Economy -- Jobless Rate Drops from 5.1 to 5.0 Percent: The economy lost only 20,000 jobs, far fewer than in recent months, and the unemployment rate fell from 5.1 to 5.0 percent in April. Roughly 250,000 jobs were lost in the first quarter of the year. Construction companies slashed 61,000 positions in April. Manufacturers cut 46,000 and retailers got rid of 27,000. Those losses were eclipsed by job gains in education and health care, professional and business services, the government and elsewhere. Bloomberg. Budget Resolution -- Spratt Says Conference Report Imminent: On the strength of this week's Blue Dog Coalition decision not to insist on an AMT/PAYGO reconciliation instruction, House Budget Committee chair Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) said yesterday that "[t]he single most significant [budget resolution] issue remaining is NDD, non-defense discretionary spending. There's a difference between us of about $3.6 billion... If we don't have [a budget] done by the end of next week it will be [early] the following week." Most observers had been pessimistic as recently as this week, with one notable exception. "Gas Tax Holiday is DOA" -- The Hill: House Democratic leaders have made clear that the gas tax holiday proposal is dead on arrival in that chamber. In explaining why she plans to omit the idea from the energy package that she may try to add to the supplemental Iraq war-spending bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said "there's no reason to believe that any moratorium on the gas tax would be passed on to the consumer." UPI Story.