The Minnesota Independent

Debt - Latest Stories

Obama’s student loan plan lauded by Franken, student advocates point to limitations

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By Jon Collins | 10.27.11 | 10:25 am

The Education Finance Council said the President’s plan doesn’t address the real student loan problem of “rising tuition and the lack of well-paying jobs.”

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Bachmann calls for firing of Treasury head Geithner

By Andy Birkey | 08.08.11 | 7:56 am

On Fox News over the weekend, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann blamed the the nation’s falling credit rating on President Barack Obama and called on the president to fire Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner. Bachmann lays the “destruction” of the nation’s credit rating squarely at Obama’s feet, but Standards & Poors, the agency that issued the lowered credit rating blamed the move on a volatile political environment where making consensus is difficult. Bachmann voted against the consensus between Obama and congressional Republicans last week.

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Collin Peterson: Agriculture may be low priority of debt supercommittee

By Lynda Waddington | 08.05.11 | 11:15 am

Rep. Collin Peterson, a Minnesota Democrat who serves as ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee, said that he is “pretty well resigned that we’re not going to get anybody in the House that’s going to have much of a connection to agriculture on the [super] committee.”

Meffert files ethics complaint against Paulsen

By Andy Birkey | 09.22.10 | 7:09 am

DFL candidate Jim Meffert filed an ethics complaint with the House Ethics Committee on Tuesday charging that Rep. Erik Paulsen, his Republican opponent, falsified information in an official House communication with district residents. The Meffert campaign is taking issue with a tax-payer funded mailer that shows a graph of the national deficit, claiming that the graph is purposefully distorted.

Just say ‘no’: Could the bailout spark a new movement?

By Molly Priesmeyer | 09.25.08 | 2:44 pm

Darryl Dahlheimer, a project manager at Lutheran Social Service financial counseling in Minneapolis, points to the main reason we got into this mess: “We’ve been fetishizing free markets for the last 15 years to the detriment of the consumer and families and stable communities.”

Now consumers are experiencing anger and starting to fight back in the face of a $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

Charging back: Will credit cardholders get their due?

By Molly Priesmeyer | 03.17.08 | 10:46 am

Americans are drowning in debt like never before, yet the big, ugly “d” word has been of little issue in this election. Still,…

Maxed-Out Publisher: ‘Debt is America’s Social Safety Net’

By Paul Schmelzer | 04.03.07 | 10:55 am

It’s a weird kind of fortune that greets Tobin Brogunier’s new publication, Creditland. A free tabloid distributed in the Twin Cities and Brooklyn, N.Y., its launch coincides with a spike in awareness of credit debt brought on…