Below The Beltway

The latest Gallup poll has more bad news for the President:
PRINCETON, NJ — At 36%, Americans give President Barack Obama his lowest job approval rating yet on his handling of the economy. By contrast, the president’s 51% approval rating on handling foreign affairs is up slightly from last month.
Gallup measured Americans’ ratings of the president [...]

Well, this was inevitable:
WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday voted to allow the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt – or about $6,000 more for every U.S. resident.
The measure, approved 217-212, would raise the cap on federal borrowing to $14.3 trillion. That’s enough to keep Congress from having to vote again before the [...]

Tomorrow, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will announce that job losses over the past year were 800,000 people higher than originally reported:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As bad as the government’s jobs readings numbers have been during the Great Recession, we’ll soon find out the real situation likely was worse.
Job losses during the recession may have [...]

Later today, President Obama will unveil his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2011 and it’s clear that any hope that he’s serious about reducing the budget deficit will go out the window:
President Barack Obama’s new $3.83 trillion budget—on its way to Congress Monday— anticipates an even worse deficit this year than last and no big [...]

Ordinarily, the reconfirmation of a sitting Federal Reserve Board Chairman would be fairly non-controversial.
These, however, are not ordinary times:
Amidst the voter anger at Wall Street and Washington, D.C., ABC News has learned that the Senate Democratic leadership isn’t sure there are enough votes to re-confirm Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal [...]

Wow:
The numbers below do NOT reflect the actual National Debt. Instead, they reflect the amount of the INCREASE in the National Debt during each presidential term.
> Ronald Reagan’s First Term – $656 billion increase
> Ronald Reagan’s Second Term – $1.036 trillion increase
> George H.W. Bush’s Term – $1.587 trillion increase
> Bill Clinton’s First Term [...]

A very interesting poll from Rasmussen:
Ben Bernanke begins the formal process tomorrow for confirmation to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, but 41% of Americans think President Obama should name someone new to the post.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 21% of adults believe the president should [...]

Well, this is no surprise:
WASHINGTON – The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.
The Commerce Department’s new reading on gross domestic product wasn’t as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September period estimated just a month ago.
The main [...]

And, yes Sarah Palin did support the TARP bailout.
These people walk among us, and they vote.