The promise of health reform is to make care more accessible for everybody -- and to reduce the federal deficit by slowing the growth rate in costs.
So just how many stimulus jobs have been created or saved so far?
Dear Annie: As I understand it, President Obama's economic stimulus package contains incentives for hospitals and medical offices to get all their old paper medical records computerized, which is supposed to produce huge cost savings in the health-care system (and I think it's pretty obvious that it would do so). This caught my attention a few weeks ago when the stimulus package was first unveiled, since I have some experience in the health-care field and several IT certifications, but I haven't heard any mention of it lately. Do you think that, assuming it gets through Congress, this plan to wire the medical world could create many IT jobs? -Tacoma Techie for Hire
The watchdog charged with investigating fraud in the government bailout programs is feuding with the Treasury Department about who he answers to.
Washington's most dramatic foray into the nation's financial sector since the Great Depression began on Oct. 13 with a misnamed acronym, an unwitting tribe of CEOs, and a confused staff of Treasury officials. It was a foreshadowing of the misadventure to come. "I don't even know who the 9 companies are. Do you?" Michele Davis, assistant secretary for public affairs, wrote in an e-mail sent at 7:15 a.m. on that history-making Monday. "No clue," Treasury chief of staff Jim Wilkinson responded. "Let me get the list."
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testified before lawmakers Thursday, defending a sweeping set of proposals put forth just a day earlier by President Obama aimed at overhauling the nation's financial system.
Normally Paul Krugman, the liberal pundit and Nobel laureate in economics, and Paul Ryan, a conservative Republican congressman from Wisconsin, share little in common except their first names and a scorching passion for views they champion from opposite political poles. So when the two combatants agree on a fundamental threat to the U.S. economy, Americans should heed this alarm as the real thing. What's worrying both Krugman and Ryan is the rapid increase in the federal debt - not so much the stimulus-driven rise to mountainous levels in the next few years, but the huge structural deficits that, under all projections, keep building the burden far into the future to unsustainable, ruinous heights. "The long-term outlook remains worrying," warned Krugman in his New York Times column. Krugman strongly supports President Obama's spending plans but bemoans the shortfall in taxes to pay for them.
Virginia's Department of Transportation is putting $694.5 million in stimulus funds to work repairing the state's roads and bridges. But that money won't save the jobs of nearly 1,500 of the agency's workers.
Ten leading banks won approval to repay money from the government's controversial TARP program, regulators said Tuesday, which could represent approximately $68 billion in bailout funds returned to taxpayers.
Good riddance, TARP. It was nice knowing you.
The promise of health reform is to make care more accessible for everybody -- and to reduce the federal deficit by slowing the growth rate in costs.
So just how many stimulus jobs have been created or saved so far?
Dear Annie: As I understand it, President Obama's economic stimulus package contains incentives for hospitals and medical offices to get all their old paper medical records computerized, which is supposed to produce huge cost savings in the health-care system (and I think it's pretty obvious that it would do so). This caught my attention a few weeks ago when the stimulus package was first unveiled, since I have some experience in the health-care field and several IT certifications, but I haven't heard any mention of it lately. Do you think that, assuming it gets through Congress, this plan to wire the medical world could create many IT jobs? -Tacoma Techie for Hire
The watchdog charged with investigating fraud in the government bailout programs is feuding with the Treasury Department about who he answers to.
Washington's most dramatic foray into the nation's financial sector since the Great Depression began on Oct. 13 with a misnamed acronym, an unwitting tribe of CEOs, and a confused staff of Treasury officials. It was a foreshadowing of the misadventure to come. "I don't even know who the 9 companies are. Do you?" Michele Davis, assistant secretary for public affairs, wrote in an e-mail sent at 7:15 a.m. on that history-making Monday. "No clue," Treasury chief of staff Jim Wilkinson responded. "Let me get the list."
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testified before lawmakers Thursday, defending a sweeping set of proposals put forth just a day earlier by President Obama aimed at overhauling the nation's financial system.
Normally Paul Krugman, the liberal pundit and Nobel laureate in economics, and Paul Ryan, a conservative Republican congressman from Wisconsin, share little in common except their first names and a scorching passion for views they champion from opposite political poles. So when the two combatants agree on a fundamental threat to the U.S. economy, Americans should heed this alarm as the real thing. What's worrying both Krugman and Ryan is the rapid increase in the federal debt - not so much the stimulus-driven rise to mountainous levels in the next few years, but the huge structural deficits that, under all projections, keep building the burden far into the future to unsustainable, ruinous heights. "The long-term outlook remains worrying," warned Krugman in his New York Times column. Krugman strongly supports President Obama's spending plans but bemoans the shortfall in taxes to pay for them.
Virginia's Department of Transportation is putting $694.5 million in stimulus funds to work repairing the state's roads and bridges. But that money won't save the jobs of nearly 1,500 of the agency's workers.
Ten leading banks won approval to repay money from the government's controversial TARP program, regulators said Tuesday, which could represent approximately $68 billion in bailout funds returned to taxpayers.
Good riddance, TARP. It was nice knowing you.
Don't expect TARP-free banks to unleash a torrent of loans to cash-strapped consumers.
Banks that were stress tested by the government earlier this year should undergo another round of examinations, a government watchdog group said Tuesday, amid signs that the U.S. economy may be deteriorating faster than first expected.
As the nation's unemployment rate inches toward double-digit territory, the White House insists that job creation is on the way.
Regulators shelved a controversial plan that aimed to cleanse banks' balance sheets of toxic assets.
Jamie Dimon isn't one to pull his punches. In fact, the JPMorgan chief's willingness to criticize, for example, the shortcomings of retroactively changing government bailout programs can be refreshing -- and often spot-on.
With another $30 billion in taxpayer bailout money set to go to General Motors -- for a total of $50 billion -- the bankrupt automaker will become the second-largest bailout recipient after AIG.
First-time homebuyers will now have access to quick cash to help them with their down payments.
The government's list of troubled banks swelled in the first quarter, climbing to its highest level in nearly 15 years, regulators said Wednesday.
Some lawmakers are questioning whether the Treasury Department has the power to recycle returned bailout dollars to fund new or expanded rescues for auto companies, life insurers and small banks.
Facing mounting budget deficits and seeing few areas left to cut spending, states increasingly are turning to the only option they have left: raising taxes.
Banks that underwent stress tests earlier this month have set out raise $56 billion to plug holes in their books caused by big losses, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told a Senate panel on Wednesday.
Six life insurance companies have qualified to receive billions of dollars in bailout money under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
The Obama administration, issuing its first progress report on the $787 billion stimulus program, said Wednesday that $88 billion has been made available and that it's ahead of schedule in implementing most initiatives.
With the stress tests behind them, banking regulators now face the potentially thornier issue of deciding which banks, if any, should be allowed to repay government funds.
Banks lining up to repay bailout funds are easing away from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s debt insurance plan, a program that helped banks through last fall's financial storm -- and has made money for the FDIC to boot.
Citigroup said Tuesday it authorized $8.2 billion in lending to U.S. consumers and businesses so far this year backed by taxpayer funding.
Ten of the nation's 19 largest banks will need to raise a total of $74.6 billion in capital, federal officials announced Thursday, bringing an end to relentless speculation about how much more money the nation's leading banks would need to withstand the recession.
Don't like your stress test results? The government may have just the tonic: the public-private investment partnerships that aim to relieve lenders of troubled assets.
President Obama says his proposals to crack down on corporate tax loopholes will do a lot of things, including create more U.S. jobs.
The federal government has made available more than $74 billion in stimulus funds, but the majority of that money has yet to hit the streets.
The most expensive item on Florida's list of economic stimulus projects is drawing fire from some residents and at least one public official, all questioning whether it's needed at all.
The most expensive item on Florida's list of economic stimulus projects is drawing fire from some residents and at least one public official, all questioning whether it's needed at all.
President Obama on Monday spelled out his proposals to close corporate tax loopholes on U.S. multinational corporations and crack down on overseas tax havens.
Thanks to federal stimulus funds, Rhode Island's pockmarked Route 138 in Tiverton is getting repaved. The state's 97,000 food stamp recipients are getting more money. And some 2,000 local youths will have summer jobs.
The federal government has made available more than $75 billion for stimulus projects in the 10 weeks since President Obama signed the $787 billion recovery package into law.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chief Sheila Bair reiterated calls for creating a system that would allow regulators to dismantle a large financial institution.
The Treasury Department must make public more information about how banks and other companies are spending money received under the $700 billion bailout, a program overseer told Congress on Thursday.
Located outside a small Pennsylvania city, John Murtha airport may not see many passengers. But it's seen plenty of arrivals of tax dollars from Washington, most recently economic stimulus funds.
Bankers itching to put TARP in the rearview mirror are finding it hard to make a quick getaway.
The top cop tracking the government's $700 billion bailout program said Tuesday that he has opened 20 criminal investigations and six audits into whether tax dollars are being pilfered or wasted.
Dick Kovacevich ought to be happy. The sun is shining in San Francisco on an early April morning, shares of Wells Fargo, where Kovacevich is chairman of the board, have almost doubled in a month, and Wells appears to have survived the worst of the banking crisis with its reputation intact (so far).
Make the tax code fairer? That's one of the things President Obama wants to do in the 2010 budget, which Congress resumes work on this week.
Barack Obama has been more critical of corporate America than any recent President. After his speech on the economy on April 14, Washington editor Nina Easton submitted written questions about his views on business. The answers he sent Fortune sounded notably conciliatory. Excerpts:
For most Americans, Wednesday is the day they have to make sure they're square with the tax man.
President Obama touted his tax cut Wednesday as an important component of his plan to right the U.S. economy and put working families on a more prosperous path.
It looks like Washington is finally giving up on the silly idea that all banks are in the same boat. It's about time.
Consumers take heed: You too might be able to buy a piece of a government subsidized toxic bank asset. Whether you should is another question.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday touted his tax cut as an important component of his plan to right the U.S. economy and put working families on a more prosperous path.
Even under the best of economic circumstances, tax season is a tense time for American households. The number of hours we collectively spend working on our returns is probably a lot more than government agencies claim.
President Obama declared Monday that his stimulus plan is "starting to work" and that 2,000 transportation projects -- costing much less than expected -- are under way.
While most of America waits for federal stimulus money to make its way into wallets, one small town on the Colorado plains has taken matters into its own hands by launching its own economic recovery plan.
The Treasury Department is poised to open its $700 billion bailout program to life insurers, officials said Wednesday.
Changing tax policies is always fraught with political and economic risk. Never more so than now, given the country's deep fiscal hole and competing theories on how best to aid economic recovery.
The Senate passed a $3.53 trillion version of the federal budget for fiscal year 2010 late Thursday night in a party-line vote, ending several weeks of acrimonious partisan debate.
The Senate passed a $3.53 trillion version of the federal budget for fiscal year 2010 late Thursday night in a party-line vote, ending several weeks of acrimonious partisan debate.
The House of Representatives passed a $3.55 trillion budget for fiscal year 2010 Thursday night, capping off weeks of acrimonious partisan debate and a long day of voting marked by the defeat of several alternative plans.
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to give the Treasury Department the power to ban future "unreasonable and excessive" compensation at companies receiving federal bailout money.
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to give the Treasury Department the power to ban future "unreasonable and excessive" compensation at companies receiving federal bailout money.
The mystery is solved: The Treasury Department has clarified its accounting of the $700 billion allocated for the financial-sector bailout, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
Larry Jukes said he remembers when he could buy 10 cigarette packs for $2.50.
The officials charged with overseeing the $700 billion financial bailout told lawmakers Tuesday that the Treasury Department must do more to ensure that taxpayer dollars are properly spent and that the public is kept in the loop.
More pain is on the way for the people and communities that depend on the automotive industry. That's why President Obama has appointed an autoworker czar to look out for them.
I came to Washington, DC, for one reason -- to represent Utah to Washington. When I'm in our nation's capital, I am a voice for the people of Utah. But when I come home, it's their voices I want to hear. I want to be there to listen to frustrations, but also to celebrate successes.
Should a bridge that would connect two campuses at Microsoft's headquarters be funded with $11 million from the federal stimulus package?
The American International Group debacle could be setting President Barack Obama up for trouble, should his administration try to move forward with additional bailouts.
One of the people named this week to President Obama's new Task Force on Tax Reform is a member of the AIG board of directors.
There's a growing sense among some bankers that Troubled Asset Relief Program known as "TARP" has become toxic. As a result, they want to bail out of the bank bailout program.
The Obama administration's tenth week in office was a busy one. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner unveiled the next phase of the bank bailout. Congress took up the president's budget. And the government outlined a plan to overhaul regulation of the financial system.
It is at least 1,000 pages long. It costs $787 billion. And it's as thick as two telephone books.
In the U.S. Senate, seniority is all: You wait your turn. No one knows that better than Democrat Chris Dodd, the senior senator from Connecticut. "I went through 28 years of sitting next to people who either had the constitution of mules or great longevity," Dodd told Fortune late one afternoon recently in his arch-windowed office on Capitol Hill.
President Obama has now added tax reform to his to-do list.
The derivatives traders that hit the jackpot with last fall's AIG bailout are getting more attention from the government.
The Obama Administration's latest bailout plan is as rich with irony as it is with potential.
As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's reputation rose from the ash heap on Wall Street yesterday, he also made headway with harsh critics in his other important audience - Congress. "This could be the beginning of a very constructive improvement in capital flows," Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson told Fortune.
Remember that $700 billion financial sector rescue plan from October? It's all but spoken for.
General Motors and Chrysler LLC have about a week or less before they find out if they'll get the additional help they need from taxpayers, creditors and unions to avoid bankruptcy.
The Treasury Department unveiled its long-awaited plan to remove many of the troubled assets from banks' books Monday, representing one of the biggest efforts by the U.S. government so far aimed at tackling the ongoing financial crisis.
President Obama turned his attention to the need for more clean-energy funding Monday, arguing that an expanded investment is needed to lay the foundation for long-term economic growth, cut dependence on foreign oil and slow the process of global warming.
There were no champagne corks popping at Horizon Wind on the February morning when President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Instead, 30 employees swilled coffee as they got down to work in the Houston energy startup's conference room. The emergency meeting reviewed the company's pipeline and decided to move a number of projects from Tier 2 (promising but on the back burner) to Tier 1 (funding), thanks to the stimulus plan's $50 billion in clean energy provisions.
The Obama administration on Monday will formally unveil a program to help banks clean up their books by subsidizing private investors' purchase of troubled assets.
Fallout from anger over AIG's bonuses is following Sen. Chris Dodd from Washington back home to Connecticut.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke responded to ongoing criticism of the government's efforts to keep alive institutions it has deemed "too big to fail," saying that this is an "enormous problem" that needs to be addressed.
Public outrage can be a potent agent for change, but it doesn't always make for great policy.
The Senate is taking up a controversial bill that would impose a hefty tax on bonuses paid out by companies propped up by taxpayer money.
Arrogance. Incompetence. Greed.
Populist outcry over AIG bonuses and government bailouts is putting pressure on states to ensure federal stimulus dollars are not only spent wisely but also transparently.
Big money often spurs big battles. A month after President Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus law, governors and state lawmakers are already fighting with Washington and each other about putting the money to use.
The Treasury Department announced a $5 billion program to help embattled U.S. auto parts makers, the latest attempt to stabilize problems in the nation's troubled auto sector.
President Obama said Wednesday he'll "take responsibility" for AIG executives receiving controversial bonuses while the company took $173 billion in government bailouts.
The government's efforts to tame the credit crisis faces one of its biggest tests yet as the Federal Reserve finally launches a $1 trillion program aimed at reviving lending for both consumers and business.
Yes, it's early. Very early. Barack Obama hasn't even moved into Blair House yet.
If there was one message that resonated loud and clear from the Obama campaign, it was this: Let's get past all of the partisanship and work together to get something done.
Insurance giant AIG will have to return to the Treasury Department the $165 million it just paid out in executive bonuses, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday in a letter to congressional leaders.
Democratic leaders scrambling to strip AIG executives of bonuses are having a hard time answering a key question: Why didn't Congress act to prevent the bonuses in the first place?
A new national poll indicates that support for the stimulus plan that passed Congress last month is dropping and suggests that there is no appetite among Americans for another spending bill.
Borrowing and spending are the lifeblood of the economy, but both have tightened up dramatically in recent months.
The federal stimulus plan is putting hard hats to work on the highways of Maine, Rhode Island and Maryland, at least for now.
Troubled insurance giant AIG, already under fire for intending to pay out $165 million in bonuses and compensation, succumbed Sunday to congressional pressure, identifying banks that received chunks of the company's billions in federal bailout funds last year.
President Obama said Monday he will attempt to block bonuses to executives at ailing insurance giant AIG, payments he described as an "outrage."
The White House has rejected South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's request to use a portion of the state's allotted federal stimulus funds to pay off state debt instead of spending it on government services or programs.
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