October 7, 2010

New Yorkers’ Income Falls for 1st Time in 70 Years

The recession put a 3.1 percent dent in the personal incomes of New York state residents, who endured their first full-year decline in more than 70 years, according to a report released Tuesday.

Paychecks or net earnings tumbled 5.4 percent, while dividends, interest and rent slid 8.4 percent, to a grand total of nearly $908 billion, the state comptroller’s report said.

Not only did New Yorkers’ personal incomes fall “almost twice” as much as they did in the nation as a whole, but they have yet to recover to pre-recession levels, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said.

October 6, 2010

Congressman Introduces Bill to Force Obama to Deploy at Least 10,000 National Guardsmen at Mexican Border

Rep. Ted Poe (R.-Texas), who served for 30 years as a Texas prosecutor and judge before being elected to Congress, introduced legislation last week designed to force President Barack Obama to deploy a minimum of 10,000 National Guard troops at the U.S. Mexico border for the specific purpose of patrolling the border and intercepting aliens and smugglers attempting to cross illegally into the United States.

The legislation would allow the president to deploy more than 10,000 National Guardsmen, but not fewer, and would leave the National Guard troops under the supervision of the governor in the border state where they are deployed.

“The president could put more than that, but he must put 10,000,” Poe told CNSNews.com. “The uniqueness of this is they would be paid by the federal government, because everybody says it is the responsibility of the federal government to protect the border. So the federal government will use the resources it already has to pay for those 10,000 National Guard troops, but they will be supervised by the governors of the four states on the border.”