Starting July 1, interest rates on federal student loans are set to rise from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. As Congress again considers preventing the interest rate on federal student loans from doubling, the cost to taxpayers should be a central issue. However, in a recent Issue Brief, Heritage analyst …
Last week, the President declared April 2013 National Financial Capability Month in an effort to encourage Americans to budget responsibly. This is a commendable goal. However, with the President’s budget more than two months late, it’s worth considering how the President is managing the nation’s finances: He grew the national …
Do the risks from the Federal Reserve’s trillion-dollar annual stimulus program justify the rewards? That was the central question at Tuesday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing featuring Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. Bernanke worked hard to defend the Fed’s quantitative easing policy, but he appears to oversell the rewards by a mile …
Too often, government policies designed to ameliorate a general problem merely benefit a special interest. A case in point, highlighted by Binyamin Applebaum on the Economix blog, is the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). HARP is part of the complex federal effort to stabilize the home mortgage market and stem …
The Federal Reserve Board today announced the introduction of yet another hyper-aggressive monetary policy, dubbed “QE4” by some for the fourth round of quantitative easing. Three times a dud, fourth time a charm? Not likely. The Fed’s concerns for the economy are well-founded. The economy continues to struggle badly under …
President Obama is busy crossing the country and appealing to young Americans on the issue of student loans. He’s warning them of the possibility of increased interest rates this summer, which are set to double. Of course, there’s much more to the story than the president lets on. Douglas Holtz-Eakin explains …
