Most Americans have completed their tax returns and may even have got back some of their own money. Now they should get out the government cost calculator again because as Kelly Cohen reports in the Washington Examiner, last year the IRS gave out between $13.3 billion and $15.6 billion in improper payments. That amounted…
Read More »
On December 9, the federal government dumped the rest of its 30 million shares in General Motors, which had become known as Government Motors, for good reason. In 2009, the federal government bailed out the bankrupt automaker to the tune of $49.5 billion and once held 60.8 percent ownership in the company. The loss…
Read More »
The election is over and as the nation advances toward the “fiscal cliff” many assume that the mortgage and financial crises are over. Some review is clearly in order. In September 2008 the federal government took over the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. During the 2012 election campaign, the U.S. Treasury Department…
Read More »
The U.S. Treasury Department has invested $50 billion in the General Motors bailout and now owns 26.5 percent of GM stock, about 200 million shares and more than one-fourth of the company. GM was happy to get the taxpayer dough but now wants the government to sell its stock. Trouble is, the government won’t…
Read More »
On August 31, total U.S. government debt surpassed $16,000,000,000,000—that’s $16 trillion—for the first time, according to the Treasury Department. The exact amount of the debt on August 31 was $16,015,769,788,215.80, a full $25,000,000,000 – that’s $25 billion—more than what it was the day before on August 30. So the debt is now much more…
Read More »
Terence Jeffrey reports at CNSNews.com that “China Has Divested 97 Percent of Its Holdings in U.S. Treasury Bills” over a 20-month period. Is this a major reflection of the increasingly precarious status of the U.S. dollar and U.S. government finances worldwide? China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing…
Read More »
The Treasury Department reiterated that Aug. 2 remains the projected day the U.S. would start defaulting on its obligations. The U.S. reached its $14.3-trillion debt ceiling on May 16, but Treasury officials have been doing some complex financial juggling to push off the date at which the nation would start defaulting on its obligations….
Read More »
Jed Graham in Investor’s Business Daily reports that a new study of the financial condition of Social Security and Medicare indicate that with baby boomer retirements, rising health costs, and the ongoing economic malaise, these federal entitlement programs are producing massive deficits in perpetuity unless major changes are made to cut these unsustainable liabilities….
Read More »
In the Wall Street Journal, Jeff Bater reports in “U.S. Posts $150.4 Billion November Budget Deficit,” that federal red ink is reaching an all-time record: The U.S. government ran its 26th straight monthly budget deficit in November amid wrangling over a package that would extend big tax cuts to Americans trying to recover from…
Read More »
The Associated Press reports that having received a $50 billion bailout in corporate welfare from the U.S. government, General Motors Corporation (GM) is giving its new CEO Daniel Akerson a $9-million pay package, the same deal received by his predecessor Edward Whitacre. Akerson is the fourth CEO in less than two years at Government…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |