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President Obama pressed Congress to act swiftly on a stimulus package during a town hall meeting yesterday in Elkhart, Indiana. Speaking in a city hard hit severely by unemployment in the manufacturing center, Obama promised that his plan would help save or create three million to four million jobs over the next two years. Despite major opposition from the Republicans, the $800 billion stimulus package passed a Senate test-vote yesterday, a preview of today’s actual vote. As the nation’s economy continues to deepen further into recession, job losses reported for the month of January plummeted in the sharpest decline since 1974. The Conference Board, a research group, suggested that the shedding of 598,000 jobs last month is indicative of a trend that will persist in the U.S. economy in the immediate months to come. President Obama, attentive to the news of ever-increasing unemployment, set a deadline for the Senate to deliver a bill to his desk by this weekend. However, some economists have been critical of recent compromised changes in the stimulus package that reduced the amount of money allocated for infrastructure spending as well as for transfers to local and state governments. In addition, a provision calling for a one-year so-called patch on the alternative minimum tax was also adopted. Whatever bill reaches President Obama this weekend; questions remain as to whether or not it will be sufficient to pull the economy out of its current recession. This is some of what President Obama said in his opening remarks at the press conference yesterday:

While thousands of Americans are being laid off, the income gap between corporate CEOs and ordinary workers remains ridiculously high. While some corporations are now selling off their corporate jet fleets, they are doing so in response to intense popular anger, an attempt to salvage their image. Today we examine the power, influence, and anatomy of the modern corporation, in light of the economic downturn. If the modern corporation is treated as a “person” according to American legal jurisprudence, what kind of person would it be? This is the question that a documentary called “The Corporation,” asks. Created by the people who made “Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media,” this documentary reveals how the modern corporation, because of its quest for profits at all costs, even if it involves mistreating workers, violating laws, and putting unsafe products on the market, has all the markers of a clinical psychopath. Featuring Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn, Milton Friedman, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Maude Barlow, Jeremy Rifkin, and even an array of corporate CEOs and spokespeople, this two DVD set is our thankyou gift to you for a pledge of $150 to KPFK.