Free Republic

The rising burden of student debt is weighing on interest rates in the U.S., and it would be a “reasonable conversation” for policy makers to explore making college tuition free, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said. The growing pile of student debt is “obviously one headwind to economic activity” that “probably pushes in that direction of lower equilibrium real rates” because it limits households’ spending power, Dudley said Monday during a press briefing in New York.

President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to cut red tape to speed up approval of infrastructure projects and said his overhaul could top $1 trillion on roads, tunnels and bridges, one of his 2016 election campaign promises. Trump, a real estate businessman before he was elected, did not provide further details on the amount or where the money would come from. Trump said building a highway can require dozens of approvals and take 10 to 20 years, a process he vowed to speed up. Trump said he would not fund projects that cannot be started within 90 days. The administration...

Debtor Nation: In its latest long-term budget outlook, the Congressional Budget Office warns that our budget is seriously out of whack and endangers our nation's future. While the report will likely be ignored in Washington by politicians who like spending your money, American taxpayers would be wise to heed its message. The CBO has its issues as a prognosticator, especially when it comes to "scoring" congressional bills. But its long-term forecast for the budget is the equivalent of a horn sounding on a faraway train coming down the track: If you're on the track, you ignore the sound of that...

The former comptroller general for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush said Wednesday that the nation's huge national debt is a sign that the U.S. has strayed far from the original reasons the country was founded. "From a broader perspective, the United States has strayed from many of the key principles and values that it was founded on and which made us great," former Comptroller General David Walker told a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee in prepared remarks. "The federal government has also grown too big, promised too much, and needs to enact a variety of reforms...

Over a mere two decades, the Pentagon lost track of a mind-numbing $10 trillion — that’s trillion, with a fat, taxpayer-funded “T” — and no one, not even the Department of Defense, knows where it went or on what it was spent. Even though audits of all federal agencies became mandatory in 1996, the Pentagon has apparently made itself an exception, and — fully 20 years later — stands obstinately orotund in never having complied. Because, as defense officials insist — summoning their best impudent adolescent — an audit would take too long and, unironically, cost too much.

The annual wrangling around the debt limit was set to disappear, pundits thought, since Republican control of both the executive and legislative branch would effectively make any showdown over such a silly exercise an own goal. That’s the current view in the Trump White House at least. “We’ve spent the money. The concept of the debt limit is somewhat of a ridiculous concept,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday. “I am hopeful that this something Congress addresses before the [summer] break. I think everybody understands we need to raise the debt limit, and that’s something we’re going to do.”...

President Trump's first budget is a down payment on a debt too big to be paid. This is it. This is the last chance we have of returning our nation to an agenda of America First. If the globalists among the perpetually re-elected twin headed bird of prey that is the best Congress money can buy along with their Deep State/Permanent Government allies can successfully thwart this attempt to make America Great Again, there will be no reprieve. The stenographers of the Democrat Party, the ABCCBSNBCCNNMSNBCPBS Cartel media megaphone trumpets their fake news every day. Within hours this becomes the...

The United States has renewed its demand for Cambodia to repay a war debt of $500m amid President Donald Trump's push to improve the state budget. Such a demand has met with an outcry from Cambodian political leaders and their people, who have consistently called the debt "dirty" and "blood-stained". Clearly, the memory of the United States' war in Indochina continues to shape Cambodian perceptions of and foreign policy towards the US. Cambodia is reluctant to pay the debt. However, should the US keep forcing Cambodia to service the debt, its moral high ground may be adversely affected. "I have...

In First 2 Months in Office – Trump Reduces Debt by $100 Billion – Obama Increased Debt by $400 Billion – Half a Trillion Dollar Difference!   On January 20th, the day of President Trump’s Inauguration, the US Debt stood at $19,947 billion. As of March 16th, the most recent date for US debt reporting, the US Debt stands at $19,846 billion. President Trump has cut the US Debt burden by over $100 billion and 0.5% in the first two months since his inauguration!  

In First 2 Months in Office – Trump Reduces Debt by $100 Billion – Obama Increased Debt by $400 Billion – Half a Trillion Dollar Difference! On January 20th, the day of President Trump’s Inauguration, the US Debt stood at $19,947 billion. As of March 16th, the most recent date for US debt reporting, the US Debt stands at $19,846 billion. President Trump has cut the US Debt burden by over $100 billion and 0.5% in the first two months since his inauguration! {..snip..}

Just days after reports emerged that student loan defaults are soaring, which is undoubtedly due to some combination of, among other things, poor job prospects for the millions of snowflakes who graduate each year with their $200,000 educations in anthropology and the moral hazard created by liberal politicians constantly calling for student debts to be 'forgiven' (a.k.a. forcefully jammed down the throats of taxpayers), the Trump administration has revoked rules put in place by Obama that barred student debt collectors from charging penalty fees on past-due loans. Originating from the Department of Justice, the "Dear Colleague" letter (full letter included...

With each passing day, more compromising of national security, self-serving and self-enriching behaviors, frauds, scams and general malfeasance on the part of Hillary Clinton come to light via new Wikileaks data dumps. But the news media’s obsession with things Donald Trump has said consistently overshadows things Hillary Clinton has actually done. Revelations have now surfaced that Clinton backed the Puerto Rico Debt Relief Bill, a plan to help the financially struggling U.S. commonwealth deal with a $70 billion debt it managed to rack up, after a top Clinton fundraiser –who just happens to be a lobbyist for the Puerto Rican...

Our big spending national government—whether Republican, Democrat or whatever—ran up a national debt approaching ten trillion dollars during the 220 and some odd years prior to Obama taking office. During Obama’s 8 year term, our big spending government nearly doubled that debt. No one’s fault (cough, cough), but we and our posterity are now staring at an unbelievable, unmanageable, unsustainable, unpayable mountain of twenty trillion dollars in accumulated debt with no let up in sight! In fact they want to continue the wholesale printing and spending of money we don’t have and they’re planning on raising the debt ceiling to...

There is an old French adage that applies to the Republicans in Congress and perhaps the Trump Administration: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” (“The more things change, the more they stay the same”).   The appetite for ever greater government spending appears to be no different than in previous years.  This uncontrolled addiction, unless reined, in will cast a dark cloud over entire term of the Trump presidency. Rather than an outright repeal, the hierarchy of the Congressional leadership has just given birth to an amended version of Obamacare that does not eliminate subsidies but recasts them...

On January 20th, the day of the Trump Inauguration, the US Debt stood at $19,947 billion. On March 8th, more than a month later, the US Debt load stood at $19,879 billion. Trump has cut the US Debt burden by $68 billion and 0.3% in since his inauguration! *snip* By comparison, under President Obama, the US Debt burden increased by more than $320 billion after his inauguration through March 8th 2009. Obama increased the US Debt by 3.1% during this time period...

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has called on Congress to raise the United States debt limit "at the first opportunity." In a letter to congressional leaders dated Wednesday, Mnuchin said the Treasury will stop issuing certain state and local securities on March 15, when the most recent suspension of the debt limit expires. Mnuchin said the Treasury will likely start taking "extraordinary measures" the next day, when the U.S. will be at its statutory limit, to prevent default. "As I said in my confirmation hearing, honoring the full faith and credit of our outstanding debt is a critical commitment. I encourage...

The Federal Reserve gives us the freedom to buy things now that we would otherwise have to wait for.In looking at the Federal Reserve, it is important to note that this is a money system, not just a group of people sitting in a conference room controlling everything having to do with the US dollar. The Fed is a system just like the government of the US is a system. What that means is that no one controls it, and that it is much bigger than any one person or group of people could ever control. They can guide it,...

Illinois Is Prepared—for Zombies The state readies for an undead apocalypse while its financial situation grows worse. Gerald Skoning Illinois’s state lawmakers are busy these days, but not with trying to reform the pension system or improve Springfield’s dismal bond rating. Instead, they’re moving to designate October 2017 as Zombie Preparedness Month. This may sound like a joke, but it’s (un)deadly serious: A resolution adopted by the state House last month contends that “while a Zombie Apocalypse may never happen, the preparation for such an event is the same as for any natural disaster.” Residents are urged to “create a...

When President Obama came into the White House eight years ago, he promised a "New Era of Responsibility." It didn't work out that way, particularly for student loans, leaving President Trump with a huge mess to clean up. In fact, when it comes to borrowing for college, students are being utterly irresponsible. A recent survey by LendEDU of 500 current college students found that 49.8% of them think that the federal government will forgive their loans after they graduate.

Politifact decided to fact-check one of President Donald Trump’s tweets Sunday and found that “the numbers check out.” The fact-checking site then rated the tweet “mostly false.”“The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo,” Trump tweeted.The tweet from Trump came after Gateway Pundit reported on the change in the national debt under the two respective presidents and after former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain brought up the figures on Fox News.Politifact wrote: “The numbers check out. And in fact, the...