Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
College Savings: How To Protect Yourself
College savers — like all investors — suffered big losses during the historic market downturn of 2008.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, state-sponsored 529 savings plans held slightly less than $130 billion in assets in 10.6 million accounts, according to figures from the College Savings Plan Network. By the fourth quarter of 2008, they held [...]
Seniors Defend Medicare Plan Obama Calls ‘Wasteful’
One of the largest spending cuts Congress could rely on to pay for an overhaul of the nation’s health care system comes from a Medicare program President Obama has called a “wasteful” subsidy for the health insurance industry.
Don’t tell that to cancer survivor Maurice Engleman, 82, who says the controversial Medicare Advantage program — which [...]
David J. Kramer/Washington Post: Obama Acquiesces to Russia on Missile Defense
Russian leaders never liked the idea that the United States, Poland and the Czech Republic were cooperating on missile defense to confront an emerging Iranian threat. The notion that two former Warsaw Pact states that Moscow used to control would be hosting 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a corresponding radar facility in the Czech [...]
Will Health Care Reform Impose Too High A Cost On The Middle-Class?
Lawmakers in both parties raised concerns Thursday that the health-care reform bill offered by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus a day earlier would impose too high a cost on middle-class Americans and said they will seek to change the legislation to ease that potential burden.
The Baucus plan is the product of a year-long effort to [...]
MONEY MAGAZINE: What You Need To Know About Social Security
You’ve probably spent a lot of time sweating over your 401(k) and IRA. But have you given much thought to the way Social Security will fit into your retirement plans?
You should. In fact, Social Security provides 50% of the income for more than half of married retired couples and about 20% for high earners. Moreover, [...]
DAVID BROOKS: OP-ED/NEW YORK TIMES – No, It’s Not About Race
You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I go running several times a week. My favorite route, because it’s so flat, is from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol and back. I was there last Saturday and found myself plodding through tens of thousands of anti-government “tea party” protesters.
They were carrying “Don’t [...]
During World War II, A Soldier Turned Cantor On The Battlefield
Like many veterans, Max Fuchs did not talk much about what he did in the war. His children knew he landed at Omaha Beach. Sometimes, they were allowed to feel the shrapnel still lodged in his chest.
And once, he had told them, he sang as the cantor in a Jewish prayer service on the [...]
Gov’t Helps Keep Loans Cheap — If You Can Get One
It’s a good time to borrow money for a home, car or small business.
A year after a global freeze in the credit markets prompted massive government intervention to prevent the financial system from collapsing, interest rates remain at historic lows. But banks are demanding more collateral, bigger down payments and detailed financial histories from borrowers.
And [...]
4 Dumb Financial Moves In The Recession
You can almost hear the collective slaps to the head.
This recession has brought to light dumb money management practices, forcing just about all of us to confront our financial foibles.
Maybe, for instance, you’re one of the ones who panicked and sold during the market bottom. Or, you believed housing prices were guaranteed to rise.
The federal [...]
TRUTH QUEST STRIKES AGAIN: Obama Used Faulty Anecdote in Speech to Congress And In Town Halls
President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn’t known about.
“They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it,” [...]
