Updates

Today, college student leaders from Kent State University, Florida International University, together with Sarita Brown, president of Excelencia in Education, and Ethan Senack from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, called on federal lawmakers to keep student loan interest rates from doubling. On Wednesday, the House Education and Workforce committee will debate the costs and benefits of the federal student loan program, including student loan interest rates.

“The REINS Act (H.R. 367) would block enforcement of existing health and safety laws by creating new bureaucratic hurdles and impossibly short timelines for approval of critical rules. This bill poses a grave threat to the health and safety of the American people.

The high-stakes negotiations between BP and the Justice Department may depend on how determined the Department is to protect taxpayers from subsidizing a settlement. In the past, agencies have allowed companies to write off legal settlements over wrongdoing as a tax deduction. Doing so forces taxpayers to ultimately foot the bill for these deductions. Every dollar these companies avoid paying gets made up through cuts to public programs, higher national debt, or increases to other taxes.

With Washington gearing up for additional high-stakes budget battles over the next few months, Congress has continued to ignore a solution worth about $90 billion annually: closing loopholes that allow corporations to avoid taxes by pretending their profits are earned in offshore tax havens. Corporate lobbyists often claim that closing these loopholes would drive companies to flee the U.S. and re-register themselves in low-tax countries. U.S. PIRG’s new analysis explains why this is not the case.