A group that supports advancing free-market reforms has blasted the Obama administration's decision for imposing its own will over the will of the people.

Last week (October 21), the U.S. Senate rejected President Barack Obama's state government bailout. The $35-billion measure would have provided funds for state and local governments to hire teachers and other school workers as well as to help pay the salaries of police officers, firefighters, and other first responders.

This week, Obama outlined a plan to allow millions of student loan recipients to lower their payments and consolidate their loans. The White House said the president will use his executive authority to provide student loan relief by reducing the maximum repayment on student loans from 15 percent of discretionary income annually to 10 percent. read more »

A handful of lawmakers are accusing General Motors of misleading the public by continuing to claim as part of its advertising blitz that the auto giant has repaid its government loans "in full."

General Motors has been running ads on all the major networks claiming the company repaid its $6.7 billion U.S. government loan "with interest five years ahead of the original schedule." General Motors Company CEO Ed Whitacre can be seen in the ad walking through an auto plant as he touts the company's progress.

But lawmakers, and even the inspector general for the bailout fund GM borrowed from, point out that General Motors only repaid the bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout money. They say the company did not actually use its own earnings to make the early payment and are questioning why executives are making such a big deal out of it...

Washington (AP) - Officials handling the multibillion dollar bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc. mismanaged an initial rescue attempt and may have overpaid other banks to wind down AIG's business relationships, a government watchdog says.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York -- headed at the time by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- paid AIG's business partners full face value for securities so they would cancel insurance contracts AIG had written in order to ease the firm's liquidity crunch. But at least one of those partner banks offered to canceled the contracts for less, according to a report Monday from Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the $700 billion financial bailout Congress approved last October...

WASHINGTON -- Government officials overseeing a $700 billion bailout have acknowledged difficulties tracking the money and assessing the program's effectiveness.

The information was contained in a document, released Wednesday, of a Dec. 10 meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Board. The panel, headed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, includes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission chief Christopher Cox...

WASHINGTON – Citing danger to the national economy, President Bush approved an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans in exchange for tough concessions from the deeply troubled carmakers and their workers.

The government will have the option of becoming a stockholder in the companies, much as it has with major banks, in effect partially nationalizing the industry...

A House Republican leader is urging the Bush administration not to use the remainder of the Wall Street bailout fund for emergency aid to the Big Three automakers.

The White House has said repeatedly that the Wall Street bailout fund should not be used to rescue the automakers because it was designed -- and approved by Congress -- to stabilize the financial sector. However, the White House is considering a change of heart. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says action by President Bush is the "only viable option"...

A Treasury Department official said Monday that no decisions have been made on what type of support to provide Detroit automakers.

Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin said department officials are continuing to assess the information they have received from the auto companies. Treasury officials are providing regular briefings to the White House, but she said there was no estimate on when a decision might be made...

The $15 billion bailout loan for Detroit automakers that the House passed Wednesday is still far from a done deal as a collection of Senate Republicans is raising roadblocks to the taxpayer-funded handout brokered by Democrats and the White House...

The U.S. government is prepared to
provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers
after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday.
The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced
in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial
system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago...

Rushing to rescue Citigroup, the government agreed to shoulder hundreds of billions of dollars in possible losses at the stricken bank and to plow a fresh $20 billion into the company.

Regulators hope the dramatic action will bolster badly shaken confidence in the once-mighty banking giant as well as the nation's financial system, a goal that so far has been elusive despite a flurry of government interventions to battle the worst global crisis since the 1930s...