In a springtime show of unity, congressional Democrats welcomed President Barack Obama to the Capitol Wednesday and unveiled budget blueprints that embrace his key priorities and point the way for major legislation this year on health care, energy and education. ...more

March 25, 2009

Andrew Nappi of Hudson says he hopes U.S. Rep. Virginia Brown-Waite was merely tailoring her response to her young audience when she told Hudson High School students she hopes President Barack Obama succeeds. ...more

March 25, 2009

A $14 trillion economy hangs by a thread composed of (a) a comically cynical, pitchfork-wielding Congress, (b) a hopelessly understaffed, stumbling Obama administration and (c) $165 million. ...more

March 24, 2009

AIG employees have agreed to return about $50 million of the $165 million in bonuses. ...more

March 23, 2009

President Barack Obama says he cannot "govern out of anger" just because of public outrage over bonuses paid at financial institutions kept afloat by taxpayer dollars. ...more

March 23, 2009

President Barack Obama wagered significant political capital Sunday as he bucked a highly popular House measure to slap a punitive 90 percent tax on bonuses to big earners at financial institutions already deeply in hock to taxpayers. ...more

March 23, 2009

History will record the third week of March 2009 as Outrage Week in Washington. ...more

March 23, 2009

I listened to the congressional hearing on the "bonus" hassle at AIG most of the afternoon. I feel this mess is really the fault of the Congress. I make this statement based on the fact that the stimulus bill was rushed and passed without debate by the Congress. They just passed something about which they knew nothing. At the time a sense of "panic" was created to the effect that, if there wasn't quick action not only a "national" but a "worldwide" financial catastrophe could occur. I wondered at the time how the "tanking" of one insurance company could cause such a worldwide disaster. I feel that the continuing bailout of AIG with billions and billions of taxpayers money, by Congress, has a deeper reason than what appears on the surface or what is being revealed to the public. ...more

March 22, 2009

Struggling to contain the worst financial crisis in seven decades, the Obama administration wants to buy billions of dollars of toxic assets from banks to ease borrowing for consumers and businesses. ...more

March 22, 2009

A busload of activists representing working- and middle-class families paid visits Saturday to the lavish homes of American International Group executives to protest the tens of millions of dollars in bonuses awarded by the struggling insurance company after it received a massive federal bailout. ...more

March 21, 2009