Economy & Budget

America faces an alarming growth gap — a gap between where our economy is in the present recovery compared with where our economy should be in an average recovery. 

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im) is a vital tool to promote economic growth through exports and level the playing field for manufacturers in the United States in the face of aggressive foreign export credit agencies. With 95 percent of consumers living outside of the United States and fierce global competition, we must continue to use every tool available to grow exports in order to create jobs and grow our economy. Read more...

Should a national poll ever be conducted asking parents if their children were ready to be completely independent at age 18 the results would likely show most Americans answering in the negative.
 
That’s because if you ask any parent they’ll tell you they’ve all gotten a call from there 19, 20 or 21 year old asking for extra money while attending college or perhaps needing a place to stay while they look for work after completing their degree. 
 
The results would probably show higher negatives if parents polled were asked should their children be on their own at age 18 after suffering instability at home, changing multiple schools throughout their youth or experiencing extensive physical, emotional and sometimes sexual abuse.

Whether it’s sequestration, the budget crisis or the debt ceiling debate, America continues to kick the can down the road on problems large and small. Most Americans have reached the point where they just roll their eyes when they hear about the latest dysfunction out of Washington.
 
But it’s time to pay attention because Washington’s dysfunction is making America dysfunctional.
 
Economists such as Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom have recently traced the link between policy uncertainty and the reluctance of businesses to make long-term commitments. This means that people aren’t hiring and workers aren’t working as a direct consequence of our elected leaders’ inability to work together.

Another May Day has come and gone. Yet American workers have precious little to celebrate. And those working for the nation’s largest private-sector employer, Wal-Mart, have even less to celebrate than most.

Last year, for the first time in the firm’s 50-year history, Wal-Mart employees participated in several strikes and job actions leading up to a national day of protest on Black Friday. The organization representing Wal-Mart employees, OUR Wal-Mart, was protesting against poor pay and benefits, and management retaliation against workers who speak out. This wasn’t the first time that Wal-Mart employees have protested against substandard working conditions, and in the past, Wal-Mart has simply assumed that the protests will eventually die out, especially given employees’ understandable fear of management retribution.

America’s manufacturing sector is experiencing a renaissance, thanks in large part to unprecedented access to abundant supplies of natural gas from shale. Natural gas is the chemical industry’s primary feedstock, and with U.S. natural gas prices as low as they are, America’s chemistry industry is in a strong competitive position for the first time in years. That means our downstream partners who rely on our industry to produce medicine, cars, computers, building materials and other essential goods are in a more competitive position.

This week, President Barack Obama will be in Mexico to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Though security has been at the center of the U.S.-Mexico agenda in recent years, the relationship encapsulates much more than that. This trip provides a vital opportunity to refocus the agenda on our economic ties and build upon the success of NAFTA, but President Obama has instead been concentrating his attention on completing negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and beginning a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Europe. These are commendable initiatives, but the administration has not informed us of the advantages of these agreements as compared to others. Nor has it offered a realistic strategy to achieve either of them.  

Here we go again.

Recent news stories that Congress is once again fighting over whether to double the interest rates on many student loans is distressing and all too familiar.

As the mother of a high school senior who is applying to colleges right now, I know that it may come down to what we can afford — and how much debt she will be able to carry into her life after school.

The cost of the rates doubling—about $1,000 a year -- may not seem like a lot, but it is to those of us who struggle to make ends meet every day.

This week, scores of surgeons are visiting Capitol Hill, and the Auto Alliance is pleased to join them in supporting “Decide to Drive,” a campaign to help reduce distracted driving. Their timing is perfect, because we have arrived at a crucial crossroads in addressing distracted driving.
 
Recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released guidelines for reducing distracted driving that articulate a perfectly calibrated goal -- one with which automakers agree. That goal is to get drivers to connect their phones to the integrated, built-in systems in vehicles -- systems increasingly operated by voice commands -- so drivers can keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

In his recent blog entry on chained CPI (Chained CPI: Unfair and inaccurate, April 26th), AARP President Robert Romasco highlights his group's opposition to the change, charging that it would be “Unfair and Inaaccurate.” In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
 
A coalition of strange bedfellows, including Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and Moveon.org, have announced their opposition to this policy, even as many responsible policymakers from both sides of the aisle and at the highest levels of government continue to support it – notably, the president and the Speaker of the House.