President Bush spoke at the “America’s Small Business Summit” hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on April 18, and the chamber today posted a series of videos of the event to YouTube. Here are Bush’s thoughts about the U.S. economy and the economic stimulus package enacted earlier this year:
The House today adopted a nonbinding resolution that says the United States has a moral responsibility to help the poor and sets a national goal of cutting poverty in half over 10 years by promoting good jobs at livable wages. The vote was 391-0.
“Our country is a land of opportunity,” said bill sponsor Barbara Lee, D-Calif. “But the sad reality is that income inequality continues to grow and more people are falling into poverty than getting ahead.” She said one in eight Americans now live in poverty.
The House today narrowly passed a bill designed to improve mine safety despite a veto threat from the White House. The vote was 214-199.
Here are debate excerpts floor speeches by Democrats George Miller of California, Tim Bishop of New York, Rush Holt of New Jersey and John Yarmuth of Kentucky.
At last night’s Democratic presidential debate, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Hillary Clinton whether Ross Perot was right in the 1992 presidential race when he warned that the North American Free Trade Agreement would kill U.S. jobs.
Her quips in response that she has only “a vague memory” of a bunch of charts about the NAFTA debate in the campaign that sent her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to the White House is now online video fodder for Democratic rival John Edwards.
Talking Points Memo posted a fuller clip of Clinton’s answer, including her acknowledgement that “NAFTA was a mistake to the extent that it did not deliver on what we had hoped it would, and that’s why I call for a trade timeout.”
TechCrunch today added John McCain to its list of blogger “gets” in the Republican presidential field, interviewing the Arizona senator about the activities of technology firms in China and visas for high-skilled foreigners, among other topics.
The interview with McCain followed one several days ago with Mitt Romney, one of McCain’s rivals for the GOP nomination.
Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine sees TechCrunch’s series of interviews with presidential candidates as a noteworthy milestone for new media.
“It’s just a blog. It’s just a tech blog,” Jarvis said. “But it’s powerful and has an important audience in a critical industry. So candidates are paying attention. That and 10Questions and the YouTube debates are evidence of a political process that’s just beginning to open up.
Next on TechCrunch’s list is Democrat John Edwards, but he apparently agreed to only a written question-and-answer session with the tech Web site. How very 20th century of him.