Category Archives: National News

Which is worse?

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Additional debit card fees or a monthly fee for not having enough money in the bank?

Both are big-bank options to maintain unsightly profit levels as regulators crack down on other awful (remember the housing collapse?), yet profitable, bank practices, according to the Huffington Post.

Citigroup Inc said it will start charging a monthly fee of $10 on checking and savings accounts with combined balances of less than $1,500, joining a growing list of banks seeking to recoup revenue lost under new financial industry regulations.

The fee will be waived if a customer completes one direct deposit and one online bill payment per month through an account, or maintains a balance of at least $1,500 in checking and savings accounts, Citigroup said on Friday….

Citigroup said it will not charge for debit card use or online bill payment.

Stephen Troutner, head of banking products for Citi’s U.S. consumer bank, said free debit card use could woo customers from other banks that are weighing whether to charge for debit card use, such as JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co.

 It’s odd, isn’t it, as income drops around the country, that things like bank fees go up. And why the fee waiver for people who pay bills online? Could be Citigroup’s way of clearing out what it considers the true riff-raff — those who don’t have Internet access; those folks frequently are poor.

Meanwhile, in Washington…

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It’s easy to be totally focused on Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to destroy unions along with most of what is good about Wisconsin.

But, hey, they’re trying to screw you in Washington, too.

The House and Senate this week agreed to a continuing resolution that will keep the government chugging along for a whopping two weeks. The fight ain’t over yet, though.

The House, keen to cut programs that benefit anyone making less than a zillion dollars a year, is pushing for a $61 billion cut in discretionary funding, according to The Economist.

According to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Some 157,000 at-risk children up to age 5 could lose education, health, nutrition, and other services under Head Start, while funds for Pell Grants that help students go to college would fall by nearly 25 percent, under a bill passed by the House that would cut current-year non-security discretionary funding by an average of 14.3 percent.  The bill (H.R.1), which would fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2011, now must be considered by the Senate. 

H.R. 1 also would kill a program that helps low-income families weatherize their homes and permanently reduce their home energy bills, cut federal funds for employment and training services for jobless workers and for clean water and safe drinking water by more than half, and raise the risk that the WIC nutrition program may not be able to serve all eligible low-income women, infants, and children under age 5.  In addition, it would cut funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 10 percent, for the Food and Drug Administration by 10 percent, and for the Food Safety and Inspection Service by 9 percent.

Wisconsin, according to CBPP, would stand to lose $30 million in education funding — in this fiscal year!

According to CBPP:

At the same time, H.R. 1 would increase overall funding for security programs (those funded by the Defense, Homeland Security, and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs appropriation bills) by a little less than 1 percent.

Also, the 14.3 percent figure is a bit deceiving.  To achieve that level of overall cuts for non-security programs for the entirety of 2011, funding for those programs will have to fall on average by nearly one-fourth over the seven remaining months of the fiscal year.  This could make it even harder for some agencies to maintain important activities than the 14.3 percent figure for all of 2011 suggests.

The House, by the way, would not fully share the sacrifice it would impose on others, as its own budget would decline by a mere 6%.

There is not many surprised on who voted how on this bill:

Yea    WI-1    Ryan, Paul [R]
Nay    WI-2    Baldwin, Tammy [D]
Nay    WI-3    Kind, Ronald [D]
Nay    WI-4    Moore, Gwen [D]
Yea    WI-5    Sensenbrenner, F. [R]
Yea    WI-6    Petri, Thomas [R]
Yea    WI-7    Duffy, Sean [R]
Yea    WI-8    Ribble, Reid [R]

There you have it. Something besides Scott Walker to think about.

House bucks transportation lobbyists

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The House of Representatives on Wednesday opened the Federal Highway Trust Fund to other uses, including deficit reduction, according to Trucking Info.

The language of the rule appears simple but has a complex effect. It says that the House cannot consider legislation that will provide spending authority from the Highway Trust Fund or reduce the balance of the fund for any purpose other than activities authorized for highway or mass transit.

The apparent purpose is to preserve Highway Trust Fund money for highway use, but the highway community says the rule will in fact damage highway funding and planning.

Under the old rule, appropriators were required to match the obligation limits set in the current highway program. This was designed to give states the certainty they need to plan for multi-year infrastructure projects, according to a memo on the subject from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

The new rule does not contain this obligation protection, the memo says. As a result, the House Appropriations Committee can now use the Highway Trust Fund to create a budgetary balance it can use to free up spending in other areas.

The new House rule, adopted under the new Republican majority, is an exclamation point of contradiction to efforts in Wisconsin, where the road-building industry successfully pushed advisory referendums in 53 counties endorsing the idea that the transportation fund should be used only for transportation projects.

Huge US Supreme Court case on docket this week

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The US Supreme Court seems to delight to just kicking the snot out of the average American in order to benefit big corporations. Look out, average American, because the court has another really good chance to do so in a case coming up this week. It will be deciding whether corporations can prohibit their customers from joining together in class action lawsuits.

I can’t see, giving the court’s track record, that it will rule in favor of the little people. From Public Citizen:

Basically, the court will decide whether companies can deny consumers and employees the right to band together through class actions to fight fraud, discrimination and other illegal practices. AT&T argues that the courts must enforce the fine print of its contracts that ban class actions. Public Citizen attorney Deepak Gupta will argue before the court on behalf of consumers, claiming that the contracts are unconscionable and unenforceable.

When a large number of consumers have claims for small amounts, it is not feasible to pursue the claims without a class action. Concepcion is exactly that kind of case. The Concepcions allege that AT&T illegally charged them $30.11. Multiplied by the number of AT&T’s California customers alone, the allegations implicate ill-gotten gains in the millions of dollars. But if consumers can litigate the claims only one by one, no one will do so, and AT&T will keep the proceeds of its illegal activity….

If AT&T wins, not only will it be difficult for AT&T’s customers to hold that company accountable for its actions, but also for people with civil rights, labor, consumer and other kinds of claims that stem from corporate wrongdoing. Dozens of organizations, including leading civil rights and consumer groups, have filed briefs asking the court not to allow corporations to ban class actions.

Money, money, moneymoneymoneymoneymoney. And politics

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Thank you, US Supreme Court, for opening the path to this depressing bit of news.

From the Center for Responsive Politics:

Special interests have today passed a major milepost in influencing U.S. political elections.

Groups have thrown more money into the 2010 midterm elections than they did during the 2004 election cycle — when, on top of congressional contests, Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry battled for the presidency.

During the 2004 election cycle, all outside groups spent $448 million on independent expenditures, electioneering communications and other communication costs to influence the election and aid their preferred candidates, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. As of this morning, the Center’s research indicates, all outside groups have spent $455 million on such expenses — a number that will continue to rise as Election Day nears.

Outside groups would have to spend another $130 million during this election cycle to match the 2008 election cycle, when such groups spent $585 million among congressional contests, as well as the presidential race.

Overall this cycle, outside groups, including the national party committees, unions, trade associations, nonprofits and “super PACs” such as American Crossroads, have so far favored Republicans. Conservative-oriented groups have spent $1.34 for every $1 liberal-affiliated groups have spent, the Center’s data show.

Here’s a little table, lifted from a Center database, that shows outside spending in Wisconsin races during the current general election cycle. More outside money is spent opposing candidates of either party than supporting them, but that Republican candidates better than a 3-1 advantage in getting supportive funding.

Outside funding for Wisconsin candidates during the general election cycle.

The Center has some cautions and caveats about why all the numbers don’t total the way you might expect:

Candidate totals on this page cannot be added together to obtain an overall total spent for the cycle. This is because some outside groups do not report spending per candidate. For the electioneering communications, for example, several candidates can be listed on a report with no indication of how the money should be distributed among the candidates, or even if the money is being spent for or against the candidates. In such cases, the “Total” column will reflect the full amount reported for the expenditure for each candidate. For instance, if a group spends $100,000 on an electioneering communication that mentions three candidates, all three candidates will show $100,000 for that expenditure.