Marketplace

Summit organizer Terry Tamminen says even with a more climate-friendly White House, states like California will play a vital role in shaping the next international

TERRY TAMMINEN: Any problem benefits from breaking it down into smaller parts and solving those parts and then building it back up to the whole. And the same thing is true with climate policy. LINK to audio

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, each candidate's spending promises would add $200 billion to already record deficits every year. And this week, both campaigns called for another $50 [billion] to $60 billion to jumpstart the sputtering economy.

The Committee's president Maya MacGuineas says that extra stimulus might be necessary.

Maya MacGuineas: It's not the time to say we need to roll up our sleeves and balance the budget right away.

Because, MacGuineas says, we face a real economic challenge. But in the… more

The $700 billion bailout plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is now in the hands of Congress. Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget tells Kai Ryssdal she expects the bill to gain in size.

MAYA MACGUINEAS: Well, in the end I think this bill is going to move through Congress really quickly. Nobody wants to be the person who they can point the finger at and say, you know, "You held up the bill… more

Commentator Reihan Salam says some Republicans have lost touch with the economic anxiety of average Americans. He offers a suggestion for self-improvement. LINK to audio and transcript

APM's Marketplace | Student Loans Are Getting Whacked

Bank of America and a unit of Citigroup have joined a growing list of lenders cutting back on student loan programs. At the same time, the House passed an emergency bill that would enable lenders to have more cash to keep making loans. John Dimsdale reports.

TESS VIGELAND: OK, here's another side-effect of the credit crunch: Student loans are getting whacked. Today Bank of America and a unit of Citigroup joined a… more

KAI RYSSDAL: The actual dollar amount's $2.9 trillion, give or take a couple of million. An 11 percent boost for the Pentagon next year. About 5 percent on average for some of the other cabinet agencies. Congressional Democrats are also promising a budget surplus by 2012.We've called Maya MacGuineas at the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget to help explain the details. Maya, where do the Democrats figure they're going to get all that money?

MAYA MACGUINEAS: On… more

KAI RYSSDAL: Health care costs are high. We all know that. But it seems they've gotten to a point where more businesses are ready to do something. Today, a group of Fortune 500 CEOs announced their support for health care reform, as Janet Babin reports from North Carolina Public Radio. JANET BABIN: Safeway CEO Steve Burd created the business coalition...He says that by next year, the average Fortune 500 company will face employee health care bills… more

KAI RYSSDAL: Boris Yeltsin first truly got the West's attention in August of 1991, when he jumped up on that tank in front of the Russian Parliament building. But it wasn't until January of the following year that he really turned communism upside-down — when he lifted 75 years of Soviet price controls.Yeltsin died today at the age of 76. And that shove that he gave Russians toward a market economy is still shaking itself out.Rajan… more