Talk Show America  

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/10/26/100532.shtml?s=lh

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday the U.S. economy was pulling away from the shoals of a sharp housing-sector downturn and that the outlook for growth was "reasonably good."

"Most of the negatives in housing are probably behind us," Greenspan said at a conference sponsored by the Commercial Finance Association "The fourth quarter should be reasonably good, certainly better than the third quarter."

The government reports on third-quarter economic growth on Friday. After shooting ahead at a 5.6 percent annual clip at the start of the year, the economy advanced only 2.6 percent in the second quarter as home building took a dive.

Economists polled by Reuters expect the government report on third-quarter gross domestic product to show growth slowing further to a 2.2 percent pace.

However, many analysts think growth may revive in the current quarter as lower energy prices buoy consumers.

"There are early signs of stabilization," Greenspan said of the U.S. housing market, although he added: "It's not over."

"The evidence is that we're beginning to see a flattening in statistics for sales of new homes," he continued. "The rate of construction is well below the rate of purchases."

Greenspan, who retired from the Fed in January after more than 18 years at its helm, said the U.S. was "beginning to dig into the inventories of unsold new homes."

Bush Signs U.S.-Mexico Border Fence Bill

President Bush signed a bill Thursday authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting they're tough on illegal immigration.

"Unfortunately the United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades and therefore illegal immigration has been on the rise," Bush said at a signing ceremony.

"We have a responsibility to enforce our laws," he said. "We have a responsibility to secure our borders. We take this responsibility serious."

He called the fence bill "an important step in our nation's efforts to secure our borders."

The centerpiece of Bush's immigration policy, a guest worker program, remains stalled in Congress.

The measure Bush put into law Thursday before heading for campaign stops in Iowa and Michigan offers no money for the fence project covering one-third of the 2,100-mile border.

Its cost is not known, although a homeland security spending measure the president signed earlier this month makes a $1.2 billion down payment on the project. The money also can be used for access roads, vehicle barriers, lighting, high-tech equipment and other tools to secure the border.

Backlash on N.J. Ruling May Help GOP

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that ordered equal rights for same-sex couples was instantly hailed by gay-rights leaders, but it also energized their conservative adversaries, who predicted a backlash in their favor in the Nov. 7 congressional elections.

"This is a wake-up call for people who believe that marriage doesn't need constitutional protection," said Glen Lavy, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which has opposed same-sex marriage in numerous court cases across the U.S.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, called the ruling "a plus" on the premise it would stir up resentment of "arrogant judges" and boost conservative election prospects.

Eight states — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin — will be voting on constitutional amendments on Nov. 7 that would ban same-sex marriages and, in most cases, civil unions as well.

To conservative activists, the logic is that right-of-center voters, who may have felt alienated by events such as the teenage congressional assistants scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, will now be motivated to go to the polls. And those voters will be more inclined to pull the lever for Republican candidates in key races such as that of Republican Sen. George Allen in Virginia.

Gay rights leaders disagree, saying gay marriage is not as volatile an issue as it was in the 2004 election, which took place only months after the nation's first legal gay marriages in Massachusetts.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, noted that the New Jersey high court had given the state legislature 180 days to decide whether to offer same-sex couples marriage or some other form of partnership such as civil unions.

"The ability of the radical right to whip their base into a frenzy is limited," Solmonese said. "Voters are angry — they're looking for their leaders to talk about issues like the war in Iraq, and aren't having any part of throwing a group of Americans out there as a wedge issue."

Evan Wolfson, a gay-rights lawyer who heads Freedom to Marry, said the eight anti-gay marriage amendments likely would have passed even without the New Jersey ruling.

"It's always been an uphill fight to defeat any of these attack measures," he said. "I don't think today's ruling will make much difference. If we see margins of defeat smaller than before, that will be sign of progress."

Twenty states have previously passed constitutional amendments aimed at blocking gay marriage, mostly by large margins. But gay-rights activists have nurtured hopes of breaking that streak in one or more of the eight states with marriage ballot measures this year.

Hopes for an upset victory have been particularly high in Wisconsin, where a broad coalition of unions, church leaders, students and others has been opposing the proposed ban.

Mike Tate, campaign leader for the anti-ban group Fair Wisconsin, was hopeful that voters would not overreact to the New Jersey ruling.

"I don't think this decision is going to help the other side mobilize its base," he said. "They will try, but I don't think today changes one iota and one vote in Wisconsin."

However, Julaine Appling, head of the campaign advocating the marriage ban, said the court ruling only helped what she already considered a winning cause.

"At the expense of the people of New Jersey, this is the very best example of what our amendment is trying to prevent," she said. "This is a court redefining marriage without any input directly or indirectly from the people."

Matt Daniels, who as head of the Alliance for Marriage has been seeking a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage, said the New Jersey ruling would re-energize his cause — even if Democrats gain seats in Congress and thus diminish the prospects for such an amendment.

"We're not going to fold up our tents and go home," Daniels said. "This is going to be settled at the national level, one way or the other. We can't have a cohesive society if it's left to the option of the states."