Today in accountability news:

• A former analyst at rating agency Standard & Poor’s tells Bloomberg that bankers from Goldman Sachs pressured him give higher ratings, and that the bank would “strong-arm Moody’s, Fitch and S&P.”
• An editorial in The Wall Street Journal highlights a study that shows California’s taxpayers are potentially on the hook ($) for more than $500 billion in unfunded liabilities for the state’s biggest pension funds.
• Sen. Chris Dodd’s financial reform bill, if approved, would not allow the Government Accountability Office to examine the Federal Reserve. The Huffington Post reports that while the House bill strengthens the GAO’s powers as an auditor of the Fed, the Senate bill would allow the central bank to continue to loan trillions of dollars to banks, without much transparency.
• Despite a new law banning deceptive census mailings, the Republican National Committee is still sending them out with new disclosure requirements written in small print, reports TPMMuckraker.
• At the end of this week, homebuyers will no longer be able to cash in on the $8,000 tax credit. But tax experts say the people who cashed in on the credit would’ve bought homes anyway, and the $12.6 billion spent on the program was not cost effective, according to The New York Times.