Economy & Budget

From Friend of Earth, which endorsed Obama over the weekend. The ad is running in both North Carolina and Indiana in the closing hours before the primaries.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) released a web video today attacking Barack Obama for opposing a temporary repeal of the gas tax.

Obama opposes the proposal, forwarded by John McCain and supported by Hillary Clinton, as a "gimmick."

"People are more concerned about looking good for the cameras and for politics than they are at actually solving problems," Obama reportedly said today, questioning the value of temporarily lifting the tax.

The RNC says this stance is hypocritical. In the new web video, entitled "Barack Obama's Gas Tax Hypocrisy," a narrator says Obama voted for gas tax relief as an Illinois state senator. The ad questions Obama's understanding of Americans' economic needs and says he is not ready to be president.

MoveOn.org is calling on its members in the Washington D.C. area to protest the cost of the Iraq war near Senate office buildings on Thursday. It's part of the Iraq/Recession campaign that MoveOn and other liberal groups have started to try to put pressure on lawmakers to start withdrawing troops soon.

MoveOn and its partners plan to unveil polling on Thursday that supports its claim that war spending has hurt the economy. But others, including the former chairman of the Economic Council of Advisers under President Bill Clinton, have been more skeptical of the war's economic impact.

Here's a snippet of MoveOn's invite:

Dear MoveOn Member,

On Thursday, we're making major news at events in Washington and around the country. We're unveiling a new poll showing that local voters want to stop wasting billions in Iraq, and want to help the economy by investing those resources here at home.

In Washington, we can make an even bigger splash if there's a crowd at the press conference

John McCain is expected to propose, in an economic address scheduled for this morning in Pittsburgh, that the federal government suspend gasoline taxes for the summer, stop discretionary spending for one year to evaluate programs, and double the tax exemption for dependents.

The proposals were outlined in a release sent out by McCain's campaign ahead of the speech. According to the release, McCain wants to suspend the 18.4 cent gasoline tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day, double the tax exemption for dependents from $3,500 to $7,00, and stop discretionary spending on programs other than "essential military and veterans programs." The spending pause would not include entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, for which spending is mandatory.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both released new TV ads today, and even as both campaigns have come to focus heavily on the economy in recent months, the candidates have stuck to the messages they created at the outset of the nomination race.

In Obama's ad, which will begin airing today in Pennsylvania, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) addresses working-class frustration--an issue that has brought criticism to Obama over the past week.

Obama has come under criticism for a comment, made April 5 at a San Francisco fundraiser, about voter frustration: Obama said that working-class voters stick to divisive issues like religion and gun rights because they are "bitter." Casey says those frustrations are caused by economic downturn and political division, and that Obama can bring change and end political divisiveness--the central theme of Obama's campaign from the start. Read more...

House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) today requested information on the Federal Reserve's deal with BlackRock Financial Management, Inc., the firm hired to manage the portfolio backing the Bear Stearns buyout.

Waxman expressed concern that the Fed awarded a no-bid contract to BlackRock to manage $30 billion in tax revenue. The Fed's regional bank in New York made an immediate, no-bid deal with BlackRock to manage the portfolio backing its loan to JP Morgan Chase.

See Waxman's letter to Timothy Giethner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, after the jump. Read more...

As MyDD's BlueIndiana reported yesterday, Barack Obama is running a statewide ad campaign in Indiana focusing on jobs, a topic Obama and Hillary Clinton will need to address "if they want to win the votes of countless Hoosiers who have lost their jobs over the last five years."

Today both Clinton and Obama reacted to the Labor Department's March jobs report, in which the Labor Department announced a 5.1% unemployment rate after 80,000 jobs were cut in March.

Obama and Clinton agreed that Republican policies caused the nation's current economic situation

"It

Hillary Clinton launched a new economic agenda today in Philadelphia, offering domestic policies designed to combat outsourcing.

Clinton proposed an increase of the Research and Development tax credit from 20% to 30% and a 40% credit for "basic research." Those credits would "reward high-wage job growth in the U.S. and help make U.S. manufacturers and research companies more globally competitive," the Clinton campaign said.

Clinton also proposed up to $500 million per year of grants that would match state and local funds for the construction of research parks, creating "innovation and research clusters" similar to Silicon Valley and other research hubs. Clinton's campaign said the New York senator would facilitate the creation of 15 new research clusters in her first term. Read more...

Hillary Clinton today said John McCain would "let that phone ring, and ring, and ring" if he received a 3 a.m. phone call about the economy as president.

Clinton was discussing John McCain's economic speech, made Tuesday, in which McCain called for economic experts to meet and arrive at an answer to the recent swell of home foreclosures.

Barack Obama, in his own speech on the economy today, offered his own harsh criticism of McCain. Clinton's campaign circulated the video this afternoon as both candidates sought to denounce McCain's economic platform.

Chris Good has a story coming, but while you wait here is the full text of Obama's speech. After being introduced by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Obama laid out "six core principles for reform" and proposed a second stimulus package.

Obama called President George Bush's plan "completely divorced from reality." The Illinois Senator also hit John McCain saying McCain's plan "amounts to little more than watching this crisis happen."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds had a ready response to Obama's speech. "No amount of rhetoric can hide Senator Obama's clear record of embracing the liberal tax and spend, big government policies that hit hardworking American families at a time when they're most vulnerable, and are certain to move America backward," Bounds said.

Obama does not mention Hillary Clinton in the speech. Read the entire speech after the jump. Video here. Read more...