Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-seven. Sunrise is 7:12 AM and sunset 6:56 PM, for 11h 44m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 20.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the eight hundred fifty-second day.
Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1941, Pres. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act:
The Lend-Lease policy, formally titled An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, (Pub.L. 77–11, H.R. 1776, 55 Stat. 31, enacted March 11, 1941)[1] was an American program to defeat Germany, Japan and Italy by distributing food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945. The aid went to the United Kingdom, China, and later the Soviet Union, Free France, and other Allied nations. It included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry.
Recommended for reading in full:
David Leonhardt writes The Experts Keep Getting the Economy Wrong:
President Trump likes to brag about the supposedly booming economy. So do other Republican politicians. Some journalists have gotten into the habit too, exaggerating the strength of the economic expansion, because it makes for a good story.
Here’s the truth: There is no boom. The economy has been mired in an extended funk since the financial crisis ended in 2010. G.D.P. growth still has not reached 3 percent in any year, and 3 percent isn’t a very high bar.
Last week, while attending an economics conference in Washington, I discovered one particularly clear sign of the economy’s struggles — namely, that it keeps performing worse than the experts have predicted. I put together this chart to show the trend:
Again and again, Federal Reserve officials have overestimated how quickly the economy would grow. They keep having to revise their forecasts downward, only to discover that they didn’t go far enough down. Economists on Wall Street and other parts of the private sector have made the same mistake.
Rebecca Shabad reports House passes Democratic ethics and election law overhaul bill:
The 444-page bill was the first priority of the House Democratic agenda, which includes efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs and craft an infrastructure package.
To make it easier to vote, the new bill proposes a range of reforms such as requiring that states institute automatic voter registration for eligible unregistered citizens and requiring at least 15 days of early voting across the country. It would also prohibit voter roll purges and ensure that people who have completed felony sentences can vote again.
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The Democratic proposal would also expand a conflict of interest law and divestment requirements for public officials. The bill would require presidential candidates and the president to disclose their tax returns, and it would prevent members of Congress from serving on corporate boards, among other things.