Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
States’ Jobless Funds Are Being Drained In Recession (The Washington Post)
The recession’s jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks.
The shortfalls are putting pressure on governments to either raise taxes or shrink the aid payments.
Debates over the state benefit [...]
Obama Signs Defense Bill That Includes $4 Billion In Pork Barrel Spending (Wall Street Journal)
Lawmakers set aside more than $4 billion in earmarks in the just-approved 2010 defense appropriations bill, and watered down efforts to curb the practice of targeting spending for programs in members’ districts.
The earmarking total for 2010 represented a 14% drop from last year’s defense bill, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a [...]
RETAIL WATCH: How Retailers Get You To Spend $$$$ (Yahoo! News)
Chances are your wife doesn’t need a matching pair of slippers to go with the pajama set you bought her this holiday.
But if you spend $5 more, you get free shipping on your order. So it would be silly not to buy them — right?
As the crucial holiday shopping season progresses, retailers are desperate to [...]
Foreclosures Up In 3rd Quarter: Now Top The 1-Million Mark (L. A. Times)
Reporting from Washington – Troubled home loans continued to mount in the nation’s banks in the third quarter as even once-solid borrowers increasingly fell behind on their mortgage payments.
For the first quarter ever, the number of homes in foreclosure with mortgages serviced by U.S. national banks and savings and loans topped the 1-million mark, according [...]
Republicans Blast ‘Voting Buy’ Special Interest Deals In Health Care Bill (USA Today)
Dubbing them the “Louisiana purchase” and the “Cornhusker kickback,” Republicans on Sunday attacked special deals for individual states included in the health care bill heading for a Senate vote this week.
Aimed at a small group of Democratic senators who were wavering on the underlying 10-year, $871 billion health care bill, the carveouts for Nebraska, Louisiana [...]
Senators Overseeing The Health Care Bill Getting PAC $$$ From Special Interest (USA Today)
As the health care bill moves toward a critical vote in the Senate, the five senators charged with overseeing the floor debate count health interests among their biggest campaign contributors, records show.
The political action committees and employees of drugmakers Schering-Plough and Amgen have been the top two contributors in the past five years to Montana [...]
Robert Samuelson/Opinion: Yes, It’s All About Him: Obama’s Self-Indulgent Health Care Crusade (The Washington Post)
Barack Obama’s quest for historic health-care legislation has turned into a parody of leadership. We usually associate presidential leadership with the pursuit of goals that, though initially unpopular, serve America’s long-term interests. Obama has reversed this. He’s championing increasingly unpopular legislation that threatens the country’s long-term interests. “This isn’t about me,” he likes to say, [...]
Feeling Burned on Health Care: Olbermann Calls It “A Hollow Shell Of A Bill” (Truthdig)
The left has come unhinged over health reform.
Make that dangerously unhinged.
The Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured—and provides $900 billion in government subsidies to get there. It would crack down on the most abusive practices of the insurance industry. No longer would insurers be allowed [...]
Investors Say ‘Bye-Bye’ To Money Funds In Droves (USA Today)
Investors are yanking money out of money funds and moving to bond funds — but some are just cashing out.
Investors pulled a net $490 billion from money funds this year through October, according to the Investment Company Institute, the funds’ trade group. A record-shattering $313 billion went to bond funds. And $1.9 billion fled stock [...]
The Joe Biden Watch: Working From Home Again Today (Andrew Malcom – Los Angeles Times)
A little change of pace today for the second most important vice president in American history this year.
After a weekend of no public appearances at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, Vice President Joe Biden will spend a workday of no public appearances in the same place.
According to his official White House schedule, at precisely 1 [...]
