Free Republic

On April 15 Tax Day, Americans paid about the same amount of income tax as total student loans outstanding. The St. Louis Federal Reserve on the same day published a report titled ‘Student Loan Delinquency: A Big Problem Getting Worse?' The Fed has determined that of the $1.3 trillion in non-bankruptcy-dischargeable student loans, the delinquency rate for students in repayment is over 27 percent. With tuition at the University of California and other top schools growing faster than inflation, student loan defaults are skyrocketing. Prior published student loan reports have stated that the “30+ days delinquency rate for all student...

The U.S. Senate late Tuesday evening passed legislation containing a permanent ‘doc fix’ for calculating physician reimbursements under Medicare. By doing away with a decades old formula, the bill staves off an automatic 21 percent cut in payments that would have gone into effect at midnight. While much of the focus has been on Congress and the impact of the legislation on the federal Medicare program, the measure raises three important issues for the states. First, the measure also includes a two year extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the federal-state program extending coverage to low-income children...

One of the definitions of the word “legacy” is something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor, or from the past. Just this past weekend, 21 year-old Jordan Spieth became the second-youngest competitor to ever win the Masters Golf tournament. His impeccable, 18 under par finish ties that of Tiger Woods. During the spectacle we have come to know as “March Madness,” the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team continued to build an impressive legacy with their 10th national championship. And the Duke men’s basketball team won their 5th national championship. The University of Kentucky fell just two...

NEW YORK, NY - The cost of caring for the elderly continues to climb. An industry survey says the median bill for a private room in a nursing home is now $91,000 a year. The report says the cost has increased four percent every year over the last five years. The annual "Cost of Care" report comes from the insurance company Gemworth Financial, which sells policies to cover long-term care. It's a growing financial burden for families, governments and insurers. The head of long-term services at the National Council on Aging, Joe Caldwell, says, "Most people don't realize how expensive...

Kabuki theater has returned to Washington, D.C. The statutory ceiling on borrowing was reached more than three weeks ago. The Treasury Department just stopped the clock on March 15. The total debt of the U.S. government remains at $18,112,975,000,000, which is $25 million below the statutory limit. In due course Congress will take up the issue of raising the debt ceiling. That will open the gates for front-page stories about a divided Republican Party risking a default and crashing credit markets across the globe. Some will try to use this vote to force policy changes such as ending Obamacare or...

Debt figures tell part of the story. When the Great Recession hit, the federal debt was equal to about 40 percent of GDP. But to fight the recession, Congress enacted an $800 billion dollar stimulus bill. Stimulus spending, combined with already enacted spending and tax policy, resulted in four years of trillion dollar deficits. As a result, the debt ballooned to 78 percent of GDP in 2013, almost twice the pre-recession level. --snip-- What's the word for our fiscal situation? Stunning? Shocking? Desperate? In recent testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, Boston University Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, in effect, told...

On Wednesday, National Public Radio had a spot about how some states are reviewing laws on their books that let them yank driver's or professional licenses from those who default on their student loans. To set the story up, the NPR reporter focused on the plight of Clementine Lindley, who recalls how after graduating she had to "decide whether to pay rent, buy food or make her student loan payments" because her debt was so massive. How did Lindley rack up so much debt? NPR doesn't say, but a little sleuthing shows that Lindley got her Bachelor's degree in "Liberal...

Renowned economist Laurence Kotlikoff recently testified at the U.S. Senate about the runaway U.S. budget. How bad is it? Kotlikoff says, “I told them the real (2014) deficit was $5 trillion, not the $500 billion or $300 billion or whatever it was announced to be this year. Almost all the liabilities of the government are being kept off the books by bogus accounting. The government is 58% underfinanced. Social Security is 33% underfinanced. So, the entire government enterprise is in worse fiscal shape than Social Security is, but they are both in terrible shape.” So, how much is America on...

With new immigration proposals, state lawmakers hope to build By MELANIE MASON California lawmakers hope to keep momentum going with new immigration-related proposals Proposal would offer Medi-Cal to people who qualify regardless of immigration status. Democratic lawmakers will unveil a slew of new immigration-related proposals Tuesday, including measures that would extend state-paid health coverage to those in the country illegally and offer more protection against deportation. Legislators behind the 10-bill package aim to build on the landmark immigration laws passed in California in recent years, such as one that allows people without legal residency to obtain driver's licenses. By keeping...

California legislative leaders took a bold step Tuesday toward protecting immigrants living in the country without documentation by backing legislation to offer Medi-Cal and other public services to a population they said they want to help move out of the shadows. The leaders of the California Senate and Assembly joined lawmakers and advocates in announcing the “Immigrants Shape California” legislative package at a press conference in Sacramento, saying the federal government’s inaction on immigration reform forced them to act.

Greece has demanded nearly €279bn in reparations from Germany, more than the value of its current bail-out, as the cash-strapped country continues to pursue compensation for crimes carried out by the Third Reich. A parliamentary committee established by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras put an official number on the claim, which includes the cost of a forced Nazi loan made by the Bank of Greece and the return of archaeological treasures. Greece suffered a brutal occupation at the hands of the Third Reich in 1941, with over 40,000 people starving to death in Athens alone. SNIP--- Berlin moved to quickly to...

American businesses are borrowing at historic high levels, but the only thing growing as a result is how fast their equity capital is vanishing, according to David Stockman, White House budget chief during the Reagan administration. Stockman blamed the Fed and the Fed's Wall Street cheerleaders. He said the Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned by nine times since 2000, yet real net investment in the business sector has cratered by 33 percent during the same time period. “Once upon a time businesses borrowed long term money — if they borrowed at all — in order to fund plant, equipment and...

David Alan Stockman interviewed on CBS-TV 60 Minutes (October 2010) Highlights of recent interview by Harry Dent. David Stockman: People don't want to hear the reality and the truth that we're facing. But I think there is an enormous appetite out in the country to get a different perspective than what you have from the media day in and day out, so I say the fed is out of control. Its balance sheet is exploded. It's printing money like never before. Zero interest rates for 70 months have basically destroyed the pricing function in the financial markets. I said...

Greek ministers are spending this weekend, almost five grinding years since Athens was first bailed out, wrangling over the details of the spending cuts and economic reforms they have drawn up to appease their creditors. As the recriminations fly between Europe’s capitals, campaigners are warning that the global community has failed to learn the lessons of the Greek debt crisis – or even of Argentina’s default in 2001, the consequences of which are still being contested furiously in courts on both sides of the Atlantic. As Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates, boosting the value of the...

Just asking, that's all.

It seemed to be a classic case of “firemen first,” a theory first put forth in 1976 by legendary Washington, D.C., journalist Charles Peters. Any bureaucrat, when asked to list what services or jobs would be cut because of a looming budget crisis, identifies the most painful losses in public services – firemen, police officers, EMTs, workers who fill potholes, etc. Bureaucrats use it to try and pressure elected officials, afraid of voter backlash, to soften the budget cuts. It played out in the Capitol on March 3, when state Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb was asked what major state highways...

A state legislative auditor’s report found that the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) failed to ensure the eligibility of participants in large public assistance programs and that it did not always perform timely inspections of child care centers. The findings mirror those of other recent auditor reports and could fuel calls to reform the way state administrators verify eligibility for programs that together cost nearly $7 billion a year in federal money. For more than a decade, the legislative auditor has reported flaws in the way the state determines who qualifies for Medical Assistance, which provides health insurance to...

You read that right: $210 trillion. A trillion here, a trillion there: pretty soon, we’re talking big money. Professor Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University testified before the Senate Budget Committee. As usual, his testimony is shocking The U.S. has a $210 trillion “fiscal gap” and “may well be in worse fiscal shape than any developed country, including Greece,” Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff told members of the Senate Budget Committee in written and oral testimony on Feb. 25. “The first point I want to get across is that our nation is broke,” Kotlikoff testified. “Our nation’s broke, and it’s not...

Energy-sector deals have been a bright spot at a time when once-lucrative businesses, such as fixed-income trading and consumer lending, are flagging thanks to tighter rules, low interest rates and uneven economic growth, analysts said. Investment banks helped fuel the oil-and-gas exploration boom of the past decade by making loans valued at about $1 trillion to companies in the energy industry, most of which they sold to investors. The banks sold much of the debt to loan mutual funds, which grew rapidly from 2011 to 2013, but that demand dwindled as individual investors yanked $35 billion from the funds over...

The California teachers' pension fund still hasn't shaken off its investment in gun maker Bushmaster, more than two years after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And now the teachers are mad. California teachers are planning a protest at the fund's annual meeting on April 2.