Countrywide Financial Corp., the former mortgage lending giant whose subprime loans helped spark the country's foreclosure crisis, bought influence on Capitol Hill by giving discounted loans to lawmakers and key policymakers, according to a nearly four-year House-led investigation that wrapped up this week.
Over the past two years, GOP primaries have ended the careers of several veteran Republican politicians who were backed by the party's establishment. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch is seeking to avoid the same fate in his first primary challenge since winning office in 1976.
The way the Obama administration tells it, improving trade relations with Russia as it prepares to enter the World Trade Organization would be in America's best interest.
For Congress, the outlines of the pending fiscal crisis are clear: Don't do a thing, and watch the economy slip into a double-dip recession early next year. Or cancel the looming tax increases and spending cuts, watch the deficit rise, and push the government ever closer to a European-style debt crisis.
Federal investigators said Monday that the administration is wasting billions on extra bonuses for health plans and should cancel them right away, fueling Republican complaints that President Obama is trying to postpone his health care law's unpopular Medicare cuts until after the election.
Maryland lawmakers made little progress Thursday in advancing proposals to legalize table games and bring offshore-wind energy to the state.
The United States is now, officially, the worst place to do business in the developed world. On Sunday, Japan lowered its corporate tax rate in the hopes of luring business to its shores, handing the title of highest tax rate to the Land of the Free. The market reaction on Monday will tell whether money will begin flowing away from us and toward the more business-friendly Asian country.
An amended Senate budget that provides $300 million in additional funds for the Dulles Metrorail project and millions more for K-12 and pre-K education passed the Senate Finance Committee unanimously Thursday, as Virginia's lingering budget stalemate took a step closer to resolution.
President Obama's plan to overhaul the country's corporate tax system — unveiled by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Wednesday — calls for cutting the overall tax rates for businesses while eliminating loopholes and special subsidies for certain industries.
