After Call From Inouye's Office, Hawaii Bank Got Aid
How a Loophole Let GE Qualify for Bank Rescue
General Electric, the world's largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government's key rescue programs for banks.
Interactive: Has Your State Left Federal Unemployment Money Unclaimed?
So far 29 states have not expanded their unemployment insurance benefits enough claim their full share of stimulus funds.
Bank Failure Friday Comes Early
Facing a holiday weekend, the FDIC got a jump on its usual Friday bank closures, by shuttering a record seven banks on Thursday. It was the most in a single day since the onset of the financial crisis. The closures bring the number of total bank failures for the year to 52 and will cost the FDIC’s insurance fund $314.3 million.
Vacation Alert
ProPublica is on vacation on Friday, July 3, and won't be posting. We'll be back in full-force Monday.
Obama Seems to Rule Out Executive Order on Indefinite Detentions
President Obama appeared to rule out issuing an executive order to establish indefinite detention Thursday, nearly a week after White House officials first acknowledged that it was an option.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama said that if he goes ahead with indefinite detentions for terrorism suspects that he would ask Congress to approve it by law.
"It is very important that the American people and Congress, in conjunction with my administration, come up with a structure that is not only legitimate in the eyes of our constitutional traditions, but also in the eyes of the international community," he said, according to the AP.
Many States Leave Federal Unemployment Money Unclaimed
A few governors were loud about rejecting stimulus funding for expanding unemployment insurance, but many states have quietly let their share of the funding sit in Washington.
So far, only about half of the $7 billion included in the stimulus package has been claimed by states. (See our interactive map and chart.) What's more, about two-thirds of the funding that has been distributed has gone to states with existing laws, and not to states with newly expanded benefits.
Four states have explicitly rejected the funding, but many others have so far failed to pass legislation qualifying them for incentive payments.
Introducing a Blog for the ProPublica Reporting Network
I’m happy to announce that we now have a blog for the more than 1000 members of our ProPublica Reporting Network, an initiative we launched just a little more than a month ago.
The blog is intended as workspace for the Reporting Network, which organizes readers and guides them to “commit acts of journalism,” as it’s put by Marc Cooper, my former colleague from our days running the citizen journalism site OffTheBus. First up? The Reporting Network is setting its sights on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus. It’s a whopping $787 billion bill, one of the largest spending bills in U.S. history. Our first undertaking is the Adopt a Stimulus Project. The premise is simple—by building a network of monitors we can track progress made across the country. All you need to do is commit to watchdogging a local bridge or road construction effort.
Chart: Has Your State Left Federal Unemployment Money Unclaimed?
by Olga Pierce, ProPublica—July 2, 2009
As we detailed in our series with public radio’s Marketplace, the U.S.‘s patchwork unemployment insurance system—each state has their own program—features wildly varying levels of financing and benefits. The percent of unemployed workers collecting benefits also varies, from 22 percent in Washington, D.C., to 77 percent in Idaho.
The stimulus bill, passed in February, includes $7 billion for states that expand their unemployment insurance to include new groups of workers, including part-time and low-income workers. States have until 2011 to take advantage of the funding—and some are in the process of passing legislation to do that—but so far 29 states have not expanded their benefits enough claim their full share of the funds.
Mortgage Aid Targeted Most-Delinquent Borrowers First, Leaving Others Waiting
A survey of the biggest mortgage servicers participating in the administration's foreclosure prevention program shows that most have focused their efforts on the most delinquent borrowers first. This helps explain why many troubled borrowers who are not yet in default – but should be eligible for the program – say they've found it hard to get their servicers to modify their loan.
July 4 marks the fourth month of the Obama administration's $75 billion effort. So far, more than 200,000 loan modifications have been offered, the Treasury Department said recently. Officials have said the plan should help as many as 4 million homeowners, but some frustrated borrowers have told us that the program seems to be off to a slow start.
No Summer Vacation for Sec. of Education Arne Duncan
Today’s roundup of stimulus coverage:
There’s no summer vacation for Education Secretary Arne Duncan: $2.7 billion in federal stimulus money that Duncan had planned to dole out in October or November will instead go out to the states sooner. Plenty of students, however, will have summer vacations: The New York Times reports, “Nearly every school system in Florida has eviscerated or eliminated summer school this year, and officials are reporting sweeping cuts in states from North Carolina and Delaware to California and Washington.” While some schools are using stimulus money to maintain their summer programs, many districts are struggling with budgets the stimulus can’t close. This follows reports of brewing tensions between states and school districts on how to spend stimulus money.
It’ll be interesting to see if the administration fast-tracks any more stimulus cash. Critics of the stimulus—and increasingly the public—have questioned the slower-than-expected pace of spending. That might be why the Obama administration is embarking on a “Listening Tour” of rural areas this summer—especially, as the Los Angeles Times reports, in swing districts.
Big Bailed-Out Banks Ramp Up Fees
Even as the biggest banks have reached up for billions in federal aid, they have reached down to collect more and more penalty fees from consumers. The Washington Post gives a rundown:
Bank of America this year raised the maximum number of times customers can get hit with overdraft fees from five a day to 10. On top of that, it began charging a one-time fee of $35 if the account remains in the negative for more than five days. The bank also raised the monthly fee on My Access checking accounts to $8.95 from $5.95. Citigroup’s Citibank last year increased its overdraft fee to $34 from $30 and its ATM fees for non-Citibank customers to $3 from $2. Wells Fargo also last year increased its maximum overdraft and insufficient funds fee to $35 from $34.
The fees are big business for the banks, reports the New York Times, which also provides a nice graphic to show which banks charge the highest overdraft fees (KeyCorp, which took $2.5 billion in TARP funds, is the winner with fees that reach $39). The rates are rising despite the recession, says the Times, because with “fewer customers overdrawing their accounts, overdraft fees risk shrinking to a smaller income stream from what [one research firm] estimates is a $38.5 billion business this year.”
(On a related note, don’t miss our report from earlier this year on a company that has turned bounced checks into a thriving business.)
Other links this morning:
Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street (WSJ)
Treasury to Name 9 ‘Toxic’ Managers (WSJ)
Mortgage Refinance Program Expands (WaPo)
SEC Moves to Make Companies More Accountable to Shareholders (WaPo)
Ongoing Investigations
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War-Zone Workers Face Struggle for Health Benefits
Civilian contractors face costly and protracted battles to receive care from a federally supervised insurance system.
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Officials in Three States Pin Water Woes on Drilling
Leaks in gas wells are making drinking water flammable.
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Tainted Syringes Slipped Past FDA's Watch
Aggressive inspections might have prevented defective syringes from injuring scores of patients.
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Lawmaker Revisits Bounced Check Program
Rep. Barney Frank reconsiders his support for a law allowing debt-collectors to team up with district attorneys.
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Tracking the DNA Testing Backlog
At least 350,000 samples from murder and rape cases remain untested. We're tracking the progress of five labs.
- ★ Obama Health Czar Directed Firms in Trouble - Invest. Reporting Workshop
- ★ Staffer at SEC Had Warned Of Madoff - Washington Post
- Did a Colonel Set the Conditions for Iraq Massacre? - New Yorker ($)
- Study: Nations Break Pledges on Overfishing - Salon
- Southern Company Dominates Climate Lobbying - Center for Public Integrity
- Secret CIA Jails an Issue in Terror Case - New York Times
- Faulty Highway Conditions Factor in Half of Fatal Accidents - Wash. Post
- Metro Failed to Detect Hazard - Washington Post
- Washington Post Sells Access, $25,000+ - Politico
- Beazer Homes Charged with Mortgage Fraud - Charlotte Observer
- Congress's Travel Tab Swells - Wall Street Journal
Use our ChangeTracker to keep a tab on changes made to White House Web sites. And steal our code to make your own.
- Financial Regulation: Industry Objections Increasing BusinessWeek, 6/30
- GAO: Reverse Mortgages Leave Seniors at Risk Washington Post, 6/30
- More
- Staffer at SEC Had Warned Of Madoff Washington Post, 7/2
- SEC Dines With Those it Regulates Politico, 7/1
- More
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History of U.S. Gov't Bailouts: See How Past Gov't Bailouts Measured Up
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