House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday told President Barack Obama that cuts in federal spending would boost the economy and create private sector jobs. 

"I gave the President a statement by more than 100 economist urging both parties to cut spending now to boost private sector job creation," he said in prepared remarks. "The need is clear." 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Thursday requested information for how a proposed change to the private foundation excise tax would affect the pay-out rates of those organizations. 

The senator's request comes on the heels of Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) introducing an amendment to the so-called tax extenders bill that would replace the current excise tax, which lowers if foundation payouts exceed a certain amount, with a flat 1.39 percent tax. 

BP officials touted the value of the oil company's stock Thursday after large drops in the United States and United Kingdom during the past couple of days. 

"BP notes the fall in its share price in U.S. trading last night," a BP release said Thursday. "The company is not aware of any reason which justifies this price share movement." 

Despite a huge selloff in U.S. markets Wednesday, BP's stock bounced back today, up nearly 9 percent as the Dow Jones industrials showed gains. 

In London today, BP shares dropped to their lowest levels in 13 years behind calls by U.S. lawmakers to stop dividend payments, increase compensation to affected coastal businesses and speed up the claims process. 

BP argued it is a strong company and its cash inflows and outflows in March were balanced at an oil price of around $60 a barrel. The company said "our asset base is strong and valuable" with more than 18 billion barrels of oil in reserve and 63 billion barrels at the end of 2009. 

BP says it has spent nearly $1.3 billion on the spill and paid $84 million in claims to individuals and businesses in four affected states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. 

Boost for Medicare payments to doctors in selected California counties — Sen. Coburn wants to strip it from tax bill.

New circuit breaker rules to halt trading on the nation's exchanges could go into effect as early as Friday. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted the new rules Thursday that will require a pause in U.S. equity markets when the prices of certain individual stocks move 10 percent or more in a five-minute period.  

Implementation begins Friday with the trading pause applying to all stocks in the S&P 500 Index, and will be in effect as a pilot program for six months, until Dec. 10. Once changes are made to improve the new circuit breaker, the SEC will rapidly expand the program to thousands of publicly traded companies. 

"By establishing a set of circuit breakers that uniformly pauses trading in a given security across all venues, these new rules will ensure that all markets pause simultaneously and provide time for buyers and sellers to trade at rational prices," SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said in a Thursday release. 

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday defended tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, saying they did not lead to the deficit that currently confronts the country. 

"It's not the marginal tax rates ... that's not what led to the budget deficit," he told reporters, adding, "The revenue problem we have today is a result of what happened in the economic collapse some 18 months ago." 

Exports dropped for the second time in three months as the U.S. trade deficit rose to the highest level in nearly two years, a possible sign that Europe's economic troubles are affecting the nation's expanding manufacturing sector. 

The trade deficit widened to $40.3 billion in April, up 0.6 percent from $40 billion in March, according to a Commerce Department report released Thursday. 

The U.S. manufacturing sector is doing the heavy lifting so far in the nation's economic recovery — adding jobs and expanding production through most of 2010.

Exports fell to $148.8 billion in April on drops in consumer goods, foods, feeds and beverages. Farm products fell by $647 million. 

Imports slipped to $189.1 billion while demand for consumer goods, mostly pharmaceutical products, fell by $741 million. 

New jobless claims dropped by 3,000 last week — still not enough to show the labor market is hiring. 

Claims dropped to 456,000 for the week ending June 5, which is not low enough to show sustained job growth, according to Labor Department figures released Thursday. 

The four-week moving average, which smooths out the volatility of the weekly number, rose 2,500 to 463,000. 

The number of people receiving unemployment insurance fell 255,000 to 4.46 million, the lowest level since December 2008. 

Economists argue that jobless claims need to drop into the low 400,000s or high 300,000s to reflect stronger job growth in the private sector. 

The unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent in May on the creation of more than 400,000 jobs. But most of those jobs were temporary government jobs for the federal Census, not from the private sector. 

The president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association blasted Senate Democratic leaders for including a tax increase for an oil spill trust fund in the so-called extenders bill while simultaneously easing the tax for investment fund managers.

"This proposal amounts to an effort to pay Wall Street by robbing Main Street," Charles Drevna said in prepared remarks. "This tax increase will raise the cost of gasoline, diesel fuel and other products for American families, all in the name of giving more tax breaks to bankers and hedge fund managers."
Read more...