Oct/090
Congress Fights Transparency
Congressional Hall
What a joke! What are these guys scared of when posting bills online. Even this won’t help too much but why not allow the American people who are interested in seeing what their government is pushing on them by simply posting the bills online?
And wasn’t this one of Obama’s campaign promises to post bills and agenda’s online before voting on takes place? Why is Obama not out there excoriating these people and letting them know that this is what he wants them to do?
Bringing trancpericy to our federal government is going to take a lot of hard work and spine. These people know that allowing the American public to see what they are doing and what they are voting on will lead to backlash and possibly the end of their terms.
Follow the Jump to read the Source article:
What you don’t know can hurt you:
» House energy and global warming bill, passed June 26, 2009. 1,200 pages. Available online 15 hours before vote.
» $789 billion stimulus bill, passed Feb. 14, 2009. 1,100 pages. Available online 13 hours before debate.
» $700 billion financial sector rescue package, passed Oct. 3, 2008. 169 pages. Available online 29 hours before vote.
» USA Patriot domestic surveillance bill, passed Oct. 23, 2001. Unavailable to the public before debate.
Sep/090
Taking Over American Education: the final chapter
Congressional Hall
Bill Name Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 Bill Category Amendment Extented Title To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes.
Bill Summary This information is intended to be a nonpartisan summary and may not include all specifics contained in the full text of the bill. Further research may be necessary in order to make an informed decision. This bill does several things. First, this bill increases, by $490, the maximum Pell Grant amount that can be awarded to students. This bill also allocates money to be given in the form of grants to states for programs to promote the completion of post-secondary education, especially for minority groups that are underrepresented in higher education. This bill also states that if a student is called up for active duty in the military, and has taken a loan to pay for that portion of his/her schooling, then that portion of the loan will be repaid for him/her. If a student has more than $150,000 in assets, then that student will not be eligible for Pell grants, loans, or work assistance. Also this bill includes language that would prohibit federal funds from what are called certain indicted organizations, specifically the community organizing group ACORN. Bill Type House Bill Interest Education, House of Representatives, Monetary Sponsor George Miller (D) California Co-Sponsor
09-17-2009 Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 253 – 171 (Roll no. 719). 07-27-2009 Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Education and Labor. H. Rept. 111-232. 07-15-2009 Introduced in House
CBO estimates 705 billion in loans, 70% of all loan volume over the next 10 years.
Bill Upends System for College Loans
By COREY BOLES and ROBERT TOMSHO
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125321217589620383.html
(See Corrections & Amplifications below)
WASHINGTON — House approval of an education-financing bill Thursday marks a first step toward sweeping changes in U.S. higher education that would cut out private lenders and leave the government as sole provider of student loans under federal programs.
The bill, which passed on a largely party-line 253-171 vote, would save taxpayers $87 billion over the next decade by ending fees paid by the government to private lenders, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Among other things, the House bill would use the anticipated savings to increase grants for low-income students and boost funding for minority students.
The cost of student loans wouldn’t change as a result of the overhaul, according to the Obama administration. The only difference would be the source of the loans — the government as opposed to private lenders.
While the measure would eliminate private lenders from originating government-backed loans, banks and other lenders would be allowed to bid for a limited number of contracts to service government-made loans.
Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association, said Congress and the Obama administration should “consider alternative approaches that maintain choice for students and protect local jobs” at banks. Ending private lenders’ ability to originate government-backed loans “is a step in the wrong direction and at the wrong time,” he said.
The House vote follows two years of turmoil in the student-loan industry. In 2007, Congress reduced government payments to lenders making federally guaranteed student loans by more than $20 billion — just as credit markets started to seize up, eventually making it nearly impossible for lenders to package student loans into securities and sell them to investors, a key source of liquidity. Since the fall of 2007, more than 180 lenders have exited from all or part of the federal student-loan program.
This week, Fitch Ratings downgraded student-loan company SLM Corp., better known as Sallie Mae, to BBB-, and called its outlook negative.
For the school year that ended in the spring, companies lent students at 4,465 schools a total of $74 billion, up 13% from $65.3 billion the prior year.
Sep/091
U.S. government nervous about stimulus fraud, scams
ACORN
Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:25pm EDT
[source: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1029818020090910 ]
WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) – As billions of dollars from the economic stimulus plan pour through the U.S. economy, members of Congress, the administration and regulatory agencies are increasingly worried about the risks of fraud.
Earl Devaney told Congress on Thursday the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board he chairs is investigating those who may have misappropriated stimulus money.
His board has “forwarded more than 100 matters to various IGs (inspector generals to ensure heightened scrutiny of specific procurements that board staff has identified as potentially problematic.
“We’ve got about nine cases in various U.S. attorneys offices,” he added. “I know from talking to them that they’re very interested in sending some very loud signals early.”
The Federal Trade Commission, too, has monitored scams where people have misrepresented their connections to the stimulus in order to convince people to hand over money or sensitive financial information.
It has gotten individuals to dismantle websites promising to help people get money from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for household bills or, even, “leisure travel,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He described the individuals as con artists and hucksters.
“The commission is committed to using its law enforcement authority aggressively to bring these schemes to a halt, and to continue deploying public alerts and educational materials,” Leibowitz said.
The FTC cannot criminally prosecute scam artists, such as a telemarketing outfit that he said told Americans they were eligible for $25,000 grants and offered to sell them a $59 book on writing grants, the chairman said, but the agency does refer the cases to state attorneys general, he said.
But some legislators questioned if enough was being done.
“These funds must be disbursed quickly,” said Maine Senator Susan Collins, the highest ranking Republican on the committee. “Striking the right balance between speed and caution has been a challenging task.”
Collins said the Justice Department is training more than 10,000 federal, state and local officials to monitor stimulus contracts for collusion and bid-rigging.
The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, told the panel it is worried the auditing process the federal government requires states to use for stimulus-related programs may not catch misspending.
The “reporting deadline is too late to provide … results in time for the audited entity to take action on deficiencies,” J. Christopher Mihm, the GAO’s managing director of strategic issues, said.
But the Office of Management and Budget’s Deputy Director Robert Nabors, who is monitoring the stimulus dollars for President Barack Obama, said that as of Thursday his office had introduced a process for quicker auditing.
A website where funding recipients post how they have spent money and how many jobs their projects have created is running smoothly, Nabors said. He expects to release a report on how the stimulus has operated on Oct. 10.
That report will differ from the one released on Thursday by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers because it will only use the data in the system and will not rely on economic projections, he said. (Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Kenneth Barry)