Ready for the DTV Transition?
As you may know, the national transition to digital television (DTV) is set for June 12th. That is less than a month away! Are you and your family ready?
Are you in danger of losing your signal?
- If you have cable or satellite, you're all set and don't need to do a thing.
- If you are watching free, over-the-air TV (or use "rabbit ear" antennas), you aren't ready and your TV service will disappear on June 12th.
You have three ways to prepare for the transition:
- Buy a converter box for your analog TV (this will convert your signal to digital)
- Purchase a television with a digital tuner
- Subscribe to cable or satellite TV
For more information, please visit DTV2009.gov or call 1-888-DTV-2009.
Even if you're already prepared for the transition, please help make sure your friends and relatives are ready too!
Posted by Peake, Amy at 02:36PM | | Comments () | TrackBack (0)
Common Sense Consumer Protection
The current economic crisis was fueled in part by the way banks approved and managed mortgage loans, leading to a meltdown in the housing market. Many banks, hungry for easy profits, steered millions of Americans into loans they couldn't afford with money they didn't have. This practice is predatory, deceptive, and irresponsible, and must put it to an end.
The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act will bring common sense reforms to the mortgage industry by ending predatory loan practices and encouraging banks to create safe, long term stable loans – like they used to do.
To restore the integrity of mortgage lending industry, this bipartisan bill will make sure that the
- mortgage industry follows basic principles of sound lending, responsibility, and consumer protection, ensuring that:
- borrowers can repay the loans they are sold;
- mortgage lenders make loans that benefit the consumer and prohibit them from steering borrowers into higher cost loans;
- all mortgage refinancing provides a net tangible benefit to the consumer;
- the secondary mortgage market, for the first time ever, is responsible for complying with these common sense standards when they buy loans and turn them into securities;
- there are incentives for the mortgage market to move back toward making safe, fully documented loans; and
- tenants renting homes that are foreclosed would receive notification and time to relocate.
Congress also recently authorized he establishment of a bipartisan Financial Markets commission to investigate the causes of the current recession. By next year, we should have a set of long-term recommendations to help us avoid another major financial crisis.
Financial Markets Commission
- Creates Financial Markets Inquiry Commission: Creates an outside commission to investigate the causes of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States – similar to the investigation of the Pecora congressional committee that examined the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The Pecora investigation uncovered fraudulent and unscrupulous practices on Wall Street that undermined the financial system. That congressional investigation contributed to the development of the regulatory system that governed our financial markets for decades.
- Commission Goals: This commission will produce a detailed and clear-eyed examination of what went wrong, which is needed to bring accountability to a financial system that rewards unduly risky behavior, and to help inform Congress as we move forward with common sense reforms to prevent these crises from happening in the future.
- Bipartisan Commission Made Up of Independent Experts: This Financial Markets Commission will be made up of 10 members (6 appointed by the Majority and, 4 by the Minority), with significant experience in banking, market regulation, taxation, finance, economics, housing and consumer protection.
- Commission Report Next Year: The Commission will hold hearings, can issue subpoenas for witness testimony or documents and must report its findings and conclusions to Congress by December 15, 2010.
- Examine Broad Range of Issues Leading to the Economic/Financial Crisis: The Commission will look at a broad range of areas, including the role of: fraud and abuse in the financial sector, state and Federal regulatory enforcement; credit rating agencies; lending practices and securitization; corporate governance and executive compensation; Federal housing policy; derivatives; GSEs; and short-selling, among others. The Commission is also required to examine the causes of major financial institutions that failed or were likely to fail without government assistance.
economic recovery
economic stimulus
economy
Posted by Peake, Amy at 06:56PM | | Comments () | TrackBack (0)
The President's Budget: An Economic Roadmap
This week, Congress and President Obama took an important step toward rebuilding our middle class and putting America on the path to prosperity. Congress approved the President’s budget, which will anchor the President’s plans to invest in education, health care and energy.
One of the ways the President’s budget paves the way for long-term economic growth is by providing the largest investment in higher education in history. In addition to steps we’ve already taken to mitigate the recession’s impact on our schools, the budget will help keep this crisis from pricing students out of a college degree by allowing us to increase Pell grants for students and making the federal student loan program more stable, cost-effective and efficient. And the budget will allow for all of this without increasing taxpayer costs one dime! Read more about the President's budget and the impact on education.
This budget is a blueprint for economic recovery and new jobs now—and sustainable economic growth and prosperity for years to come. For the first time in years, we will have an honest budget that:
* creates jobs with targeted investments in affordable health care, clean energy, and education
* cuts taxes for middle-income families by more than $1.7 trillion over 10 years
* cuts the deficit by nearly two-thirds in four years
* cuts non-defense discretionary spending as a percent of the economy
Read more about the budget on the Speaker's website .
A complete summary of the budget is available from the House Budget Committee at budget.house.gov.
budget
economic recovery
economy
Posted by Peake, Amy at 06:18PM | | Comments () | TrackBack (0)
