Cyra Master

President Obama upped the pressure on Congress to approve his FY10 budget, saying Tuesday night that his spending plan and the prospects for economic recovery are inextricably linked. "This budget is inseparable from this economy, because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity," Obama said in the second prime-time news conference of his presidency. Obama's latest push for his $3.6 trillion budget came as the House and Senate Budget… More »

An overview of Geithner's plan and the problems it's supposed to solve More »

Treasury has better reasons than mere timidity to be leery of outright temporary nationalization.Few things about the banking crisis are clear even to the experts, and sadly the things that do seem clear, taken together, only compound the problem. One is that hundreds of billions of dollars of further taxpayer support, at least, are going to be needed to revive the financial system. Another is that taxpayers are deeply reluctant to pay one more cent. The gap… More »

Community banks and credit unions didn't contribute to the national financial collapse, didn't get billions of tax dollars in a government bailout and shouldn't have to help shoulder the burden of keeping the country's largest banks afloat, banking industry officials told a Senate subcommittee. "Community bankers are angry," Stephen Verdier of the Independent Community Banks of America told the Senate Banking Financial Institutions Subcommittee. While Congress is… More »

The man assigned to put stimulus spenders on the hot seat will face a grilling today in his first appearance before Congress as the government's top watchdog for waste and fraud in the allocation of $787 billion in federal stimulus funds. Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will turn the bright lights on Earl Devaney, whom President Obama named chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. Questions are expected to… More »

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) presses Edward Liddy to make public the names of the AIG employees who received bonuses (at 4:19) More »

CNBC's Santelli says worrying about the $165M AIG bonuses is like "focusing on a $16 towel rack in the bathroom" More »

The chief executive of General Motors today seconded the notion that the Obama administration is backing away from supporting a "structured bankruptcy" of GM and Chrysler, as it sees the rapid deterioration of the vast chain of parts and services companies that serve the U.S. auto companies. Rick Wagoner, in Washington for meetings with task force officials, told reporters at a press conference that "the concerns about the supply chain have risen pretty rapidly… More »

Senate Finance Committee members will be looking for answers today from IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman as to whether investors defrauded by financier Bernard Madoff and other Ponzi schemes will be entitled to tax relief. The panel's hearing comes as momentum builds for action by the Obama administration or a legislative fix to deal with losses suffered by victims of Madoff, which may be in the realm of $65 billion, investigators say. The hearing was requested… More »

In a bid to help passage, Senate Democrats are courting credit unions to endorse legislation that would grant a bankruptcy judge the power to modify home mortgages, including reducing principal. Senate Democrats are viewing the credit unions as an easier get than banks and are dangling a sweetener in front of the Credit Union National Association and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions: a bill to lift the ceiling on business loans credit unions… More »

How can he try to kill Superman in this economy without some help? More »

When Texas financier R. Allen Stanford came to Washington in February 2006 to be feted at a celebratory dinner by a group called the Inter-American Economic Council, a few of his friends were in the crowd. They included lobbyists and such members of Congress as then-Reps. Bob Ney and Michael Oxley, both Ohio Republicans. At the affair, Stanford received a special leadership award from the council, a business-backed group whose activities included… More »

John Maggs of NationalJournal.com asks our Expert Bloggers: Was President Obama's economic forecast, as prepared by Christina Romer for the budget, too rosy? It estimated that the economy would shrink 1.2 percent this year and grow 3.2 percent in 2010, then grow at greater than 4 percent in 2011. Weigh the pros and cons of an optimistic forecast during a bad recession. Since I am not an economic forecaster, I have no special advantage in predicting the… More »

On the Today Show, Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett defend CNBC. More »

The Senate Monday evening voted down more amendments Republicans sought to attach to a $410 billion FY09 omnibus spending package, including a proposal from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would prohibit omnibus funds from being spent on earmarks that are not listed and provided for in the text of the bill. Thirty-two senators voted for the amendment, 63 voted against. McCain reiterated his call for President Obama to veto the bill, so that the nearly 9,000… More »

Key senators predicted Sunday that Congress will approve the $410 billion FY09 omnibus appropriations bill this week, but were divided about whether billions of dollars more should be spent to bail out U.S. financial institutions and automakers. Speaking on the Sunday morning television talk shows, Senate Banking ranking member Richard Shelby and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said the Senate should be able to break a logjam this week and pass the omnibus, which contains… More »

Centrist lawmakers from both parties are expressing unease over the impact of President Obama's budget plan on small business, a politically sacrosanct group that appears to have no easy definition. Beginning in 2011, Obama's budget would raise about $1 trillion in taxes on wealthier earners, defined as individuals making more than $200,000 and households pulling in at least $250,000. Treasury Secretary Geithner fanned out across the Capitol this week to… More »

If I had only followed CNBC's advice, I'd have a million dollars today ... provided I had started with $100 million dollars More »

Question from the National Journal's Expert's Blog: How much of a factor in the downturn have been sticky wages and prices? Can you point to sticky wages affecting the level of employment in particular industries, or sticky prices further dampening demand for some goods and services? Is there anything that government could do to effectively unstick wages or prices? Does the incidence of stickiness indicate that unionization (which is at… More »

The Obama administration will back legislation to force wealthy individuals and corporations sheltering money in offshore accounts to pay more in taxes, Treasury Secretary Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday. "We fully support your efforts," Geithner said when questioned by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas. Doggett on Monday introduced a bill with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., to strengthen IRS enforcement efforts and make it harder to park money in… More »