“Bailout” on The Daily Caller

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top global finance officials are pledging to work decisively and in a coordinated way to deal with a European debt crisis and other dangers confronting the global economy. (more)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Greece is taking the right steps to get its next bailout payment, warning against allowing a Greek default because of the risk of contagion for other euro-area countries. (more)

Talks about how to get private investors to contribute toward a new bailout for Greece widened Monday to include a possible buyback of Greek government bonds — but people at a meeting in Rome discussing the issue said there were no guarantees the ideas wouldn’t lead to a default by the heavily indebted nation. (more)

Hundreds of small banks that received U.S. aid after the financial crisis appear to have found a creative way to repay the funds: obtain money from a different government program. (more)

LONDON — European officials on Thursday sought to calm fears over a possible financial collapse in Greece, saying that short-term aid to Athens was imminent, even as the euro slumped and concern heightened that debt troubles could engulf larger economies such as Spain. (more)

The Democratic National Committee has a game plan and it’s sticking to it: run over Mitt Romney, reverse, and do it again. (more)

Chrysler Group was set on Tuesday to repay $7.5 billion in U.S. and Canadian government loans from its 2009 federal bailout, a move that will allow the U.S. automaker to distance itself from an unpopular bailout and deepen its ties with Italian automaker Fiat SpA. (more)

A few days ago, Portugal officially requested a $116 billion bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. This makes Portugal the third European nation to seek such a bailout in the past year (Greece got $157 billion; Ireland $122 billion). What most people don’t realize is that the U.S. is the largest contributor to the IMF. Therefore, U.S. taxpayers are paying for Portugal’s bailout, which — like the earlier bailouts of Greece and Ireland — was caused by too much government spending and borrowing. (more)

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal asked for a bailout Wednesday to relieve its crushing debt, joining Greece and Ireland by becoming the third eurozone nation to seek outside help amid a bruising financial crisis.  (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court decided on Monday not to stop the release of Federal Reserve Board documents identifying financial companies that received Fed loans to survive the financial crisis. (more)

The United States Postal Service has fallen on tough times, struggling to find both revenue and relevance in the digital age. President Obama’s 2012 budget, released Monday, attempts to help it accomplish the first of those, providing it with a total of $4 billion of “temporary financial relief” this year. (more)

Last year, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) bailout of Ireland and Greece put U.S. taxpayers on the hook for over $46 billion. It’s time to get ready for the next round of European bailouts in 2011. IMF First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky says that “we will stand by with our European partners to provide support.” Speculation has been circulating that this will mean an upcoming taxpayer bailout of Portugal and Spain. (more)

After last night’s show of civility across party lines at the State of the Union, Rep. Darrell Issa’s first Oversight Committee hearing on bailouts and the foreclosure crisis started with a bout over procedure. (more)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) issued a new threat against a federal bailout for ailing state governments Monday as GOP leaders girded for a confrontation with President Obama over spending. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House’s major investigative committee will explore financial bailouts and the foreclosure crisis on Jan. 26, in the panel’s initial hearing this year. (more)

Our founders — being federalists, after all — believed in the rights of states and localities to make their own decisions. Today, it seems most Americans trust folks at the local level to know, much better than our federal overlords, what works for their communities. This makes common sense. And without question, it’s what our founders contemplated when they conceived and drafted the Constitution. (more)

Last week, government-backed mortgage entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fined Bank of America $3 billion for selling faulty mortgages that either have, or will default into, huge losses. Now critics are calling the deal a backdoor bailout because the sum is much lower than the losses for which the bank could be held liable. (more)

98 American banks that received $4.2 billion in bailout money are teetering on the edge of collapse, according to the Wall Street Journal. (more)

It’s looking increasingly likely that California will get bailed out by the federal government. The Golden State is $70 billion in the hole. Analysts expect that figure to reach $150 billion within four years — and that’s not including the state’s $500 billion unfunded pension liability. Spending needs to be cut dramatically, but it won’t be; the state is too politically dysfunctional to do that. And the election of big-spender Jerry Brown will only make things worse. (Incidentally, Governor-elect Brown recently described his state’s budget problems this way: “It is much worse than I thought. I am shocked.”) (more)

The U.S. Treasury set plans to sell the last of its Citigroup Inc. common shares in a $10 billion offering that would cap the government’s biggest bank bailout of the financial-market meltdown. (more)