News & Comment

Despite the outpouring of support for bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren's candidacy to lead a new consumer protection agency, one prominent Democrat continues to publicly stand in her way: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd.

Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren, a top White House candidate to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is apparently no longer on the outside looking in.

Thursday, she was on the inside – literally – meeting with White House officials, including senior advisor David Axelrod. more »

As debate heats up over President Obama’s proposal to let the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy but to extend them for everyone else, a nonpartisan Congressional analysis circulated on Capitol Hill on Tuesday provides a look at the impact the plan would have on high-income taxpayers.

The big market reaction following today’s FOMC statement took place in the 10-year Treasury bond, where yields sank to 2.77% right after the statement came out, from 2.82% beforehand. more »

Downgrading its view of the economy, the Federal Reserve on Tuesday projected a "more modest" rate of recovery in the months ahead and announced that it will use proceeds from the mortgage bonds it owns to buy new Treasury debt in an effort to spark growth and investor confidence.

Early last year, while still a rising G.O.P. star, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina led a chorus of Republican governors criticizing the federal stimulus package and vowing to reject at least some of the money being directed to their states.

Included is $10 billion to preserve teaching jobs in the new school year, and $16.1 billion to help states cover their Medicaid payments for the first six months of 2011. more »

Congress on Tuesday gave final approval to a $26.1-billion aid package for cash-strapped states that will keep 161,000 teachers and thousands of police, fire and other local government workers from being laid off. The legislation was quickly signed by President Obama.

Freddie Mac reported a second-quarter net loss of $4.7 billion and asked the U.S. Treasury to provide a $1.8 billion infusion, raising the government's tab for its rescue of the mortgage-finance company to $63.1 billion. The second-quarter loss, the 11th in the last 12 quarters, compared with a year-earlier net profit of $300 million.

According to new data released today by the real estate website Zillow, fewer homeowners are underwater on their mortgage — those who owe more in payments than their house is currently worth — than were underwater last year. In 2009, 23 percent of homeowners were submerged, which has dropped to 21.5 percent today.