RALEIGH, N.C.  – The North Carolina Bank Commission paid nearly $500,000 in bonuses to its employees last year and is asking legislators to provide money for more this year.

Employees of the commission are exempt from state salary rules. Deputy Commissioner Mark Pearce says the commission uses the bonuses to attract employees to work in bank regulation. Private firms and federal regulators pay more and Pearce said the bonuses are important.

But a legislator who leads the subcommittee that oversees the commission says it’s a bad year to be handing out state employee bonuses when most are getting pay cuts.

The bank commission regulates state-chartered banks, mortgage brokers and check-cashing businesses.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina legislators were facing a narrow vote on a proposed law that would ban smoking at indoor restaurants, bars and any other places people are working.
  
The House was scheduled to vote Wednesday on legislation that advocates say aims to eliminate the dangers of secondhand smoking. Opponents said it takes away a business owner’s choice.

Similar efforts failed in the House twice in the past two years.
 
The smoking ban is a personal quest for its lead sponsor, lung cancer survivor and House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman. The Davidson County Democrat said he could delay consideration beyond Wednesday based on whether he counts more supporters or opponents on hand when the roll is called.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says his team is “very confident” that the latest bank rescue plan will work to free up credit.

Obama says the plan to buy up toxic assets will be handled in a way that allows taxpayers to share in the upside as well as the downside. The administration says it’s teaming up with private investors to buy half a trillion dollars worth of bad bank assets. The hope is to ease credit for consumers and businesses and get the economy moving again.

The president spoke briefly to reporters in the Cabinet Room after his administration released a plan to entice private investors to buy up bad bank assets. He says the good news is that the nation now has “one more critical element” in a multi-pronged effort to help the economy recover.

Obama also says the depressed housing market is starting to show glimmers of hope.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (GYT’-nur) says the purchases could double to $1 trillion eventually. Announcing the plan today, Geithner pleaded for patience, saying despite the public’s “deep anger and outrage” over bad lending and investment practices, the effort to rehabilitate the financial industry must continue.

This latest initiative would devote as much as $100 billion from the existing financial bailout to buy the assets.

Meanwhile, private investors would put up $7 for every $100 in soured mortgages. That would be matched by $7 from the government, with the remaining $86 covered by a government loan.

While the government carries the bulk of the risk, Geithner says the alternatives would be doing nothing and prolonging the recession, or the government going it alone and assuming all the risk.

WASHINGTON – A government watchdog group says the federal government overpaid for stocks and other assets from financial institutions under its $700 billion rescue program.

The chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the bailout funds told the Senate Banking committee Thursday that Treasury in 2008 paid $254 billion and received assets worth about $176 billion.

The figures were reached by extrapolating the results of a study of 10 government transactions.

The Treasury by Jan. 23 had spent about $294 billion on more than 300 companies under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. In one bright spot, the inspector general in charge of reviewing the funds said the federal government has received more than $271 million