One of the many cans being kicked down Washington’s boulevards these days is the government conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Congress and the Bush administration …
Congress
Curious CapitalistEconomy & Policy
Why Lower Corporate Taxes Won’t Create More Jobs
Yesterday, President Obama announced a long-awaited proposal to cut corporate taxes in America, which U.S. businesses complain are much too high by international standards. The proposed reform is intended to prevent companies …
Don’t Look Now — But You’ve Already Been Enrolled in an IRA Savings Plan
Automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans has been such a success that a lot of people want to duplicate it with IRAs. Proposals that would require employers to establish automatic payroll deductions for IRAs have been kicking around …
Door Opens to Tax on IRA and 401(k) Gains
From the beginning, questions have swirled around the future tax standing of retirement savings. In an age of soaring deficits, would Congress really be able to keep its hands off hundreds of billions of dollars of tax-advantaged …
Obama Wants to Make Cheaper Pennies and Nickels
It’s one of the more inconvenient truths about U.S. currency: It costs more than a penny to make a penny, and more than a nickel to make a nickel. Now, President Obama is trying to get Congress to grant him permission to lower …
Buffett Rule Shares Flaw with Tax it Would Replace
Say goodbye to the much-loathed Alternative Minimum Tax and hello to the Buffett Rule. Sweet relief. The AMT has perplexed taxpayers and agonized accountants for decades. But wait: Are the AMT and the Buffett Rule really so different?
The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades; Is Business Paying Its Fair Share?
As the nation frets over slow growth and large budget deficits, much has been made over how much Americas are and should be paying in income tax. President Obama and Democrats have argued that the wealthiest among us are not …
Kill the Dollar Coin — Long Live the Dollar Coin!
The U.S. government has a love/hate relationship with the $1 coin. At the same time as the U.S. Mint is scaling down production of the largely unwanted presidential dollar coins, two U.S. senators are introducing legislation that …
Does Obama Finally Have a Plan to Fix the Housing Mess?
Perhaps the single biggest headwind the American economy faces, rivaled only by unemployment, is the dismal housing market. American’s biggest source of wealth has been decimated over the past six years, so it was no surprise …
Almost Half of Americans Live in a Household Receiving Government Benefits
According to U.S. Census data, 48.6% of the population lived in a household that received some form of government aid in the second quarter of 2010, which rose slightly from the previous quarter — another sign of how dependent on federal aid Americans have grown during the Great Recession.
One Promising Economic Sign: Demand for Coins is Up
The U.S. Mint circulated more quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies last year. And that’s a good thing.
200,000 New Jobs Is a Good Start, But Good Times May Still Be a Decade Away
Companies are hiring again. That’s the good news. The bad news is those hires might not be coming fast enough.
