One of the most alarming aspects of a possible default is also one that gets the least attention: A default would raise the cost of federal borrowing, perhaps for years to come, and send the deficit soaring.
If Treasury securities become, well, less secure, the United States will have to pay investors more to buy them. Hence higher interest rates on new debt that is issued.
Removing the limits on total campaign contributions by a single donor, a restriction now before the Supreme Court, would lead to a huge increase in giving by a small group of very wealthy Americans, according to a new report released Friday.
The current “aggregate contribution limit” is $123,200 — as of this post, that's the total amount of money one wealthy individual is permitted to contribute to all federal candidates, parties, and PACs. The Supreme Court will consider this cap in McCutcheon v. FEC.
The CFPB released a report this week that should serve as a reminder of what a functional Congress could accomplish. The report highlights the ways in which the 2009 Credit CARD Act has succeeded. Their findings:
WASHINGTON – This Tuesday, as the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in McCutcheon v. FEC, activists and organizations across a wide spectrum of issues will speak out in support of protecting the integrity of our democracy at a rally outside the court. In the McCutcheon case, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to strike down important caps on how much money an individual can contribute directly to political campaigns.
WHAT: Rally against big money in politics and McCutcheon v. FEC
NEW YORK, NY – As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral argument in the McCutcheon v. FEC case, national public policy center Demos has partnered with U.S. PIRG to release new data quantifying the potential dollar impact of striking down federal aggregate contribution limits.
Demos and U.S. PIRG project that striking aggregate contribution limits would bring more than $1 billion in additional campaign contributions from a small segment of elite donors through the 2020 election cycle.
The student loan default rate is soaring, and it's flying highest among for-profit schools.
The U.S. Department of Education reports that across the nation, the share of borrowers who default within two years after college loan payments become due has risen nearly a full percentage point to 10 percent, while the rate for people who default within three years is up to 14.7 percent.
WHAT: Press call about upcoming SCOTUS Case McCutcheon v. FEC featuring NAACP, Sierra Club, Communications Workers of America, People For The American Way Foundation, Greenpeace, Main Street Alliance, OurTime.org, Rock The Vote, American Federation of Teachers, Working Families Organization, U.S. PIRG and Demos.
For some recent college graduates, this fall’s back-to-school season marks the beginning of the back-to-living-at-home stage of their lives. But with careful financial planning, that stage doesn’t have to last long, advisers say.
How taxpayers are bankrolling the paychecks of already-wealthy executives instead of supporting more livable wages for American workers struggling to get by.
So much has been accomplished by Occupy and other social justice movements in the past two years that it is incredible the corporate media and their pundits do not report on what is happening around them. Despite the lack of corporate media coverage, the movement is deepening, creating democratic institutions, stopping some of the worst policies from being pushed by the corporate duopoly and building a broad-based diverse movement. [...]
Why isn't anyone talking about the role of wealthy campaign donors in gridlocking Washington and precipitating a likely government shutdown?
In the standard telling, it's extreme base voters, whipped up by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, who have turned the GOP into what Paul Krugman called the "Crazy Party" on Friday. But there is another reason why hardline members of the House are pushing demands that even John Boehner won't embrace: they fear the big money on the right that is available to finance primary challenges.
Fiscal hawks love to remind us that interest payments on the national debt will be a major driver of future U.S. budget deficits. Just last week, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) published a doom-and-gloom paper that noted that interest payments were the single fastest growing part of the U.S. budget and the most volatile area of future spending.
The American dream has become the American debt trap.
During the economic downturn, millions of cash-strapped Americans relied on credit cards to pay unexpected medical bills or to weather unemployment.
Now, in an economic recovery enjoyed mainly by the wealthy, ordinary Americans can’t earn enough to pay off their debts or break their reliance on credit for basic needs, new studies show.
Credit has become so essential to survival that 20 million American households do not expect to ever live debt-free, according to a new survey by consumer research firm Mintel.
If you're going to have a raucous, costumed march in New York City, Midtown makes for a great setting. Nurses and HIV activists in Robin Hood hats took the streets yesterday, blocking traffic as they called for a financial transaction tax to fully fund healthcare and other public services. Chants of “People, not profits! Medicare for all!” filled rush-hour streets as business-suited professionals dodged through the crowds.
Like so many young Americans, Derek Wetherell is stuck.
At 23 years old, he has a job, but not a career, and little prospect for advancement. He has tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, but no college degree. He says he is more likely to move back in with his parents than to buy a home, and he doesn't know what he will do if his car—a 2001 Chrysler Sebring with well over 100,000 miles—breaks down.
Progressive groups are warning that the Supreme Court may be on the verge of allowing federal candidates to collect multi-million dollar checks from donors.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, attorneys and representatives from the campaign finance watchdog groups Democracy, Public Citizen and Demos all raised the specter of candidates hosting $1 million-a-plate fundraisers in the near future if the Supreme Court strikes down a key provision of campaign finance law.
Five years after the fall of Lehman Brothers and the worst financial crisis since 1929, one thing seems certain: another meltdown of the financial system will eventually happen. Why? Because we still haven't fixed many of the problems that led to the last crisis.