress get the job done before it is too late?

In the 1990’s, the American economy was at one of the highest points it has ever been. And the man in charge of the nation when the economy was peaking was President Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party. Arguably the most charismatic and one of the most liked presidents in American history, Clinton reached out to President Barack Obama and his administration this weekend to offers words of advice in these tough economic times.

Clinton made it perfectly clear that it is essential for Obama and the White House to do whatever it takes to avoid having the debt ceiling not be raised by August 2^nd. Clinton said that because he is not currently intertwined with American politics that he is not exactly sure what the specific issues are behind closed doors that the public is unaware of and thus cannot give Obama a specific course of action. However, Clinton said in no uncertain terms that Obama should stand his ground against Congress and make sure that the debt ceiling gets raised in less than one month.

The former President based his advice on the fact that if the debt ceiling is not raised and the United States could not pay off its bills in full, then the credit of the country would suffer. As a result, interest rates might raise in future deals and force the nation into a deeper debt and hurt the economic situation even more.

Clinton went on to bash the Tea Party and their attack on Obama’s health reform. He praised their good politics, but said that the games were hurting the economy and were not solving any problems.

The husband of Hilary Clinton also advised Obama to go along with Republicans on their desired spending cuts that would in effect give the government upwards of eight months to work with before the debt ceiling issue would need to be addressed again. Clinton made it very apparent that true economic reform is not possible in four weeks.

Clinton also suggested that for true progression to be made, Medicare needs to be revamped and Republicans must agree to get rid of tax loopholes.

There are a lot of options for the men and women of Congress that they could take advantage of to fix the spending deficit and debt problems. However, for the best possible results to happen, political games must be put to the side completely and Democrats and Republicans must finally work together as a team for the good of the United States today, tomorrow, and beyond.

For months now, sports fans around the nation have had a frown on their faces. The National Football League is one of the most profitable organizations in the United States. But even they are in a lockout discussing the aspects of how to divide up billions of dollars in revenue and how much to pay players.

The fighting is rubbing fans the wrong way. The average NFL fan is a middle class American citizen. That is why seeing millionaires fight with billionaires about money is not exactly endearing to the men and women who watch the NFL every single Fall and Winter and follow league news throughout the year.

And now the same thing is happening to the National Basketball Association. However, the problems facing the NBA seem to be more difficult to fix.

The second July came, the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement became invalid as it expired when the clock struck midnight. Talk about what would happen on this day and if the owners and players would not be able to draw up a new CBA before the deadline have been around for over two years.

The NBA is officially in a lockout and there will be no practices, team meetings, or new signings until the lockout is over.

The biggest issues dividing the players and owners center on money.

The biggest issue is that the owners want to get rid of is the $58 million soft salary cap. Under the soft cap, loopholes needed to be used to get over the salary cap, but the loopholes were so simple to find that the majority of teams were well over the cap. Last season, the Los Angeles Lakers had a team salary of $91 million.

Now the owners want a $45 million hard cap. Under a hard cap, teams would have to keep their salaries under $45 million year round. In Miami, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh make about $47 million a year.

Clearly the introduction of a hard cap would be a process where teams could slowly bring their salaries down over three years with a flex cap, but it would change the way players pick teams. Would a player like Chris Bosh or Carlos Boozer take a big pay cut to stay on their respective teams or would they take more money to play in Minnesota or Cleveland?

The 2011-2012 NBA season is in jeopardy. Experts are predicting that at best, a 50 game season is likely. With owners wanting salaries to drop over thirty percent essentially, it is tough to see a resolution any time soon.

It has often been the complaint of many Americans that the men and women of the United States Congress do not work hard enough and do not focus on the issues that matter the most to the citizens of the nation and the well being of the state as a whole. At times, the critique has been accurate. However, as of Thursday, it seems that the work ethic of Congress is moving in a positive direction.

Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader from Nevada, announced on Thursday that there is not going to be a week of vacation in celebration of the Fourth of July as a result of Congress needing to solve the debt ceiling crisis.

Reid said of his big decision, “The work we’re doing to cut the deficits and create jobs is too important, the obstacles too steep, and the time too short to waste even a moment. There’s still so much to do to put Americans back to work and cut our deficits.”

This is music to the ears of President Obama. Obama wanted the men and women of Congress to not take the scheduled vacation during the economic crisis. Reid answered by saying the Senate is only going to take Monday off and not the whole week.

Congress has until August 2^nd, just over a month, to work a deal to get the legal limit for government borrowing to increase from 14.3 trillion dollars.

Republicans want to bring on big spending cuts in addition to raising the debt ceiling. Democrats want to increase revenue throughout the state, but Republicans are not showing any interest in backing any measure that would increase spending.

Reid suggests that if the debt ceiling is not raised soon, then the economy would be in a “full fledged depression.”

Democrats and Republicans have been hard at work discussing all of the options available to them the past few weeks.

The time is now for the men and women of the United States Congress. By the time they come back from the Fourth of July holiday, there will be less than a month until the deadline to come to a resolution.

It is difficult to say what would happen if they do not reach a deal. Experts can make speculations, but since we have nothing else to compare it to in American history, what would happen on August 3^rd if no deal were reached is a mystery most do not want to discover.

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It was recently announced that in July and August, over one hundred thousand men and women were expected to be let go from public jobs, particularly from the education field. Wednesday, the drastic process of releasing approximately 110,000 public employees began early.

In the Milwaukee Public School System, 519 workers are going to be let go. Of those 519 men and women, a staggering total of 354 of them are teachers. The reason behind the high amount of cuts in the one city have to do with a total of 84 million dollars being cut from the total funding of the state of Wisconsin.

According to Gregory Thornton, the Superintendent of the school district, the average class size is expected to increase. In addition, Thornton said that the influx of new textbooks is going to decrease significantly and the use of older editions is going to continue for longer than normal. Essentially, on average, there is going to be two hundred dollars less to spend per child in the school system in the state.

Thornton also announced that most of the teachers that are going to lose their jobs are elementary school instructors.

More bad news is coming to the Milwaukee School System. In addition to the pink slips that are going to be passed out on Friday and the decrease in state funding, just under one hundred million dollars from stimulus funding from the federal government are about to run out, summer school options are being cut back, and five hundred job opening are not going to be filled up on top of the 519 lay offs.

The Milwaukee Public School System has already had to cut back 182 million dollars. As a result, nine schools have actually ended up closing their doors.

The majority of the budget goes to paying teachers, administrators, and employees. That leaves minimal funds for supplies and basic needs for students.

It is difficult to comprehend. The base of all success in life is education. However, it seems that in the United States of America that the foundation that is education is becoming less and less attainable at a high quality.

With funding continuing to drop for education in the United States, it is hard for programs like Obama’s Race to the Top to reach their goals.

How can we expect to succeed economically as a nation if we cannot provide the most basic need of an education to the children of America?

The state of the American economy is not exactly great. It took four years to get out of the hole after the market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. It has been two and a half years since the October 2008 stock market crash and resulting recession. If there is one thing we can learn from the men and women from the Great Depression is that recovery is not a quick process.

That is hard for many Americans to accept. The fact that President Barack Obama did not magically solve the problem of terrorism, bring world peace, make everyone a millionaire, create a new energy source, and most of all fix the economic crisis in his first day as the Head of State still unfairly haunts him. But Obama is working on the economy.

On Thursday, the Senate is going to work on the final details of three trade pacts and new funding for a program on job retraining for workers who have been let go. The funding for the program was used up in February.

Reports coming out of the negotiating room are that both Republicans and Democrats are working together to finalize the plans. The negotiation has been full of bipartisan support according to officials.

Republicans want the trade deals to be written in a way that would not keep them from making alterations that they see necessary to the program for job retraining.

The demand in the Senate is for the trade deals to go up for a vote as soon as possible.

Obama knows how important the two deals are to each other and made it clear that he simply cannot have the trade deals without the funding for the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.

The way the program helps the economy is that when jobs get outsources and workers are let go in America, the program helps those men and women with financial assistance and job training so they can better apply for new positions.

If the Trade Adjustment Assistance program is given funding, approximately 435,000 men and women would be able to sign up.

However, Republicans are weary of reinstating such a program when the goal is to cut funding, not increase it.

To compromise, Democrats have agreed to scale the program down a little in order to continue the fight to reverse the momentum of the national debt.

It took President Franklin Roosevelt almost half of a decade to resurrect America after the Great Depression. President Barack Obama is making the needed changes to do the same today.