Economic Growth

Patuxent River Appreciation Days focus attention on Maryland's largest intrastate river and its impact on the local culture, history and economic growth. This year's 14th annual event takes place Saturday and next Sunday on the grounds of the Calvert Marine Museum, on Route 2 in Solomons.Attractions will include boat rides, entertainment, arts and crafts vendors, children's boat building, Southern Maryland food, environmental demonstrations, seafood cooking demonstrations with a parade at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Constellation Energy Group announced Monday a $36 million contribution by Electricite de France to the company's foundation. The donation fulfills a commitment made within the nuclear joint venture agreement with the French company, which closed in November. In addition, Constellation will increase its charitable giving to one percent or more of its annual operating income, according to the announcement. The Constellation Energy Group Foundation supports programs and makes grants to nonprofit organizations in four focus areas: energy, education, economic growth and the environment.

At last, I can say I finally enjoyed reading one of former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s columns. He demonstrated that he learned something (between football practices) about economics and sociology at the prestigious Ivy League university he attended ("The fight to win over the middle class," Sept 16). Rather than regurgitating the week's Republican drivel, he seems to actually be able to provide some original analysis by defining the characteristics of the middle class of the past and today.

A measure of U.S. mortgage applications fell for the first time in three weeks as home purchases and refinancing declined. The Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday that its gauge of loan demand dropped 4.4 percent to 575. The purchase index decreased 4.2 percent to 435.4. The measure of homebuying reached a record 501.6 in January. Economic growth and signs of accelerating inflation have pushed up market interest rates. Higher mortgage rates may start to restrain demand after home sales reached a record level in May, said David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

For the first time in three years, fall is not bringing a powerful burst of growth to the U.S. economy. It is a decisive sign, many economists, government officials and business executives say, that the strongest days of the recovery from the 1991 recession may be in the past."

WASHINGTON -- Congressional lawmakers clashed bitterly yesterday over the best way to stimulate the economy, with the Republican-led House passing tax cuts on capital gains and dividends and some Democrats arguing that the vote favored the rich and ignored more critical needs. The House voted 234-197 to approve a $56 billion measure to extend capital gains and dividend tax cuts for two more years, until 2010. The extension would leave the tax rate on investment gains at 15 percent. The bill would also allow people to deduct state and local sales tax from their federal income taxes, and it would expand the brownfields program to allow deductions for cleaning up sites contaminated by petroleum products.

WASHINGTON -- The economy roared back from a midyear slump by growing at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the final three months of 2006, the government reported yesterday. The economy opened last year on a strong note, growing at a 5.6 percent pace, the fastest spurt in 2 1/2 years. But it lost steam to a 2.6 percent pace during the spring and declined to about 2 percent last summer. Nevertheless, inflation fell from an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the third quarter to 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said.

WASHINGTON -- Junk the current tax code. Eliminate the Internal Revenue Service. Create a tax system that is fair to everyone and encourages investment, saving and entrepreneurial capitalism.Such is the plan of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, created with private funds at the behest of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.For more than 50 years we have been subsidizing behaviors we once discouraged, such as sloth and indolence, irresponsibility, unaccountability and sexual promiscuity.

NEW YORK - Ending a four-day rally, the euro fell against the dollar yesterday on concern that the European Central Bank's decision to raise interest rates more than expected could hurt economic growth Europe's 11-nation currency had rallied as much as one U.S. cent after the central bank lifted rates by half a percentage point - double what economists forecast. "After the initial euphoria, the market started to worry this might stifle some of the economic upswing in some of the countries in Europe," said Per Norr, a trader at Den norske Bank.

YOUR OCT. 13 lead editorial, "High marks for GOP Medicare plan," is deserving of an immediate critical response and a failing grade based on any reasonable measurement criteria.Of course Medicare needs reform -- but so does the entire health-care system, as you acknowledge.The GOP plan for Medicare, as well as many other GOP plans that you have opposed, fails not only the Medicare participants of today but those of the future as well. In fact, the existence of Medicare itself is threatened and only because I believe it to be the underlying objective of the GOP contractors (with America, of course)