WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Congressman Mike McIntyre announced today that he has co-sponsored legislation to address the long-term fiscal condition of our nation by setting a timeline for Congress to reform spending and taxes.

Congressman McIntyre stated, “Our national debt is over $11 trillion dollars and growing by the second!  We need to be moving forward with a plan to pay back this borrowed money.  This legislation is a positive step forward in doing just that, and I will be working to push it forward.”

The Securing America’s Future Economy (SAFE) Commission Act would create a 16-member panel comprised of the White House OMB Director and Treasury Secretary; four members appointed by the Senate Majority Leader and four appointed by the Speaker of the House; three appointed by the House Minority Leader and three appointed by the Senate Minority Leader.

No more than four Members of Congress could sit on the commission. It would be tasked with holding town hall meetings around the country and then submitting a report that balances long-term spending and revenue scenarios for the nation. If Congressional leaders fail to introduce their own proposal, the SAFE Commission’s legislative proposal is automatically brought to the House floor. If passed, it is sent to the Senate for similarly expedited consideration.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper is backing a legislative effort to protect consumers from unscrupulous debt collectors.

The Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday approved a bill that would provide new protections against people who buy bad consumer debt and then turn up the heat trying to collect. Cooper urged the committee’s members to back the bill, which now heads to the Senate floor.

The measure says debt buyers are guilty of unfair practices if they try collecting a debt without documents showing they’re the ones actually owed the money.

Debt collectors also cannot try to pursue the money after a deadline has passed or if they fail to give 45 days written notice before going to court.

Political wonks use phrases like “constant campaign” and “perpetual candidate” to describe the apparent need of office-holders to motivate the masses into pumping money into their war chests.

With members of the 111th Congress seated less than three months ago, some incumbents already are looking ahead to the next election.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, who represents North Caro-lina’s 10th District, is asking the faithful to help bail him out of the $230,000-plus campaign debt he racked up last year.

In a mass e-mail letter sent out by his campaign, McHenry said last year’s election season was “the worst political environment for Republicans in modern history.”

Because of that, the e-mail continues, “our victory came at a high cost.”

Specifically, McHenry raised about $1.35 million and spent nearly $1.6 million during his two campaigns in 2008.

According to the most recent report McHenry filed with the Federal Election Commission, his campaign has $71,501 of cash on hand. But its debt is listed as $265,000.

The solicitation e-mail lists the debt as more than $230,000 and asks contributors to help the campaign pay it off so that McHenry “can continue to stand up to the Liberal Left and fight for conservative values in Congress.”

Dee Stewart, McHenry’s senior political adviser, said fundraising is essentially a nonstop effort under any circumstances but that 2008 took a big bite out the campaign’s coffers.

“We had a serious primary and a serious general election last year,” Stewart explained. “And it was costly.”
McHenry won both elections handily.

He beat Republican primary opponent Lance Sigmon by a margin of better than 67 to 33 percent and then took almost 58 percent of the vote in his race against Democrat Daniel Johnson in November’s general election.

The goal now is to get the numbers on the campaign’s Federal Election Commission report looking a little less red before the end of the 2009 first quarter, which is midnight Tuesday.

“I need to raise $25,000 over the next 24 hours to send a strong message to the Democrats,” McHenry’s e-mail reads.

Stewart said that those in the know keep their eyes on FEC statements and they are sniffing for proverbial blood in the form of red ink.

“The leaders of both parties are always monitoring these reports to gauge the financial strength of the candidates,” he said.

While McHenry may be against the financial ropes right now, Iredell County’s other member of the U.S. House of Representatives is walking tall.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, who represents the 5th District, has more than $925,000 in cash and no debt, according to FEC reports.

She raised almost $1.1 million during the 2008 election cycle and spent more than $852,000 of that in her race against retired school teacher Roy Carter, whom she beat with more than 58 percent of the vote.
Foxx did not have a primary opponent last year.

A committee said Friday that North Carolina needs to place a $50.2 million annual cap on bond sales for next five years, the TBJ reports.

RALEIGH, N.C. – State Treasurer Janet Cowell Friday released the 2009 Debt Affordability Study to Gov. Perdue and members of the General Assembly.

The annual analysis found that the state can authorize $50.2 million in new general fund-supported debt for each of the next five years and remain within the 4 percent debt service to tax revenues target ratio.

However, the combined debt capacity of the Highway Fund and the Highway Trust Fund has been exhausted through Fiscal Year 2011-2012 and recovers only modestly thereafter over the 10-year model horizon.

“The committee specifically recognizes that there is over $2 billion of debt already authorized that will provide a significant opportunity for economic stimulus when it is issued,” Cowell said. “In addition, increasing the amount of debt service in the budget over and above the 4 percent target could leave the state with less flexibility to address other potential budgetary challenges in the next few years.”

Treasurer Cowell and the Debt Affordability Advisory Committee continue to urge the Governor and the General Assembly to move away from issuing non-voted debt, so-called “special indebtedness”, and return to the use of general obligation debt, which requires a vote of the people and costs less.

North Carolina currently maintains a reasonable level of debt when compared with its peer group composed of the other states rated “triple A” by all three bond rating agencies. The calculation of the state’s general fund debt capacity is based on the recommendation that debt service should be targeted at no more than 4 percent of general fund tax revenues and should not exceed 4.75 percent.

Currently, all of the state’s debt ratios are at or below the median levels for the state’s peer group and are considered manageable at current levels. In the current economic climate, draw-downs of state reserves may be inevitable. However, Treasurer Cowell and the committee strongly recommend that fund balances be replenished as quickly as possible and that budgetary structural balance, a key factor in maintaining the state’s “triple A” bond rating.

The study was prepared by the staff of the State and Local Government Finance Division of the Department of State Treasurer, and approved by the Debt Affordability Advisory Committee, which was created by the General Assembly in 2004 and is chaired by Treasurer Cowell.  Debt Affordability Advisory Committee members include:  Cowell, Secretary of Revenue Kenneth Lay, State Budget Officer Charles Perusse, State Auditor Beth Wood, State Controller David McCoy and legislative appointees Christopher Henson and James Porto.

A full copy of the report is available at www.nctreasurer.com under the “State and Local Government” section.

WASHINGTON – Party officials say the Democratic National Committee has a $15 million debt in the wake of the Nov. 4 election.

The party took out loans to cover a surge of expenditures in the final weeks of the campaign. President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, issued an e-mail appeal for contributions Wednesday to help the party committee get out of the red.

Plouffe wrote: “Our friends at the Democratic National Committee laid it all on the line to bring change this year. We’ve been reviewing the books, and the DNC went into considerable debt to secure victory for Barack and Joe. It took unprecedented resources to staff up all 50 states, train field organizers, and build the technology to reach as many swing voters as possible.”

In financial disasters past, the balconies of skyscrapers lined up with bankers and investors ready to do a swan dive into some pavement as a result of the collapse of their businesses.

Today, banks and investment houses are going belly up like the after-church crowd at Golden Corral, and once again, bankers and investors are lining up on the balconies to do a swan dive, except this time it’s into a big pot of cash Uncle Sam is piling up for them to splash around in like a free swim in Scrooge McDuck’s money bin.

The U.S. Congress is preparing a $700-billion rescue plan to buy up and resell all the bad debt from the financial industry, which the wise men of Wall Street are taking as a good sign, because after all, who knows more about ginormous debts that can’t be repaid than the government? Especially reassuring is a quote in Forbes Magazine from a top Treasury official about how the government arrived at the $700-billion figure: “It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

It’s nice to see that mainstreaming isn’t just happening in schools, it’s also happening in the government.
A lot of folks are mad that the government is stepping in to prevent the financial industry from reaping the consequences of what they’ve sewn.

Personally, I don’t care so long as I get my bailout, too.

Totaling up all my student loan, credit card and late fees to Movie Gallery (What can I say? It took me two weeks to fully appreciate all the cinematic nuances of Tyler Perry’s latest offering, “Big Melodramatic Piece of Dookie Made Bearable By Funny Dude in Drag.”), I’m in the hole for about $13,000. I figure if the government can toss $700 billion Wall Street’s way, a mere $13,000 isn’t much to ask. Perhaps we should even hike it up to $20,000, so I can give my CEO (me) a nice little compensation package for failing so spectacularly.

Of course, my debts are my own fault. If I had studied harder and gotten more scholarships, I wouldn’t have the student debt. If I had read the fine print about interest, and not used my credit card to contribute to the 401k plans of several waitresses throughout the southeast, I probably wouldn’t owe the good folks at Chase so much money either.

The only difference between me and the guys on Wall Street is a matter of scale. I’m sure that if you gave me several billion to manage, I could find an even more spectacular way to make a muff of it than the big banks and investors.

My point: If you’re not going hold the Masters of the Universe responsible for their mistakes, how about tossing us wage slaves down on the cube plantation a few bones too, boss?

Financial titan J. Monroe Cook can be reached at jcook@dothaneagle.com.