WASHINGTON ? Hamstrung by budget cuts and a tight debt ceiling, President Barack Obama is preparing a September jobs package with limited tools at his disposal to prime the economy and crank up employment.
At a minimum, the president's plan will call on Congress to extend current payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits, spend money for new construction projects and offer incentives to businesses to hire more workers. But economists say that while that would eliminate some drag on the economy and maintain the status quo, it won't be enough to propel it to new heights.
The president's plan, which he will announce in a major speech next week, will be far less ambitious than the $825 billion stimulus of 2009, passed when the economy was still shrinking and when unemployment stood at 8.2 percent. Now the economy is growing sluggishly but unemployment is a full percentage point higher ? 9.2 percent for July.
Economists who advocate for government intervention in the economy estimate that it would take a package of at least $300 billion to avoid backsliding and even more to give the economy a lift.
That's a tall order for a president facing a divided Congress where Republicans, demanding fiscal austerity, reject the notion that short-term infusions of taxpayer money into the economy can prod a sluggish recovery. Even without Republican opposition, such a level of spending would require short-term borrowing that would move the government closer to its new debt ceiling before the November 2012 election, something Obama is determined to avoid.
The president's speech will set the stage for the economic debate to come in Congress. A congressional supercommittee has been given the job of finding at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. As part of his economic plan, Obama plans to propose even more deficit reduction to help pay for the up-front cost of his jobs initiatives.
The listless economy, which has left millions of Americans out of work and threatens the savings of millions more, is the biggest obstacle facing Obama's re-election. Making the case for his economic programs will be central to the remaining 18 months of his term.
"Our great challenge as a nation remains how to get this economy growing faster," Obama said Monday. "That's our urgent mission."
The president is certain to call for extending a one-year payroll tax cut for workers and unemployment benefits that expire in January, at a combined cost of about $175 billion. He also has lent support to a proposal to create an "infrastructure bank," a fund that would be seeded by the government but fed by private investment to pay for major road, bridge and other public construction. Even advocates of the plan, however, say that proposal probably would not be in place to generate jobs for about two years.
Among other measures under consideration, but not yet decided:
? A major school construction initiative of up to $50 billion. Its advocates include Vice President Joe Biden's former chief economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, who monitored progress of the 2009 stimulus. Bernstein said school construction and renovation would be far more labor-intensive than some of the public projects paid for by the stimulus. "We kind of thought during the recovery act that we would see 50 hardhats and 10 machines, and it ended up being the other way around at some of these sites," he said.
? A payroll tax cut for employers, in addition to the one for workers. Persons familiar with the White House discussions say top aides prefer to target such cuts to employers who expand their payrolls, thus serving as an incentive to hire.
_Encouraging corporations to bring into the United States some of their foreign sources of income at preferential tax rates in exchange for job creation measures.
_Tying unemployment insurance payments to on-the-job training. Obama has applauded a program under way in Georgia in which jobless benefits go to employers who hire the unemployed as trainees.
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics who has advised Republicans and Democrats, said that without government action, the private sector would have to grow by more than 4 percent to generate enough jobs to keep unemployment from rising.
"That seems like a heavy lift at this juncture," he said.
Bernstein said that if Congress fails to renew the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, the jobless rate would probably remain unchanged by the end of next year.
"If they renew them, we have a better chance of a jobless rate that's 8.5 or below, which isn't great either, but is a whole lot better than 9," he said.
Obama's plan is likely to be found lacking on both ends of the political spectrum.
Republicans say Obama should focus on cutting taxes for corporations and reducing regulatory burdens, steps they say will free the private sector to spend and hire. Several have said they would oppose extending the one-year payroll tax cut enacted in December, even if that would be the equivalent of a tax increase on workers.
Conservative economist Kevin Hassett, whose thinking often influences Republicans, argues that short-term government spending to spur the economy can backfire in a slow recovery because the dose of stimulus can run out before a recovery takes hold. That creates an economic drag that can push the economy back into recession or forces yet more spending that drives up government debt.
Hassett says a better way is to reduce the costs of long-term benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security and use some of the savings to enact a permanent tax cut for corporations, thus spurring higher earnings.
Some liberal economists say Obama is hardly spending enough to make a difference.
"I don't think their rhetoric matches their actual budget policy," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
Mishel said the agreement struck at the beginning of August to increase the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion in exchange for budget cuts limited the president's options.
"The debt deal doesn't allow any sizable amount of deficit spending or increased spending," he said. "If you `re going to pay for it later, how do you do that when you have a tight amount of debt that you can take on over the next year and a half?"
real housewives of orange county the big lebowski the big lebowski crt apple store chupacabra ken block
Set to be released on August 10, developer Halfbrick has found the perfect way to enlarge its extremely popular fruit-slicing title. Halfbrick is releasing Fruit Ninja on Microsoft?s Kinect for Xbox 360, the motion-sensing camera rig that allows users to basically dance around in front of their TV screens and control games with their movements. The mobile version of Fruit Ninja has players using finger swipes across their mobile devices? touchscreens to slice apart fruits flying through the air. In Fruit Ninja Kinect, instead of using a finger, players use their arms as blades, flailing around to slice-up as much fruit as possible. The Kinect also allows players to take on Fruit Ninja with a friend, either cooperatively while combining scores, or competitively.
The super-popularity of Angry Birds can?t be stopped on mobile platforms, but smartphones and tablets aren?t the only devices on which flinging birds at evil pigs is a huge success. Angry Birds titles are all over the place. Players can already download the game on PCs, Macs, Sony?s PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 and the Sony PSP, as well as Microsoft?s Xbox 360. Versions of Rovio Mobile?s powerhouse are also on their way to the Nintendo Wii and handheld 3DS. You can even play Angry Birds in Google?s Chrome browser through its new web store. With mobile games, video games and even a cartoon show on the way, it seems there?s no calming the fury of players who want more Angry Birds.
A popular series on mobile devices, Backbreaker Football is a simulation game that highlights customization and big hits. In moving to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Backbreaker added a lot of capabilities that were perhaps too big and time-consuming to put in its mobile version. These include a stronger engine that can dynamically create all the tackles in the game on the spot, and a robust suite of multiplayer options that mobile players never got a chance to experience. Backbreaker on consoles has a two-player exhibition mode as well as a tackle-only points-based mode that allows players to compete against each other. It offers these both as online or offline modes, plus a split-screen version. There?s also a huge amount of customization, from players to teams to even your organization?s logo. Due to Backbreaker?s lack of an official NFL license, you can?t play real teams, but you can create your own from the ground up.
The first game on Apple?s iPhone and iPad to make use of Epic Games? powerful Unreal Engine 3 (a graphics engine that powers quite a few big-name video game titles both on iOS and PC/consoles), Dungeon Defenders gave mobile players one of their first more console-like experiences in mobile games. Now, Dungeon Defenders: First Wave (also available on Android) is headed to the PlayStation 3 and PC, and we?ve already seen the cool stuff that will happen with it. Not only can console and PC defenders enjoy the game by themselves or online, they can also play cooperatively with mobile players. That means you can potentially take Dungeon Defender with you wherever you go and be able to take on a few waves of goblins with your friends, regardless of whether you?re sitting in front of your computer or sitting at the front of the bus.
The original Zen Bound dropped into the iTunes App Store and became a huge (albeit calm) success. The puzzle game is all about carefully rotating and manipulating objects to wrap them with rope, as the rope spreads paint over all the surfaces it touches. The more completely you can paint the object, the higher your score. Zen Bound was a really well-made touchscreen title and perfect for mobile controls, but when Zen Bound 2 was announced last year, it made its way to PC gamers as well. The game loses its tactile advantage in switching to PC controls, but it maintains all its simple beauty including the calming and haunting soundtrack. Thankfully, it still features the clever puzzle gameplay that iOS players enjoy.
