(eToro Blog) Republicans and Democrats in the Senate were at it each other again when they rejected each other’s economic stimulus bill. As next year’s presidential election approaches, it seems that we will have more bickering among the political parties to win more favors among voters.
Republicans blocked a key piece of President Obama’s economic stimulus plan. Republicans are against a proposal to raise taxes on millionaires. The increased taxes are to pay for 400,000 jobs. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently at 9.1%. Democrats fell short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to clear a procedural step. In Return Democrats blocked a Republican bill to repeal a withholding tax on business that is scheduled to be implemented in 2013. The Republicans failed to gather the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural step.
President Obama, clearly frustrated at the Republicans said, “For the second time in two weeks, every single Republican in the United States Senate has chosen to obstruct a bill that would create jobs and get our economy going again. That's unacceptable.” The Senate is controlled by the Democrats who have a majority of 53 seats in the 100 seat Senate. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, “What Republicans have been saying is that raising taxes on business owners isn't the way to do it.”
Next week, the U.S. is scheduled to release the first estimate of Q3 GDP. GDP grew by 1.3% in the second quarter and 0.4% in the first quarter. Economists are expecting Q3 GDP to post its strongest growth in a year around 2.4%. Consumption is expected to rise leading and boost GDP. There has been evidence that the U.S. has survived the recession bullet in recent economic releases. September’s Non-Farm payrolls reported creation of 103K jobs beating analyst expectations. Manufacturing got a boost yesterday from the Philly Fed index which climbed to 8.7 from -15.7.
U.S. markets are up on positive news from Verizon, GE and McDonald’s. The Dow is up 1.7%, the Nsdaq is up 1.4% and S&P 500 is up around 1.6% at the time of writing this report. Traders on OpenBook are net short on Nasdaq (NSDQ100) with large concentration of limits around 2,280 and stops around 2,380.
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