Spending Daily | October 31, 2012

Sandy’s Economic Effects to be Felt After Election Day
According to The Hill, “Hurricane Sandy is expected to take a $20 billion bite out of the U.S. economy. … Still, experts say that nationally, any negative economic effects from the storm are unlikely to be felt until after Election Day, meaning the economics of Sandy might not be a game-changer for President Obama or Mitt Romney. ‘Hurricane Sandy has been very disruptive as millions have lost power and many businesses and financial markets have closed, but its economic impacts should prove temporary,’ said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.”

“Quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant creates just 400 jobs”
According to The Washington Times, “Battery maker A123 Systems vowed thousands of new jobs when it received a nearly quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant in late 2009, but federal job-tracking figures show only a few hundred positions were created before the company joined a growing list of federally backed energy businesses that ended in bankruptcy. The latest quarterly report on file with a federal stimulus tracking database shows just seven positions created through the grant from April to June this year. Previous quarters’ job reports contained anywhere from a handful of positions created to more than 100 new jobs. But even when the quarterly reports are combined, a total of 408 new positions were reported under the stimulus program since 2009, amounting to more than $300,000 spent for each new job reported.”

Judgement Day: Jobs Report Coming Friday
CBS reports, “A Labor Department official tells CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss there should be no delay in the release of the monthly employment report. It’s expected to be released this Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. The closely watched report is the final snapshot of employment before the Nov. 6 presidential election.”

“Lukewarm jobs report awaits Americans as election nears”
According to Reuters, “U.S. job growth likely picked up in October, but not enough to prevent the unemployment rate from rising off a near four-year low, although that might not matter for next week’s presidential election. Coming four days ahead of the tight contest, the closely watched employment report on Friday is not expected to shift much from its recent pattern, limiting its impact on voters. Employers are expected to have added 125,000 jobs to their payrolls in October, up from 114,000 in September, according to a Reuters survey of economists. The unemployment rate is forecast to tick up a tenth of a percentage point to 7.9 percent after a dramatic 0.3 percentage point fall in September.”

“Intelligence spending fell in 2012 for second year in a row”
Reuters reports, “The U.S. government’s total spending on intelligence activities fell in 2012, the second year in a row of declines after years of soaring security spending since the September 11 attacks in 2001. The Office of Director of National Intelligence, the top U.S. intelligence authority, announced on Tuesday that total funding appropriated for the National Intelligence Program, covering activities of the CIA and high-tech spy agencies such as the National Reconnaissance Office, was $53.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2012, which ended on September 30. That was down from the $54.6 billion appropriated during Fiscal Year 2011, according to government officials and figures published by the private Federation of American Scientists.”

Obama Wants Top Earners to Pay More in Taxes Than Under Clinton
Bloomberg reports, “President Barack Obama says he wants top earners to pay the tax rates they did under President Bill Clinton. He actually wants them to pay more. By increasing investment taxes, limiting breaks and setting a minimum tax rate, Obama would extract more than $900 billion from the top 2 percent of earners over the next decade. That’s on top of the $849 billion that would flow to the government if the George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire for that group. … During his first term, Obama has revised his tax policies to place an even greater emphasis on toptaxpayers than he had in 2008, proposing changes that make his budgets add up by raising their tax burden. … ‘It’s dangerous to construct a tax system that relies on a very small percentage of the population,’ said Olson, who was the top tax policy official at the Treasury Department for Bush.”

Unemployment in Eurozone Hits Record High
The Associated Press reports, “Unemployment in the 17-country eurozone hit a record high of 11.6 percent in September, official figures showed Wednesday, a sign the economy is deteriorating as governments struggle to get a grip on their three-year debt crisis. The rate reported by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, was up from an upwardly-revised 11.5 percent in August. In total, 18.49 million people were out of work in the eurozone in September, up 146,000 on the previous month, the biggest increase in three months. While the eurozone’s unemployment rate has been rising steadily for the past year as the economy struggled with a financial crisis and government spending cuts, the United States has seen its equivalent rate fall to 7.8 percent.”

Greece Raises Deficit Forecast as Recession Rolls into Sixth Year
The Associated Press reports, “The Greek government raised its debt and deficit forecasts for 2013 in a revised budget submitted to Parliament on Wednesday, highlighting the country’s monumental struggle in turning around its publicfinances. Greece’s general government debt is projected to rise to 189.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, above the 182.5 percent predicted in the preliminary draft submitted at the start of the month. That’s up from 175.6 percent forecast for this year. The revised figures projected the government deficit at 5.2 percent of GDP, up from 4.2 percent predicted in the preliminary draft of the budget – but still an improvement from the 6.6 percent predicted for this year. The recession, which will head into its sixth year, will be deeper than the 3.8 percent contraction the preliminary draft had predicted, with the new figures estimating the economy will shrink by 4.5 percent.”