Free Republic

Federal charge card reform demanded as audit reveals nearly 2 cards per employee and $40B in annual spending

Now you know why Trump is so eager to cut wasteful spending! The real mystery is why Democrats and RINOs are so determined to continue wasteful spending and not cut taxes. Trump inherited a fiscal disaster from Biden and Congress. Not to mention The Federal Reserve. Credit default swaps (CDS) for the USA are near Greece (and China) levels. ... Since Covid struck in 2020, US debt is up a staggering 56% ... And M2 Money is up 40% since Covid.

Small, everyday purchases like a meal from DoorDash are now able to be financed through eat now, pay later options — a practice that some experts deem "predatory." "You've got to have enough sense to not follow the urge to finance a taco, okay? You have got to be an adult," career coach Ken Coleman told "The Big Money Show," Wednesday. "This is predatory, and it's going to get a lot of people in deep trouble." Financial wellness experts are continuously sounding the alarm to cash-strapped consumers, warning them of the devastating impact this financial strategy could have on their...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed new controls into law last week, including one that allows credit cards to track ammunition purchases. She described the ammunition control as one that “[refines] how credit card companies track purchases at gun dealerships.” Hochul noted, “This gives law enforcement the opportunity to find out exactly who may be stockpiling ammunition. And this is an indicator that something untoward could be happening, so it’s an important data point for us to have.”

Buy Now Pay Later services are typically used on large purchases, like furniture. But now one service is branching out into fast food. DoorDash is partnering with Klarna, a financial company that lets customers schedule small payments over a set period of time, in a new partnership announced Thursday. When the option launches “soon,” DoorDash users can use Klarna to pay in four, interest-free payments or defer payments and let people pick a “date that aligns with their paycheck schedules,” according to a press release. (BNPL) services, which also include Affirm and Apple, have exploded over the past few years....

More than a million migrants benefited from the universal credit welfare scheme in Britain at a cost to the taxpayer of £7.6 billion in 2023 alone, an analysis of official data has found. Projections based on Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data conducted by the Centre for Migration Control (CMC) have estimated that around 1,158,000 foreign nationals received universal credit, a monthly welfare subsidy paid to working-age households with low incomes, to mitigate the cost of housing, childcare, and other expenses. Migrants are eligible for the same benefits as native Britons once they are granted either refugee status or...

This week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule that will prevent medical debt from impacting consumer credit scores. The policy, set to take effect in mid-March, represents a hopeful shift in how medical debt is treated in the financial system.The CFPB estimates that approximately 15 million Americans will benefit from this change, with credit scores expected to increase by an average of 20 points. This adjustment could have far-reaching implications for consumers' ability to secure loans, rent apartments, and even obtain employment, as many employers consider credit scores during the hiring process.Understanding the new ruleThe policy specifically...

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) pledged to “simplify” the federal government’s credit card program on Tuesday which cost taxpayers nearly $40 billion last year. “The US government currently has ~4.6M active credit cards/accounts, which processed ~90M unique transactions for ~$40B of spend in FY24,” read an X post from the cost-cutting initiative’s official account. “DOGE is working w/ the agencies to simplify the program and reduce admin costs,” the group added. DOGE said it “will report back in 1 week” with its plan to disentangle the system. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that the federal government...

The lame duck Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a rule in December to curb overdraft penalties in what experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation is an example of government overreach that will ravage low-income Americans. The CFPB — an agency that is considered the brainchild of Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — finalized the rule just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, with the aim of forcing banks to either cap overdraft fees at $5, far less than the $35 average, or to provide the overdraft as a form of credit rather than a penalty....

...The Biden administration is finalizing a rule Tuesday that will end the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports and ban lenders from using certain medical information in loan decisions. The rule will also remove an estimated $49 billion in medical bills from the credit reports of about 15 million people, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in a press release.... Credit reporting agencies and debt collectors are also expected to oppose the rule. They questioned the bureau’s findings and its authority to issue the regulation...

Credit card defaults in the US skyrocketed by 50% in the past year. Credit card defaults reached $46 billion in the first nine months of 2024, a level not seen since 2010. The cost of living has simply surpassed manageable levels for the majority of households. CreditCardDefaults2024 Americans are feeling the impact of inflation and compounding interest. The New York Federal Reserve found that credit card debt hit a record high in September 2024 after surpassing $1.17 trillion during Q3. The Fed also reported that household debt reached a high of $17.94 trillion, with mortgages ($12.59 trillion), autos ($1.64 trillion),...

American credit card defaults have risen to the highest levels since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis as consumers grapple with years of high inflation. Credit card lenders wrote off $46 billion in delinquent loan balances in the first three quarters of 2024, a 50 percent increase from the same period last year. These forms of write-offs are are viewed as a highly monitored measure of loan distress. This is the highest level since 2010, according to industry data gathered by BankRegData. Mark Zandi, the head of Moody’s Analytics, said, “High-income households are fine, but the bottom third of...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) argued that one problem Democrats had in the 2024 campaign is “a lot of things that people attributed to Donald Trump really belong to Joe Biden. And I don’t think we did a good enough job of delineating that for the voting public,” but they will do so in the event that Democrats are the minority party in the House. Clyburn said that if Democrats are in the minority in the House and Trump’s “agenda is anything akin to what his campaign was all about, we are going...

Trump says he "shouldn't have left" the White House after he lost 2020 election and that he wouldn't mind someone shooting the press. Follow live updates

Israel confirmed Thursday that its soldiers had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar during a battle the day before in Gaza. That would have been impossible if President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had their way. Nevertheless, Biden tried to take credit in a statement welcoming Sinwar’s death on Sunday: Shortly after the October 7 massacres, I directed Special Operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side-by-side with their Israeli counterparts to help locate and track Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza. With our intelligence help, the IDF relentlessly pursued Hamas’s leaders, flushing them out of...

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried and failed Monday to claim credit for the “no tax on tips” idea that Vice President Kamala Harris embraced after former President Donald Trump proposed it earlier this summer. As Breitbart News has reported, Harris copied Trump’s policy of “no tax on tips” — a key point in his speech at the Republican National Convention last month — during a campaign rally on Saturday. As Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said, Harris was the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which provided for 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents —...

The international rating agency S&P Global lowered the long-term and short-term credit ratings of Ukraine in foreign currency to the level of "selective default" - from CC/C to SD/SD - due to the missed payment of Eurobonds on August 1 against the background of debt restructuring. "We understand that the government has decided to suspend bond payments pending restructuring. To that end, the government has not made a coupon payment on its 2026 Eurobonds on August 1, 2024, when payment was due, and we do not expect payments during the bonds' contractual grace period of 10 business days," S&P said...

ALBANY (WBNG) -- Governor Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday that around $350 million is supplemental payments to low and moderate-income families statewide through the Empire State Child Credit program. Hochul’s office said more than 1 million families will receive this financial assistance without any need to apply, as each eligible family will receive a direct payment of up to $330 per child. The Empire State Child Credit is a refundable tax credit for income-qualified New Yorkers with children. Hochul and the State Legislature expanded the Empire State Child Credit to include children under 4 years old which benefits an estimated 600,000...

eBay will no longer accept American Express payments starting August 17th, the company announced on Wednesday. It blames the change on the “unacceptably high fees” for Amex credit card transactions. “Credit card transaction fees continue to rise unabated because of a lack of meaningful competition,” eBay writes in a notice to customers. “There is a need for more robust regulations to drive greater competition to credit card networks and help reduce transaction processing costs.” eBay still accepts Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and other payment methods, like PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Venmo. Amex disagrees with eBay’s move, stating on its...

During an interview on Tuesday for Wednesday’s BET News interview special “Black America Votes: The Biden Interview,” President Joe Biden said that his economic policies haven’t resonated with people “because the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans have been opposed to it, and they’ve been beating up on it.” And because “it’s just taking time for people to see it. And the other thing is, there’s not been a very good job done about saying, this new billion-dollar bridge going over there is brought to you by Joe Biden.” But some of his policy agenda has “resonated for those who...