Your Tax Dollars at Work Generating talking points for the Bush Campaign, via the WSJ (subscription required): WASHINGTON — The Treasury tapped civil servants to calculate the cost of Sen. John Kerry’s tax plan and then posted the analysis on the Treasury Web site. A federal law bars career government officials from working on political […]

Yet More Outsourcing Fuel Here’s one more recent piece of data and analysis about offshore outsourcing, to add to the analysis discussed in the post below. Jason Kirkegaard of the Institute for International Economics (a nonpartisan think tank devoted to careful research on current issues in international economics) made an extremely detailed examination of the […]

Adding Fuel to the Outsourcing Fire The Information Technology Association Of America has just released the results of a study they commissioned from an economic consulting firm called Global Insights. The punch line of the analysis: This major study conclusively demonstrat[es] that worldwide sourcing of computer software and services increases the number of U.S. jobs, […]

Yen/Dollar Update FYI: TOKYO (CBS.MW) – The dollar fell to the lowest level in almost four years in Asia Wednesday as market participants tested Japan’s resolve for its dollar-buying intervention policy ahead of Japan’s “tankan” business sentiment survey to be released Thursday. The dollar traded at 104.29 yen after briefly falling to 103.98. The dollar […]

Via the AP Headline: A look at Bush’s reversals (AP) — President Bush’s decision Tuesday to allow his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to testify publicly before the commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks reversed earlier White House insistence that she would only appear privately. Some previous Bush reversals in the face of […]

EasterSlap We need a name for things like this; I propose EasterSlap. AB

Child Care Support for Welfare Recipients From the NYTimes: In a direct rebuff to the White House, the Senate voted today to increase the amount of money available to provide child care to welfare recipients, who would be subject to stricter work requirements under sweeping welfare legislation favored by President Bush and Congressional leaders. The […]

Consumer Confidence Here is the headline from today’s edition of CNN/Money: Confidence hits 5-month low : Job worries push closely watched measure of sentiment lower in March, though it is above forecasts. NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Worries about the job market pushed consumer confidence to its lowest level in five months in March, a research […]

That Liberal Media Next time your conservative friends whine about the liberal media, tell them they’re right, and try to make them listen: Rumor has it that Atrios will be on Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder’s show tonight tomorrow night. AB

Rice to Testify She’ll probably get points now just for testifying, regardless of what she actually says. In an odd twist, the administration is trying to borrow a page from Bush v. Gore: In a letter to the commission, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said the commission must agree in writing that Rice’s appearance would […]