SPRINGFIELD, Va. – President Barack Obama said Wednesday that heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar has informed him it will rehire some of the thousands of workers it has laid off in recent weeks if Congress passes an economic stimulus bill.

“The time for talk is passed,” Obama said.

The president’s travel to pitch the urgency of the stimulus plan was his third day in a row to leave Washington. On Thursday, he goes to Peoria, Ill., to visit a Caterpillar manufacturing plant.

The world’s largest maker of mining and construction machinery announced more than 22,000 job cuts last month amid waning demand for its products.

But Obama said the company told him Wednesday it would hire back some of those workers if the legislation passes. As House and Senate negotiators worked to reconcile differences between competing versions of the legislation, Obama spoke during a visit to a highway construction site here just outside of Washington.

“You don’t need to travel very far from that debate to see why this plan is both urgent and essential for our recovery,” he said.

With bulldozers visible behind him, Obama aimed – as he has all week – to build momentum by demonstrating real-world consequences of both the economic downturn and provisions in the bill aimed at helping create jobs and rejuvenate the economy.

As an example of a shovel-ready project that could get a jump-start from the bill, Obama cited an unfinished stretch of the Fairfax County Parkway connector. It serves the new east campus of National Geospatial Agency and is seen as key to easing horrible traffic congestion. The project’s initial phases are under way but more money is needed to finish it.

“We’re surrounded by unmet needs and unfinished business – in our schools and in our schools and our roads, in the systems we employ to treat the sick, in the energy we use to power our homes,” Obama said. “And that’s the core of my plan, putting people to work doing the work that America needs done.”

Obama also traveled to Indiana and Florida this week to pitch the stimulus plan.

“So much depends on what we do at this moment,” the president said. “It’s not just about the future of my administration. It’s about the future of our economy and our country.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Kay R. Hagan (D-N.C.) released the following statement in reaction to an Associated Press investigation that found “major U.S. banks sought permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs, even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off.”

“The AP report that U.S. banks increased their applications to hire foreign workers for high-paying jobs in positions such as senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists, at the same time they were announcing massive layoffs, is a cause for concern. Based on the unfortunate layoffs we have seen week-after-week in the banking industry, it stands to reason that American banks should not have trouble finding experienced, well-qualified American workers. At a time when banks are receiving billions in taxpayer dollars, any new hiring they do should be concentrated on that pool of those American workers who already live in their local communities.”

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina has paid out so much in unemployment benefits that it may have to borrow from the federal government as early as next week to keep benefits flowing, an official said.

Deputy commission chairman David Clegg said the unemployment insurance fund had dropped to little more than $16 million Monday because more people can’t find jobs, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Tuesday.
  
North Carolina has a $540 million credit line with the federal government. The state would have until October to repay the money without paying interest.
 
“We’re making the same type of decisions that any large corporation on this planet makes,” Clegg said. “You just have to make these decisions. This is not a time to get squeamish. You just forge ahead.”

The state paid $160 million in unemployment benefits in December.

North Carolina has nearly 400,000 unemployed workers. The jobless rate was 8.7 percent in December, the highest since 1983.
  
Clegg says not only are more people without jobs, but it’s taking them longer to find work.

State officials are processing $100 million in quarterly unemployment tax payments from about 200,000 businesses that will be used to pay benefits. Clegg said the state still may need to borrow from the federal credit line.

North Carolina last tapped the credit line in 2002.

If the state can’t repay the loan by fall, it would issue special tax anticipation notes to borrow money. Clegg said the state also will get more tax payments in April and July, noting that April usually is the largest.

Federal economic stimulus payments also may help the unemployment fund, he said

“I think they’re going to enhance unemployment insurance benefits because it’s the fastest way to get money into the economy,” Clegg said.

WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats say it nearly every day: Their huge economic stimulus package must be rushed to passage because it will create or save 3 million to 4 million jobs.

In fact, those figures are uncertain enough that even some economists who produced them are basically saying: We gave it our best shot.

“The models are based on historic experience,” said Mark Zandi, referring to formulas he and other economists use to predict economic behavior. “And we’re outside anything we’ve experienced historically. We’re completely in a world we don’t understand and know.”

Zandi is chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com of West Chester, Pa. His projection last week that the House-passed stimulus measure would create 3 million jobs by the end of 2010 – scaled down from a 4 million estimate he made days earlier – have been cited repeatedly by Democrats as justification for the $819 billion legislation.
  
“Yes, there’s a high level of uncertainty,” said Zandi, a Democrat who advised Republican presidential candidate John McCain last year. “But my estimates are as good as you’re going to get, and they’re good enough to be useful in trying to evaluate whether we should do this or not.”

Democrats also frequently cite an early January estimate by two economists working for Obama. Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, now top White House economic advisers, said a plan roughly similar to the House-passed version would yield 3.3 million to 4.1 million jobs by late 2010 that wouldn’t otherwise exist – but added a catch.

“There is considerable uncertainty in our estimates,” their report said, warning that the package’s impact on the economy and job creation “are hard to estimate precisely.”

Separately, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office – lawmakers’ official fiscal analyst – estimates that by the end of 2010, the House bill would mean 1.2 million to 3.6 million additional jobs.

The economists’ caution highlights the difficulty of gauging how the stimulus would affect an ailing but still huge $14 trillion economy that is shedding 500,000 jobs a month.

There’s little doubt the measure – which could grow to $900 billion when the Senate completes its version soon – would help ease unemployment from its sheer size alone. The question is: By how much?

To answer that, economists generally use a two-step process.
 
First they project how much the legislation would make the economy grow. Then they predict how many jobs that growth would create.

The second part is less complicated because economists tend to rely on rules of thumb. The White House, for example, assumed that each 1 percent increase in the economy’s size would produce 1 million jobs.

The initial calculation – how much will the stimulus make the economy grow – is tougher. To make it, economists rely on a mix of facts and assumptions.
 
They know how much money the House bill contains: $30 billion for road construction, $87 billion to help states pay for Medicaid, $145 billion for $500-per-worker tax breaks, and other components.

From there, though, they make educated guesses, based partly on economic data compiled over many decades.

How quickly will federal agencies spend their stimulus money? Will state and local governments use their shares to avoid firing workers, provide services, cut taxes or as nest eggs? When will people receive tax cuts, and will they spend or save them? How much economic growth does a dollar spent on road-building produce, compared to a dollar used to extend unemployment benefits?
 
In many instances, economists have slightly different answers, which translate to bigger differences when they produce their job estimates.

“One of the biggest problems for these models is, are you drawing the right conclusions from the past” about future behavior, said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for Global Insight of Lexington, Mass. “Or are there ways in which things have changed in the world?”

Benefit payments, such as aid to the poor, and tax cuts can move quickly to people. Government purchases of goods and services can take longer, especially construction projects which can take years to complete.

But generally, economists consider government spending more reliable than tax cuts for creating jobs. That’s because people and businesses sometimes save part or all of their tax cuts instead of spending them, especially if money is tight.

Underscoring how delicate these projections are, on Jan. 21 Zandi predicted the House bill would create 4 million jobs, based on assumptions that all its money would be spent by the end of 2010.

Days later, the Congressional Budget Office projected that more than one-third of the bill’s spending and tax cuts would not occur until after 2010. In response, Zandi dropped his job creation estimate to 3 million.

WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama’s last campaign was all about winning the presidency. Now his political supporters are throwing election-style house parties across the country to try to get people behind his economic stimulus plan.

Obama’s Organizing for America chief Mitch Stewart sent an e-mail to part of the group’s e-mail list and urged them to tell their neighbors about the president’s plan to save or create more than 3 million jobs. It’s an early test for the ability of a network of political supporters to deliver Obama’s re-election in 2012.

“Join thousands of people across the country who are coming together to watch a special video about the recovery plan,” Stewart wrote in an e-mail many supporters received Friday. “Invite your friends and neighbors to watch the video with you and have a conversation about your community’s economic situation.”

The e-mail message carefully avoided any specific action: no phone calls to lawmakers, no e-mails to opinion-makers, no letters to the editor. Obama and his aides have been clear that the organization shouldn’t be considered an advocacy group for the White House’s policy agenda.

Instead, aides say, next week’s house parties would keep millions of Obama’s grass-roots volunteers engaged.

Obama’s $825 billion economic bill passed easily in the Democratic-controlled House even though it failed to garner a single Republican vote. It looks to be on solid ground as it heads toward a Senate debate; Vice President Joe Biden says some Republicans will support it and take it to victory.

By having Obama’s millions-strong organization linked to the legislation, supporters would enjoy a sense of victory even if their actions play no role in passing the bill. It also is a way to test the organization’s data management tools, which during the campaign to track specific voters.

Obama used an extensive grass-roots organization to reach fundraising records and the White House. In recent weeks he pairedan independent campaign organization with the Democratic Party to push his agenda with an eye toward re-election in 2012.

The two groups operate separately, keeping with a theme of post-partisan rhetoric that has been part of the new administration’s work.

“The president’s plan passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday. But if it’s going to move forward, we need to avoid the usual partisan games,” Stewart wrote. “That’s why supporters are opening their homes to talk with neighbors and friends about how the plan will work – and what it means for their community.”
 
On the group’s Web site, it posted an interactive map that promises a 329,550 jobs saved or created in Florida; 171,750 in Ohio; 158,190 in Michigan – all three swing states.

By using his Organizing for America as a political bully, Obama will be able to keep his hands nominally clean of any messy lobbying of Congress. He’ll be able to attribute it to his supporters.

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina Reps. David Price and Brad Miller said an $819 billion stimulus bill working through Congress will save or create about 130,000 North Carolina jobs in the months ahead.

The two lawmakers spoke about the measure Thursday at an Employment Security Commission center in Raleigh.

The stimulus plan that passed the U.S. House on Wednesday night would send more than $4 billion to North Carolina over about two years. Nearly $2 billion would go to North Carolina’s state government to prevent big layoffs as Raleigh struggles with a budget hole reaching into the billions.

Almost $1 billion would fund North Carolina transportation and infrastructure projects, but that’s the bottom when compared to state populations.

Barack Obama’s official 2008 presidential campaign Web site lists the revitalization of transportation infrastructure, improved public transportation and transportation planning, and safeguarding transportation from terrorism as primary transportation goals.

Among the details:
•Add new jobs through new national infrastructure investment that would infuse $60 billion over 10 years to provide infrastructure financing.
•Direct the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to restore morale and improve working conditions and operations.
•Appoint an FAA administrator who “will not play politics” with the safety of American travelers.
• Reform Amtrak to improve accountability and fight for Amtrak funding so the nation has safe and reliable transportation options.
•Renew the federal government‘s commitment to high-speed rail so the nation’s transportation infrastructure supports, not hinders, economic growth.
•Examine how to bring mass transportation to areas in which three-fourths of welfare recipients are poorly served by public transportation and low-income workers spend up to 36 percent of their income on transportation.
•Create effective public transportation systems and modernize the aging urban public transportation infrastructure.
•Create greater public transit usage incentives by reforming the tax code to make benefits for driving and public transit or ride-sharing equal.
•Re-evaluate the funding process to ensure residents can walk, bicycle and have access to alternatives to auto transportation.
•Require states to plan for energy conservation as a condition to receive federal transportation dollars.
•Develop a meaningful database for homeland security planning to replace the current one that lists 77,069 potential U.S. targets, including petting zoos and popcorn factories.
•Bolster airport security and safeguard mass transportation.

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama promoted an economic plan Saturday he said would create 2.5 million jobs by rebuilding roads and bridges and modernizing schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.
     
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This economic situation happened before, and the WPA was the answer.