“Economy of the United States” on The Daily Caller

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost taxpayers another $19 billion over the next three years, the bailed-out mortgage titans’ regulator said Thursday, but the total tab could nearly double if the U.S. economy slides back into a recession. (more)

New numbers posted today on the Treasury Department website show the National Debt has increased by more than $3 trillion since President Obama took office. (more)

A sell-off in stocks accelerated Tuesday, as investors weighed a surprise rate hike by the Chinese government, and some mixed data on housing and corporate results. (more)

WASHINGTON — When US Representative Barney Frank spoke in a packed hearing room on Capitol Hill seven years ago, he did not imagine that his words would eventually haunt a reelection bid. (more)

Basic government spending rose by 9 percent in fiscal 2010, driving the country to a $1.291 trillion deficit down $125 billion from 2009, but still the second-largest hole on record, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday. (more)

U.S. mortgage rates reached new record lows in the latest week as economic data raised the appeal of safe-haven government debt, according to a survey released on Thursday by Freddie Mac, the second-largest U.S. mortgage finance company. (more)

Reporting from Washington — (more)

Sunday marks the two-year anniversary of President Bush signing the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act,” better known as TARP (the Troubled Assets Relief Program). (more)

This week, Congress adjourned until after the election, but not without a serious debate about maintaining current tax rates. As you may know, if Congress fails to act, the nation will see a $3.8 trillion tax increase on January 1, 2011. Many in Congress are concerned that the uncertainty about where tax levels will end up is causing businesses to hold off on investment and job growth. (more)

President Obama is crowing about his small-business bill, signed into law on Monday. “It was critical that we cut taxes and made more loans available to entrepreneurs,” he said. Trouble is, small businesses and community banks don’t want Obama’s $30 billion program. That’s right. They don’t want it. (more)

The Obama administration is set to lower its estimate of the cost of the troubled asset relief programme when it celebrates the end of the bail-out effort next week, senior administration officials say. (more)

Fed head Ben Bernanke and the FOMC dropped a new policy bomb at their meeting this week. Now they say inflation is too low. That’s the real problem. And the solution? Punch up the money supply and punch down the dollar — or what I used to call King Dollar. No more. (more)

Business headlines may soon be making yet another comparison between current economic circumstances and the Great Depression if international events trigger the return of a hallmark of the 1930′s — the trade war. (more)

From the moment Boston-based OneUnited Bank began seeking a federal bailout in the summer of 2008, it received special treatment that went beyond what the Treasury Department or the bank and its political supporters have previously disclosed. (more)

Investors looking for reassurance about the health of the global economy received just that Monday. (more)

America is on the verge of receiving the largest series of tax hikes in its history.  At a time when our leaders’ top priority needs to be restoring our nation’s economic health, this tax increase will be another blow to our staggering economy. (more)

BP said in an internal report released Wednesday that “a sequence of failures” involving “multiple companies and work teams” caused the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. (more)

Housing policy reform is beginning to take shape. At this point, it looks like both the financial sector and Washington agree that the government must maintain a big role in the mortgage market. The favored strategy to do so thus far appears to be government mortgage guarantees that require a fee from banks that wish to obtain them. It would be kind of like depository insurance, except for mortgages. What could go wrong? Fannie and Freddie (F&F) provide a sufficient explanation. (more)

On New York City’s Avenue of the Americas, tourists can find a mathematical landmark that has grown in infamy as it has grown in digits. It is the National Debt Clock, and it has served as a publicly-displayed meter of the federal government’s spending habits for more than a decade. But as economists and politicians debate the merits of recognizing the future outflows of Social Security and Medicare as part of the debt, two different entities have already made the clock obsolete — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (more)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average stumbled back below 10000 on Thursday, an unwelcome milestone as worries about the U.S. economy increase. (more)