This report outlines the financial sector's recovery plans for two kinds of disasters: the inability to conduct transactions and large losses of asset value. The basic function of the payment system is carried out by banks, and monetary policy affects banks immediately. Because brokers, exchanges, secondary market facilities, and insurance companies carry out crucial financial functions, their regulators and trade associations are involved in continuity of operations planning for contingencies.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law.... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." This provision limits the government's power to restrict speech. In 1976, the Supreme Court issued its landmark campaign finance ruling in Buckley v. Valeo. In Buckley, the Court determined that limits on campaign contributions, which involve giving money to an entity, and expenditures, which involve spending money directly for electoral advocacy, implicate rights of political expression and association under the First Amendment. In view of the fact that contributions and expenditures facilitate speech, the Court concluded, they cannot be regulated as mere conduct. This report contains information on allowed contributions and expenditures.
This report discusses selected campaign finance policy issues that may receive attention during the 111th congress. Questions about the health of the presidential public financing system were especially prominent during the 2008 election cycle.
This report covers the background and recent history on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). This committee has recently emerged from obscurity due to concerns involving foreign investments in U.S. companies and national security.
This report analyzes the long-run path of the federal budget. The United States is projected to undergo a demographic shift as the aging of the baby boomers causes an unprecedented increase in the fraction of the population that is retired. Coupled with rising life expectancy, this means, under current policy, a steady increase in the portion of the population that is both out of the workforce and receiving social insurance benefits from the government.
This report covers the recent background of the Exon-Florio provision with special regards to issues faced in the 112th Congress. The Exon-Florio provision grants the President the authority to block proposed or pending foreign acquisitions of "persons engaged in interstate commerce in the United States" that threaten to impair the national security.
This report discusses the FDIC's deposit insurance assessments and reserve ratio used to guarantee the repayment of deposits at a bank up to the insured level.
This report provides an overview of existing Fed oversight and disclosure practices. It also considers the potential impact of greater oversight and disclosure on the Fed's independence and its ability to achieve its macroeconomic and financial stability goals.
This report provides a resource for understanding the current campaigns and elections regulatory structure. It addresses those areas of law and public policy that most directly and routinely affect American campaigns and elections: campaign finance; election administration; election security; redistricting; qualifications and contested elections; and voting rights.
This report presents an overview of Canada's financial system and its supervisory framework and draws some distinctions between that system and the current U.S. framework.
This report gives a brief overview of P.L. 110-49, the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007. Although both the President and Congress are directly involved in formulating the scope and direction of U.S. foreign investment policy, this law broadens Congress's oversight role; it also explicitly includes the areas of homeland security and critical infrastructure as separately-identifiable components of national security that the President must consider when evaluating the national security implications of a foreign investment transaction.
This report provides an overview of the role foreign investment plays in the U.S. economy. It also includes an assessment of possible actions a foreign investor or a group of foreign investors might choose to take to liquidate their investments in the United States.
On May 2, 2010, the Eurozone member states and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced an unprecedented €110 billion (about $145 billion) financial assistance package for Greece. The following week, on May 9, 2010, EU leaders announced that they would make an additional €500 billion (about $636 billion) in financial assistance available to vulnerable European countries, and suggested that the IMF could contribute up to an additional €220 billion to €250 billion (about $280 billion to $318 billion). This report answers frequently asked questions about IMF involvement in the Eurozone debt crisis.
This report provides a historical account and analysis of the crisis through January 2010. While business contraction appears to have abated, unemployment is shown to be on the rise and many businesses and countries are still facing difficulties.
This report reviews the major actions by the Japanese government in dealing with its financial crisis and highlights some of the lessons learned from their experience in the 1990s.
This report discusses the concern about the size of the current U.S. account deficit, popularly known as the trade deficit. Also compares and analyzes the conventional view with the global saving glut view.
One of the chief objectives of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (DFA) is to promote financial stability within the United States, without the need for emergency governmental assistance to troubled firms. To achieve this goal, the DFA establishes a heightened regulatory regime for certain, generally large "covered financial institutions." A pillar of this heightened regulatory regime is that each covered financial institution must submit "credible" plans to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) detailing how the firm could be quickly resolved in an orderly fashion under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code or other applicable insolvency regime "in the event of a material financial distress or failure." These resolution plans are commonly referred to as "living wills." This report reviews the legal structure of the DFA's living will requirements, pursuant to both DFA Section 165(d) and the regulations and guidance issued jointly by the FRB and FDIC, and explains the August 2014 joint announcement of the FRB and FDIC regarding the inadequacies of the 2013 living wills filed by the 11 largest, most complex financial institutions in the country. This report also examines some of the steps that these institutions might voluntarily take.
This report shows in tabular form how much the Administration has requested and how much Congress has appropriated for U.S. payments to the multilateral development banks (MDBs) since 2000. It also provides a brief description of the MDBs and the ways they fund their operations.
This report provides background on the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), discusses reform issues, and summarizes the provisions of House- and Senate-passed versions of H.R. 3221.
This report discusses the calculations that go into taxing Social Security benefits, which prior to 1984 were exempt from taxation but have since been taxed at gradually increasing levels.
This report discusses selected litigation to demonstrate how those events have changed the campaign finance landscape and affected the policy issues that may confront Congress, but it is not a constitutional or legal analysis. Campaign finance data appears throughout the report.
This report examines the structure and operations of the major components of the Federal Reserve System and provides an overview of congressional oversight activities. In addition, the report discusses the provisions of one of the pending pieces of legislation (S. 3217, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010) that would affect the structure and operations of the System.
This report answers some frequently asked questions about the Target and selected other data breaches, including what is known to have happened in the breach, and what costs may result. It also examines some of the broader issues common to data breaches, including how the payment system works, how cybersecurity costs are shared and allocated within the payment system, who bears the losses in such breaches more generally, what emerging cybersecurity technologies may help prevent them, and what role the government could play in encouraging their adoption. The report addresses policy issues that were discussed in the 113th Congress to deal with these issues.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was created by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act1 (EESA) enacted on October 3, 2008, to address the ongoing financial crisis. This report provides a brief outline of the programs created under TARP, recent changes made by Congress, and a summary of the current status and estimated costs of the program. It also provides an Appendix that contains detailed discussions of the individual TARP programs. This report will be updated as warranted by market and legislative events.
Report providing information on the current Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) life insurance programs available for servicemembers and veterans, management and administration issues, and associated policy issues and legislation.
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