Democratic News Chatter 4-2-2009

George Wenschhof Bio

Today, President Barack Obama attends the G-20 economic summit - this comes after a busy day yesterday with major announcements pertaining to meetings with the leaders of Russia and China. Included in the day was a meeting ad press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and of course, a meeting with the Queen.

The G-20 is expected to reach some agreements today. One area will be to increase funds to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF helps those countries who are struggling financially. You can read more on the areas of agreement expected here.

Early action on Wall Street is positive today with gains of 200 on the Dow Jones. Bloomberg.com has more here.

At the conclusion of the summit, the president is expected to hold a press conference today at 12:45 PM ET

--------------------

Meanwhile, unemployment figures in the U.S. are the highest in 26 years - the Labor Department released the increase in claims and indicated this was the highest since the 1982 recession. The Wall Street journal has more of their report here.

--------------------

Obama's 3.55 trillion budget should receive a positive vote in the House and Senate today - this would be to move it forward to a final vote expected later this month. You can read more here. Democratic Leaders have not ruled out using a parliamentary move called budget reconciliation which would allow them to by-pass any potential filibuster in the Senate over specifics in health care legislation.

--------------------

NY District 20 special election gets even closer - the 65 vote lead Democrat Scott Murphy had yesterday is now 25 votes over Republican Jim Tedisco. This is sure to change again as a final tally is made of the votes and close to 6000 absentee ballots are counted. Over 154,000 votes were cast. Politico.com has more here.

--------------------

Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) continues slide in popularity - it seemed just yesterday the chair of the Senate Banking committee was running for president. The revelations of favorable mortgages being provided to him did not help him in the early days of the financial meltdown. Recently, his actions to insert language in the stimulus bill to allow AIG to pay bonuses has only added to his downfall. His reelection in 2010 looks bleak at the moment and in recent polls, he is trailing every potential Republican candidate. TheHill.com has more here.

--------------------

To receive "Daily Updates" from Air-it-Out with George Wenschhof, click on "Subscribe to this feed" below.