Richard Copeland

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal's Kelly Evans delivered stark news to recent homeowners. She reported that "since house prices peaked in 2006, the average home equity loss is $105,000 per homeowner." Evans was reacting to the latest Case-Shiller report, which showed that between February and March, housing prices dropped in 18 out of 20 major metro areas. Driven in part by foreclosures, a glut of unsold homes and the reluctance of new purchases, many home prices reached their lowest level since the bubble burst in 2006.  

Midterm elections are now less than two months away, and this week President Obama’s agenda is all about the economy. In Milwaukee on Monday, the president said, “I am going to keep fighting, every single day, every single hour, every single minute, to turn this economy around, and put our people back to work.”

In Monday's speech, the president proposed a $50 billion plan to invest in infrastructure across the country—from roads to railways and runways—as well as an expansion of the tax credit for research and experimentation.

Today, in Cleveland, the president will give another speech on the economy, and one of the major initiatives he’s expected to propose would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their new investments in equipment and plants all at once—rather than over a number of years, which is how businesses can currently deduct investment expenses. The idea is that this would be an incentive for businesses to start immediately investing in goods they need, and hiring more workers.

Minority communities have been hit hardest by the recession, but they are receiving fewer of the stimulus project contracts doled out by the government.