ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Sen. Barack Obama, reacting to the seventh straight month of job decline, announced a new version of his $50 billion economic stimulus plan, which would use a windfall profits tax on oil companies to finance $500 tax rebates and aid to state governments for energy cost assistance, school construction and infrastructure building.
The new plan reallocates funds announced in the $50 billion assistance plan Obama had pledged two months ago, as part of that plan -- an extension of unemployment insurance and a housing refinancing fund -- has been approved by Congress.
Obama aides and advisers were trying to show they can react quickly to an economic landscape that continues to slide downward. The Labor Department announced that employers shed 51,000 jobs in July, the seventh straight month of job losses which now total 463,000. The unemployment rate rose last month from 5.5 percent to 5.7 percent.
Those numbers elicited very different responses from the presidential candidates....
