Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spent the last two days testifying before Congress on the state of the U.S. economy. During his appearance before the House Financial Services Committee today, Bernanke noted that the economy is still recovering quite slowly:

The pace of economic recovery appears to have slowed during the first half of this year, with real gross domestic product (GDP) likely having risen at only a modest pace. In the labor market, the rate of job gains has diminished recently, and, following a period of improvement, the unemployment rate has been little changed at an elevated level since January.

But Bernanke then added that the Fed is not really going to do anything about it, even though it’s mandated to strive for full employment:

In its [most recent] statement, the [Federal Open Markets Committee] noted that it was prepared to take further action as appropriate to promote stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor market conditions in a context of price stability.

This is, sadly, nothing new. As economist Chad Stone showed in U.S. News & World Report, the Fed has consistently failed in its obligation to fight unemployment:

The Economist opined that Bernanke “ought to be brimming with apologies for such a miserable performance.” Slate’s Matt Yglesias added, “it’s not that the economy is slowing down and then separately he’s considering what to do about it. Demand growth is slowing because he and his colleagues are refusing to stabilize it.”

Center for American Progress Action Fund economist Adam Hersh explained earlier this week that there are at least six things that the Fed could do to help boost the economy. Meanwhile, Republicans are actively trying to get Bernanke to swear that he won’t do anything else to spark employment growth.

Our guest blogger is Katie Wright, a Research Associate with the Half in Ten campaign at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today, the House Republican bill that funds labor, health and education programs for the next fiscal year was considered by an appropriations subcommittee. Unfortunately, like the House Republican budget that it’s based on, this bill makes deep cuts to important programs and illustrates the House GOP’s upside-down priorities.

Overall, the bill slashes funding for the programs under the jurisdiction of the committee by $6.8 billion compared to fiscal year 2012. To make matters worse, the cuts and damaging legislative riders contained in the bill will fall disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor and disadvantaged. Here are the three worst ideas in the House Labor, Health, and Education funding bill:

1) Decimating the Corporation for National and Community Service. The bill cuts nearly three quarters ($777.4 million) of the funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans each year in citizen service and has enjoyed bipartisan congressional support. This staggering cut would end successful community improvement programs like Americorps, VISTA, the Social Innovation Fund and the National Civilian Community Corps. Not only do national service programs strengthen nonprofit partners and communities around the country, they also provide an important pathway into civic life for veterans newly-returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

2) Prohibiting home health aides from getting the wages and benefits they deserve. As the baby boomer generation ages, providing quality home care has become increasingly important. But home health aides often do backbreaking work for low-wages with few benefits. A troubling legislative rider on this bill would make it harder to push for a regulation that would extend minimum wage and overtime protections to these workers.

3) Making it more difficult for those in underserved communities to access healthy food. The House GOP uses this bill to take a political cheap shot at the White House by prohibiting funds from being used to implement the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. Championed by Michelle Obama, the initiative leverages the proven work of public and private nonprofits, agencies, and businesses in providing affordable, healthy food options to those in “food deserts” without easy access to a grocery store. Without access to affordable healthy foods, low-income Americans in underserved communities are forced to purchase cheap, empty calories or go hungry, which can contribute to poor health and educational outcomes in children over the long-term.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the House GOP doesn’t stop there. The bill contains ideologically-based riders which prevent funds from being used to implement the Affordable Care Act and prohibit funding for Planned Parenthood, which is used to provide services such as breast and cervical cancer screenings for underserved women. Among other problematic provisions, it would eliminate programs designed to better outcomes for students in low-performing schools, while quadrupling funding for abstinence education.

This bill would pull the rug out from under millions of families trying to make ends meet. With more than 103 million Americans scraping by on low incomes today, the House GOP should invest, not cut, in programs that expand economic opportunity and create shared prosperity for all.

Representative Steve King (R-IA), who is the sponsor of an amendment to the House Farm Bill that is both astonishingly hypocritical and devastating to food safety laws that protect millions of Americans from illness, recently gave an interview to the Daily Caller to brag about what he had accomplished. The King Amendment would essentially prevent states from developing strong independent health, safety, and cruelty standards, even if local voters want them.

This isn’t an unintended consequence — King told the Daily Caller that his amendment “fixes the states and their political subdivisions regulating food production everywhere in America.” However, King might want to reconsider that position, as his amendment would legalize several horrific farming and food practices that some states have chosen to do away with:

• Florida, Ohio, and seven other states have banned confining pregnant pigs in cages that prevent them from moving their limbs or walking in a circle. Pigs confined in so-called gestation crates are forced to defecate where they stand, exposed to serious risk of traumatic injury as a consequence of immobility, and develop sores as a consequence of attempting to move against or bite the bars the bars that confine them. They live their whole lives like this.
• Seven states have banned similar confinement for baby calves. So-called veal creates are designed to atrophy muscles to improve the taste of meat, creating what the ASPCA calls “lives of agony and frustration” for the cows until they are slaughtered at four or five months.
• Three states have banned tail-docking, wherein parts of cows tails are lopped off, occasionally without anesthetic. The American Veterinary Medical Association opposes tail docking as unnecessary and highly painful.
• Maryland prohibits adding arsenic to chicken feed, which – besides the obvious problems – also spreads the poison into the surrounding soil.

King, though, brags that his legislation “wipes out everything they’ve [animal rights advocates] done with pork and veal.” Indeed, King has a long record of opposing animal welfare law — he has, for example, been Congress’ leading advocate against anti-dogfighting legislation. He also believes that the Humane Society and other animal rights advocates are attempting to ban “production agriculture” and has fantasized about exposing vegetarians with “an agenda for our diets” on the House floor.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was quick to denounce the welfare reform waiver plan announced by the Obama administration last week. But in 2005, he was one of a half-dozen prominent Republican governors who supported such waivers.

The administration’s plan would provide states with more flexibility to manage their state welfare programs under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the welfare reform package instituted in 1996. Republicans accused the administration of attempting to “gut” welfare reform with the waivers, and Romney agreed. “President Obama now wants to strip the established work requirements from welfare. The success of bipartisan welfare reform, passed under President Clinton, has rested on the obligation of work. The President’s action is completely misdirected. Work is a dignified endeavor, and the linkage of work and welfare is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life,” Romney said.

But in 2005, Romney’s signature appeared on a letter from the Republican Governor’s Association to congressional leadership. The letter states explicit support for welfare waivers:

The Senate bill provides states with with the flexibility to manage their TANF programs and effectively serve their low-income populations. Increased waiver authority, allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit and the ability to coordinate state programs are all important aspects of moving recipients from welfare to work.

As ThinkProgress has noted, other Republican administrations in Utah and Nevada still support the waiver program, which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says will actually increase welfare’s ability to transition welfare recipients into employment programs.

For the London Summer Olympics, which start ten days from now, several corporations have been given an exemption from collecting the UK’s corporate income tax. Foreign corporations that are acting as the game’s sponsors — including BP, Coca-Cola, and Visa– will benefit from what is essentially a temporary tax haven.

But at least one eligible company says it will forego the tax break, following pressure from activists:

McDonald’s has bowed to an online campaign and declined an Olympic tax break, just days before the start of the Games. [...]

McDonald’s made clear that the cost of turning down the break would be minimal, as revenue from the Games would be less than 0.1% of its annual sales in the UK. It said in a statement: “We will not be making any corporate income tax exemption claim with respect to any activity concerning our involvement with the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

The organization 38 Degrees collected more than 150,000 signatures against the tax break. “It’s working! McDonald’s have said they won’t be taking the tax break – but please sign the petition to keep pressure on the other sponsors,” the organization said in a statement.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that the tax giveaway will cost the UK “tens of millions of pounds” in lost revenue. “We’re giving money away that we need to solve our debt crisis and to preserve essential public services,” said the Tax Justice Network’s Richard Murphy.

Meanwhile, London will also be paying for 300 enforcement officers to ensure that none of the corporate sponsor’s copyrights are violated.

Congress is considering legislation that would permit states to impose a tax on internet retailers based out of state, closing the so-called “Amazon Loophole,” which allows online stores like Amazon to avoid collecting sales tax from their customers, giving them an unfair advantage over brick-and-mortar shops. Currently, states cannot require online retailers to collect sales taxes unless the companies have a physical presence in the state.

More than a dozen Republican governors and Congressional lawmakers support the measure, including Govs. Chris Christie (NJ) and Mitch Daniels (IN). But one prominent Tea Party senator is raising concerns, arguing that the bill could lead to federal control of the Internet. During an interview with WMAL Wednesday morning, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) warned that supporters of the tax proposal are naive in not seeing the looming takeover:

DeMINT: To involve the federal government, particularly in something that’s working as well as the Internet and particularly when it involves the collection of taxes and telling one state what it has to do for another. I just think given what’s happening here at the federal level now — the takeover of health care, the banking business. People would be very naive to not think that we would end up in a few years with the federal government running the Internet.

Listen:

The bill would impose a sales tax of five-to-ten percent and could raise as much as $23 billion in additional revenue for cash-strapped states.