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Why Keep Geithner?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

MSNBC - By Dylan Ratigan - Nov. 02 (News Analysis) - A year ago it was revealed to the American people that our banking system was a legalized Ponzi scheme in which bank and insurance CEOs paid themselves billions of dollars in personal compensation to lend and insure assets with money they didn't have

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Analysis Sees Baucus Bill Meeting Obama’s Cost and Deficit Targets

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David M. Herszenhorn, Robert Pear - Oct. 07 (News Report) - The cost analysis is in: the Senate Finance Committee’s health care legislation, as amended during seven days of debate, would cost a projected $829 billion over 10 years, up from $774 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And it would reduce the future federal deficit by $81 billion, up from an earlier projected deficit reduction of $49 billion. That would seem to be good news for Democrats and the White House. President Obama has insisted that the health care bill not add to the deficit and that the total price tag be held to about $900 billion. The Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, was on the Senate floor almost immediately, hailing the results. In its analysis, the budget office found that by 2019 the bill would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 29 million, leaving about 25 million people uninsured — of whom one-third would be illegal immigrants. This means that the amended bill would cover roughly the same number of people over 10 years as was initially projected despite numerous changes, including some softening of penalties for people who fail to obtain health insurance as required under the legislation. In all, the proportion of Americans with health insurance is expected to rise to 94 percent from 83 percent, the budget office said in its report.

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Populist Vein Resurfaces in Protests

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Gerald F. Seib - Sep. 15 (News Analysis) - ea Party Patriots and like-minded brethren represent the latest resurfacing of a vein that has always been there and that simply goes below ground from time to time. This vein is populist and antiestablishment; it alternates between suspicion of government in general, and anger at the idea that government seems to be doing more to help fat cats or the other guy. In some fashion or another, it has been around since the time George Washington quelled the Whiskey Rebellion.

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Good Billions After Bad

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele - Sep. 11 (Special Report) - As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system—without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. The authors reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed.

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Biden ignores problems with stimulus

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Brett J. Blackledge - Sep. 04 (News Analysis) - ... his glowing assessment overlooks many of the program's problems, including delays in releasing money, questionable spending priorities and project picks that are under investigation.

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Federal Government Needs Massive Hiring Binge, Study Finds

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Steve Vogel - Sep. 03 (News Report) - The numbers also reflect the Obama administration's intent to take on several enormous challenges, including the repair of the financial sector, fighting two wars, and addressing climate change. "It has to win the war for talent in order to win theThe federal government needs to hire more than 270,000 workers for "mission-critical" jobs over the next three years, a surge prompted in part by the large number of baby-boomer federal workers reaching retirement age, according to the results of a government-wide survey being released Thursday.

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Privatized welfare plan price swells ::

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Aug. 22 (News Report) - Indiana will spend nearly $180 million more than it initially planned to privatize and automate many of its welfare functions just two years into a closely watched 10-year deal that is one of the most lucrative contracts in state history. The cost of the $1.16 billion contract Gov. Mitch Daniels signed in late 2006 has risen 15 percent, to $1.34 billion, under changes made to the agreement with a group led by Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp.

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Pinched States Wrestle With More Cuts

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Leslie Eaton - Jul. 30 (News Report) - Just a few weeks after many states struggled to balance their budgets for the new fiscal year, plunging tax revenues are forcing more cuts.

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TARP watchdog cites lack of transparency in Obama administration

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Tom Hamburger, Peter Nicholas - Jul. 23 (News Report) - As the watchdog of the government's massive bailout of the financial sector, Neil M. Barofsky had a simple question: What had the nation's banks done with all their bailout money?

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Governors on the Front Lines of Battle With a Struggling Economy

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dan Balz - Jul. 19 (News Report) - These are grim days for governors. Here's one example: Offered an invitation to spend a weekend on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico at the annual meeting of the National Governors Association, more than half the nation's governors politely declined. Budget issues have kept some governors at home, including the chairman of the NGA, Pennsylvania's Edward G. Rendell (D). He decided it wasn't wise to leave his state on the first "payless payday" for state workers. "Not a very good move for me to go down to Biloxi," he said by telephone. The governor of the hardest-hit state, California's Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), is also a no-show because he is struggling with his legislature to close a $26 billion budget deficit. Legislative leaders reported Saturday that after two weeks of hard negotiations, they were moving toward a solution. Meanwhile, the state has been issuing IOUs in lieu of payment.

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Budget Blow for Health Plan

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Greg Hitt - Jul. 17 (News Report) - Congress's chief budget scorekeeper cast a new cloud over Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation's health-care system, telling lawmakers Thursday that the main proposals being considered would fail to contain costs -- one of the primary goals -- and could actually worsen the problem of rapidly escalating medical spending.

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Budget umpire: Healthcare bills would raise costs

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Jul. 17 (News Report) - Democrats' healthcare bills won't meet President Barack Obama's goal of slowing the ruinous rise of medical costs, Congress' budget umpire warned today, giving weight to critics who say the legislation could break the bank.

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Transportation Stimulus Gives Short Shrift to Cities

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Michael Cooper, Griff Palmer - Jul. 09 (Special Report) - A New York Times analysis of 5,274 projects found that metropolitan areas were getting less than half of the federal transportation stimulus money.

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In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Set Limits?

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Alec MacGillis - Jul. 08 (News Analysis) - In U.S. "rationing" remains a dirty word, but who will say "no" remains the ultimate question.How will tough decisions be made about what to spend money on? In a country where "rationing" is a dirty word, who will say no? The question permeates all levels of medicine: the use of tests that many argue are unnecessary (U.S. doctors order five times as many MRIs as doctors do in Germany); how early to intervene with common conditions such as heart disease and prostate cancer; how aggressively to treat patients nearing their life's end.

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State budgets in crisis: Happy new year

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 04 (News Analysis) - Every state but two, commodity-rich North Dakota and Montana, has faced a deficit this year. One legislator in New Jersey described her state as “functionally bankrupt”. More than 5,000 Illinoisans gathered on June 23rd to protest against cuts to social services, with a child placed in a coffin for dramatic effect. In California, which faces a $24 billion gap, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, sent the leader of the state Senate a metallic pair of bull testicles to urge him to cut spending.

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BBC NEWS | Americas | California in 'fiscal emergency'

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By BBC Media - Jul. 02 (News Report) - Democrats and the governor, and the Republican lawmakers who take pride in never voting in favour of any budget, have set us on a road toward two possible cataclysms: a popular revolt that will further diminish the power of government as we know it, and ruinous default that keeps the recession alive for another decade and plunges Californians, and perhaps all Americans, into nearly unimaginable misery.

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California's Fiscal Crisis: The Legacy of Proposition 13

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Kevin O'Leary - Jun. 27 (News Report) - The financial crisis in California grew worse this week as State Controller John Chiang warned that if legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fail to come up with a budget-balancing package, he would begin paying California's bills with IOUs on July 2. The last time the state did this was during the Great Depression.

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Cost of Health Plan Weighs On Senators

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Laura Meckler, Greg Hitt - Jun. 17 (News Report) - The Senate Finance Committee wrestled Tuesday to bring down the total cost of its health-care package, after an initial estimate put the price tag for one version at more than $1.6 trillion over 10 years.

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Politics, economy may hamper effects of PAYGO proposal

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Detroit Free Press - By Chuck Raasch - Jun. 11 (News Analysis) - For most American families, matching income with expenditures is a no-brainer. But not for a government that has run up more than $10 trillion in debt and is slated to gush a record $1.8 trillion in red ink this year.

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Critics question 'pay-as-you-go' approach

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Jim Acosta - Jun. 11 (News Report) - President Obama urged Congress to adopt a "pay-as-you-go" approach to federal spending in order to restore fiscal discipline, but critics say the president's call lacks credibility.

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Economic Scene - How the U.S. Surplus Became a Deficit

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Leonhardt - Jun. 09 (Special Report) - President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. …[and] Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

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Geithner Visits China With Reassurances on Deficit

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Bloomberg - By Rebecca Christie - May. 31 (News Report) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrived in Beijing with a pledge that the Obama administration will control its borrowing as he sought to reassure China its holdings of U.S. government debt are safe. “No one is going to be more concerned about future deficits than we are,” Geithner told reporters on the way to two days of meetings that start tomorrow in China’s capital.

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TARP Warrant Sale Shows Banks May Reap ‘Ruthless Bargain'

Fri, 22 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Bloomberg - By Mark Pittman - May. 22 (News Report) - Banks negotiating to reclaim stock warrants they granted in return for Troubled Asset Relief Program money may shortchange taxpayers by almost $10 billion if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s first sale sets the pace, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

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President Obama signs law to allow Pentagon to scrap defense contractor projects with cost overruns

Fri, 22 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Daily News - By Kenneth R. Bazinet - May. 22 (News Report) - "I reject the notion that we have to waste billions of taxpayer dollars to keep this nation secure," Obama said in a Rose Garden ceremony. "When it comes to purchasing weapons systems and developing defense projects, the choice we face is between investments that are designed to keep the American people safe and those that are simply designed to make a defense company or a contractor rich," he added. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/05/22/2009-05-22_president_obama_signs_law_to_allow_pentagon_to_scrap_defence_contractors_project.html#ixzz0GGsn1fRm&B

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School districts find out their cut of stimulus

Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Nanette Asimov - May. 06 (News Report) - California school districts are about to get their first hard cash from the federal stimulus package, their share of the nearly $1.2 billion in extra funding the state has so far received for educating low-income children and students with disabilities.

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