Roughly half of all U.S. families have no money set aside for retirement, Federal Reserve data show. Not a cent. But even that alarming savings deficit doesn't fully capture the emerging socioeconomic crisis facing what is, after all, a rapidly graying nation. [...]
An elite class of wealthy donors who have gained mounting influence in campaigns now has the ability to exert even greater sway.
A Supreme Court decision Wednesday to do away with an overall limit on how much individuals can give candidates and political parties opens a new spigot for money to flow into campaigns already buffeted by huge spending from independent groups. [...]
The Supreme Court on Wednesday continued its crusade to knock down all barriers to the distorting power of money on American elections. In the court’s most significant campaign-finance ruling since Citizens United in 2010, five justices voted to eliminate sensible and long-established contribution limits to federal political campaigns.
Any doubts about the determination of an activist United States Supreme Court to rewrite election rules so that the dollar matters more than the vote were removed Wednesday, when McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission was decided in favor of the dollar. [...]
In the past four years, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court has made it far easier to buy an election and far harder to vote in one. [...]
The Supreme Court on Wednesday released its decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the blockbuster money-in-politics case of the current term. The court's five conservative justices all agreed that the so-called aggregate limit on the amount of money a donor can give to candidates, political action committees, and political parties is unconstitutional.
On Wednesday, April 2, the United States Supreme Court ruled that any cap on the overall amount a person can spend to influence an election is unconstitutional. Following on the heels of the court's previous decision in Citizens United, the McCutcheon ruling will allow unlimited spending to influence our nation's political process. [...]
Just days after 2016 GOP hopefuls traveled to Las Vegas to kowtow to billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, the Supreme Court has made it even easier for the ultra-rich to control elections. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the five conservative Justices ruled that aggregate limits in campaign contributions are unconstitutional. [...]
The Supreme Court just decided an incredibly important case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (FEC). The Court's ruling will allow unprecedented amounts of money to flow directly into our political system. [...]
Members of the House Government Operations Committee were like pinballs last week, ricocheting between two walls as they worked to set campaign
contribution limits.
America's way of providing health care is failing, too, Cohn writes, and its problems also won't go away on their own. He spoke with NEWSWEEK's Mary Carmichael about how to cure an ailing system.
The people who get clobbered the most are still the working poor and the lower middle class. But the big change we're seeing now is that vulnerability is expanding up into the middle class more than before.
Ms. Draut, director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, a public policy group in New York, got to the heart of the matter in her recent testimony before a U.S. Senate committee looking into higher education costs.
Cindy Zeldin works for Demos, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. She says even the insured are not immune from this growing trend.
"The direction of health insurance is towards greater individual risk, greater out-of-pocket expenses and those expenses are going right on to credit cards," she says.
The report, released last week, was jointly compiled by Demos, a public policy group in New York, and the Access Project, which is affiliated with a health policy institute at Brandeis University and is trying to broaden the availability of health care in the U.S.
According to the report, called "Borrowing to Stay Healthy," about 29 percent of low- and middle-income families with credit card debt reported using their credit cards to pay medical expenses - in most cases for major medical problems.
Overall, borrowers also need to be honest with themselves before tapping their home equity, especially if the reason for the cash-out isn't a one-time cost, said Jennifer Wheary, a senior fellow at Demos.
"In the short-term, they will feel a sense of relief," she said, referring to those who use the cash to catch up with such things as credit-card payments or medical expenses.