This morning, while reading a release linked from Recovery.gov, I ran across one of those government terms that make no sense. As part of the stimulus efforts, the Railroad Retirement Board, an independent agency that manages federal benefits for railroad retirees and their dependents (more details on why this board exists here) will send additional checks of $250 to most of its beneficiaries, "including disabled adult children."
A disabled adult child is a dependent of a railroad pensioner--or Social Security beneficiary--who, because of his disability, is eligible to continue receiving his benefits based on his parent's or ...
Continue readingShow me THIS data
Derek Willis, with whom I was lucky enough to work with at the Center for Public Integrity, critiques the recent Show Us The Data effort (full disclosure: Sunlight was involved in building the site, and I helped a good deal with the conceptualization). He offers eight solid suggestions for data sets that should be publicly available -- and didn't make the cut for the Show Us The Data site. No arguments here with his wish list, and there's some really good suggestions there.
In defense of Show Us The Data, voting was open to the general public, many of ...
Continue readingSpecter ramps up the fundraising
In the whirlwind of fundraising parties this month"as of today we've collected 428 invitations for this month and counting"Sen. Arlen Specter stands above his peers, with a dozen parties scheduled in March and more beyond.
Read more at Party Time.
I'm sure stories like these have nothing to do with his number
Continue readingAIG subsidiary sues Countrywide Financial
How did I miss this?
Discovery should be pretty interesting.
I don't seem to be able to post the document, but this quote is interesting:
Since the 1980s, United Guaranty has used a delegated model for underwriting. Underwriting is the process whereby an insurer determines the risk associated with a loan and decides whether to offer insurance. Under the delegated model, United Guaranty does not underwrite each loan itself. Instead, it relies on the lender to accurately represent information on the loans to be insured. For example, the lender may represent that the loans satisfy certain underwriting guidelines such ...Continue reading
A bad idea?
A colleague emailed this link with a subject line reading "Crazy! Non-profit papers?"
I wonder if AIG bonus recipients would care to advise newspapers of how calm and dispassionate members of Congress can be when they are legitimately criticized for their own actions. I wonder what the first newspaper whose specially conferred tax exempt status would be revoked, or threatened to be revoked. How many editors would be called on the carpet at congressional hearings and asked whether their columnists weren't intervening in political campaigns by criticizing incumbents?
Don't get me wrong--I think non-profit journalism is part of ...
Continue readingThe Gilded Age on congressional investigations
How little things change. In The Gilded Age, by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, a member of the Senate, Abner Dilworthy, is caught bribing a state legislator to ensure his reelection. Dilworthy knows how to respond:
Yes, the nation was excited, but Senator Dilworthy was calm--what was left of him after the explosion of the shell. Calm, and up and doing. What did he do first? What would you do first, after you had tomahawked your mother at the breakfast table for putting too much sugar in your coffee? You would "ask for a suspension of public opinion." That ...Continue reading
Give a dollar to a pol, get $18,195 back
Glenn Reynolds asks whether employees in the financial industry, always a big donor to political campaigns, will contribute to other candidates or curtail their giving. He cites the AIG bonus flap, and Congress' reaction to it (including the outrage of members and the House passing a bill that would tax 90 percent of those bonuses away) as evidence of the fickleness of Congressional favor. Reynolds writes,
In light of this behavior, Wall Street--if it survives long enough--will likely conclude that subsidizing these pols was a bad idea.If so, maybe it's time to shut off the funding. Politicians are ...
Continue reading
Rangel: No accusations coming from Congress
Roll Call's Lauren W. Whittington reports that Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., once again, is saying that the ethics committee has nothing on him:
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Rangel said that the charge against him has no merit and has no facts, and he repeatedly asserted that no one outside of the press " he specifically called out a New York Times reporter " has made allegations and that there has been no accusations coming from the Congress.Continue readingRangel said several times that no one other than a reporter has accused me. When pressed on why the Committee on Standards ...
Dodd’s family business?
Kevin Rennie notes another connection of Sen. Christopher Dodd to the financial industry, at one remove from AIG:
it turns out that Senator Dodd's wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well.From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an "outside" director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG.
There are many other connections, obviously.
Continue readingPMA Group investigation, Pacific Northwest edition
David Heath of the Seattle Times reports on PMA Group's contributions to Rep. Norm Dicks and the earmarks he secured for their clients (there's a database for all of Congress here, and Dicks' earmarks are here.)
Congressman Norm Dicks has never been shy about accepting campaign donations from favor seekers.Now the FBI is investigating one of Dicks' most generous donors " the powerhouse lobbying firm PMA Group.
Read the whole thing. This bit really caught my eye:
The sheer volume of donations from PMA lobbyists raises questions. For example, Sandra K. Welch retired from PMA two years ago ...Continue reading
59063
