{"id":243206,"date":"2010-01-28T12:27:47","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerist.com,2010:\/\/1.10001332"},"modified":"2010-01-28T14:48:46","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T19:48:46","slug":"is-the-state-of-the-union-good-for-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/243206","title":{"rendered":"Is The State Of The Union Good For Consumers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/capitol-thumb-300x301-36447.jpg\">         <\/p>\n<p>The Obama Administration has been promoting its <a href=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/2009\/10\/consumerist-at-the-white-house-part-iii-regulating-credit-bureaus.html\">financial reform proposals<\/a> almost since the inauguration, and most of the administration&#8217;s plans, including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, have wide support among consumer advocates.So, how are consumers doing, and what did the President say last night that might be good news?<\/p>\n<p>The Seattle PI&#8217;s Boomer Consumer went through the speech and highlighted the pro-consumer points. Among them:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Imposing fees on the largest banks, who are giving out big bonuses again.<\/li>\n<li>Adopting new laws on financial institution reform, which have passed the House but not the Senate.<\/li>\n<li>Making college more affordable through a $10,000 tax credit on Pell Grants and a limit of 10 percent of salary for payments plus the forgiveness of student loans in 10 years for those who enter public service and in 20 years for everyone.<\/li>\n<li>Helping for those facing retirement built their &#8220;nest egg.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Shoring up the housing market.<\/li>\n<li>Passing health insurance reform to help the uninsured, eliminate preexisting conditions, and reduce premiums.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Nothing really new there, though the SOTU speech is a good way to get a handle on the administration&#8217;s priorities, and financial reforms were definitely in the spotlight. The President also highlighted what he called successes for consumers during his first year in office, including:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Stabilization of the financial system, even though the bank bailout was unpopular, even with him.<\/li>\n<li>Changes to COBRA, making it 65 percent less expensive for the unemployed.<\/li>\n<li>Adoption of 25 different tax cuts to help people and small businesses.<\/li>\n<li>Creation of 2 millions jobs through the economic stimulus bill.<\/li>\n<li>Recovery of retirement funds<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We&#8217;ll see how much really gets done in Congress over the next few weeks. Already, outgoing Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd has hinted that the <a href=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/2010\/01\/consumer-financial-protection-agency-on-the-chopping-block.html\">CFPA might be scuttled<\/a> as part of a bargain to get Republican support &#8212; which may be needed if Democrats aren&#8217;t able to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nuclear_option\">find a way<\/a> around the loss of their &#8220;supermajority&#8221; in the Senate. Looks like the prez and his allies have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to see real financial reform this year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.seattlepi.com\/boomerconsumer\/archives\/192587.asp?from=blog_last3\">What did President Obama State of the Union speech offer to consumers?<\/a> [Seattle PI Boomer Consumer]<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.consumerreports.org\/money\/2010\/01\/barack-obama-state-of-the-union-address.html\">What&#8217;s the State of the Union for Consumers?<\/a> [Consumer Reports Money Blog]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Obama Administration has been promoting its financial reform proposals almost since the inauguration, and most of the administration&#8217;s plans, including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, have wide support among consumer advocates.So, how are consumers doing, and what did the President say last night that might be good news? The Seattle PI&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}