Bill HR 676 Health Care for all

The North Shore Labor Council is the one hundredthCentral Labor Council to endorse HR 676, single payer healthcarelegislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).Jeff Crosby, Council President, said: “We in Massachusetts have ampleexperience with the fraud of health-care ‘reform’ that claims to provideuniversal coverage without containing costs. The Massachusetts bill iscollapsing as we speak. And the only way to contain costs is to go afterthe drug companies and the insurance companies with a chain-saw. HR 676does that best.”

New Stimulus Package Legislation

In recent decades, signs of a slowdown are generally accompanied by calls for the Fed to cut rates and for Congress to pass what's usually called a stimulus package -- a special package of spending and tax measures meant to increase economic activity. The Congressional Budget Office defines the goal this way: "Fiscal stimulus aims to boost economic activity during periods of economic weakness by increasing short-term aggregate demand." The theory is that if more goods and services are being bought, whether it is cement for new highway projects or groceries paid for with a tax rebate, there would be less chance that falling demand will lead companies to lay off workers, which would lead to greater falls in demand and a deeper downturn.
Every time a stimulus package is proposed, the same sorts of issues are debated: Should there be one at all? How much should be done with added spending and how much with tax cuts or rebates, and for whom? After an economic downturn has passed, there is often a debate over how well-aimed or how timely the measures turned out to be. Many economists think the time lags involved in enacting a package can dilute the impact both of tax cuts and of fiscal stimulus; many others point to specific elements, like the tax rebates of 2001, that they think had a demonstrable positive effect.
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The fears over a possible recession that deveoped in late 2007 led to calls for a stimulus package from politicians of both parties. While Democrats and Republicans initially favored different approaches, the stock market's wild gyrations in January 2008 raised pressure for quick agreement. Democrats favored extended unemployment and food-stamp benefits and aid to states and municipalities, while Republicans pushed for tax breaks for businesses and for making President Bush's income-tax cuts permanent. Both sides agreed that there should be tax rebates or their equivalent for individuals and families, but Democrats sought to provide them for all workers, even those who earn too little to pay any income tax, while Republicans wanted them restricted to those who earned enough to pay the tax.
On Jan. 24, House leaders and the White House announced a preliminary deal that included stipends for all workers and breaks for business, but no money for extended unemployment or food-stamp assistance and no mention of permanent tax changes. -- Jan. 24, 2008
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