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With pressure mounting on the federal government to find new revenues, Congress is considering legalizing, and taxing, an activity it banned just four years ago: Internet gambling.

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Congress Rethinking Its Ban On Online Gambling

GoldAlertGold Price Holds $1160 After Beige BookGoldAlertThe gold price held near $1160 this afternoon following the release of the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book, which contains economic data collected by …
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CANADA FX DEBT-C$ falls for 2nd day, bonds up after Fed outlookReutersThe Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book reported overall economic activity is still increasing [...]

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Sen. Mark Udall’s bill to promote year-round recreation at ski areas cleared a critical committee vote late last week and is headed to a vote of the full U.S. Senate.

First introduced in 2008 and then revived last summer, the bill is not without controversy. It seeks to revamp a 1986 law governing ski-area permits on U.S. Forest Service so that the federal agency has more latitude to allow recreation other than skiing.

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Udall’s Bill Enabling Ski-Area Summer Activities Moves To Full Vote

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google Inc. is gearing up to sell its e-mail and other Web-hosted applications to a wider range of government agencies after winning a prized security clearance.

The sales push announced Monday marks Google’s latest attempt to siphon customers away from rival Microsoft Corp., whose Office suite of e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet and other programs is widely used by government agencies and businesses.

Google is hoping that more federal, state and local government agencies will feel comfortable buying its online applications now that they have the U.S. government’s seal of approval. The Federal Information Security Management Act certification means that Google’s system for running the online programs is considered reliable enough to store most electronic data handled by U.S. government employees. The clearance doesn’t cover classified information.

It’s the first time the U.S. government has certified a bundle of software programs delivered over the Internet, a trendy concept known as “cloud computing.”

Google has been trying to promote cloud computing as a way for businesses and government agencies to reduce their technology expenses. At the same time, Google is hoping to reduce its financial dependence on Internet advertising, which generated virtually all of its $13.6 billion in revenue during the first half of this year.

Software licensing and other non-advertising services accounted for $558 million of Google’s revenue in that period, a 53 percent increase from the same time last year.

The government represents a potentially huge growth market for Google.

Federal, state and local government agencies combined spend more than $120 billion annually on computers, software and other technology. As they grapple with widening budget deficits, many government officials are looking to reduce their expenses by considering money-saving options such as cloud computing. The upfront and maintenance costs of cloud-computing applications are generally lower than that of software installed on individual computers because the programs are leased and automatically updated by the Web host – in this case, Google.

Google charges $50 per user annually for the premium version of its applications suite. The company won’t say precisely how many businesses and government agencies pay for its top-of-the-line apps as opposed to Google’s more popular free version.

To gain the federal government’s endorsement, Google agreed to store all government data in data centers located in the U.S. Google also is catering to government agencies with a new version of its applications tailored to their needs.

Google already has won several large government contracts, including a five-year deal with the city of Los Angeles in which it outbid Microsoft. Los Angeles wanted to switch over to Google’s e-mail and other applications by June 30, but that target was missed because of security concerns raised by the city’s police department. Google is now hoping to get its apps running for Los Angeles next month.

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Google Wins Security Clearance, Launches ‘Apps For Government’

The Education Department will propose much-anticipated regulations Friday that would cut off federal aid to for-profit college programs if too many of their students default on loans or don’t earn enough after graduation to repay them.

“Some proprietary schools have profited and prospered but their students haven’t, and this is a disservice to students and to taxpayers,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Thursday in a briefing with reporters. “And it undermines the valuable work, the extraordinarily important work, being done by the for-profit industry as a whole.”

To qualify for federal student aid programs, career college programs must prepare students for “gainful employment.”

The Obama administration, amid intense lobbying from both for-profit college officials and consumer and student advocates, is proposing a complicated formula that would weigh both the debt-to-income ratio of recent graduates and whether all enrolled students repay their loans on time, regardless of whether they finish their studies.

Although the rules would provide schools more roads to compliance than an earlier proposal, a senator and for-profit colleges’ chief lobbying group warned that it would make college less accessible.

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a former Education secretary, ridiculed it as “a surprisingly wacky proposal from one of the president’s best cabinet members.” The government could in effect “institute price controls on certificate and degree programs at thousands of institutions of higher education,” Alexander said in a statement.

Underscoring the partisan divide on the issue, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a Democrat who is holding oversight hearings on for-profit colleges, praised the proposed regulations as “plain common sense.”

For-profit colleges have faced increased scrutiny in recent months for some questionable recruiting tactics, high loan default rates, and low graduation and job placement rates. The government is taking notice because for-profit colleges are bringing in record amounts of federal aid money – $26.5 billion last year, up from $4.6 billion in 2000.

Under the Obama administration proposal, vocational programs would fall into one of three categories:

_ Programs fully eligible for aid will either have at least 45 percent of their former students paying down the principal on their federal loans – or their graduates will have a debt-to-earnings ratio of less than 20 percent of discretionary income or 8 percent of total income.

_ Ineligible programs will have less than 35 percent of their former students paying down the principal on their federal loans – and their graduates will have a debt-to-earnings ratio above 30 percent of discretionary income and 12 percent of total income.

_ Those programs that don’t fit either definition would be restricted – meaning they would be subject to limits on enrollment growth and schools would be required, among other things, to warn of their high debt levels.

Duncan said the department estimates that if schools make no changes, 5 percent of for-profit college programs would be ineligible for aid in 2012 – affecting 8 percent of all students in the fast-growing sector.

If the rules went into effect now, 55 percent of for-profit schools would be required to disclose unflattering loan data in their promotional materials, making for a strong consumer protection tool, the agency said.

To give schools time to improve and to target “the bottom of the barrel,” Duncan said the administration would cap the number of programs it would strip of aid eligibility at 5 percent in fall 2012, when that penalty would first be available.

The Career College Association, the for-profit college sector’s main lobbying group, said establishing a ratio between student debt and anticipated graduate earnings is unwise, unnecessary and unproven.

“Amounts borrowed today do not indicate what you will be able to repay in five years, ten years or over a working lifetime,” the association’s president, Harris Miller, said Thursday in a statement.

Others who were hoping for tougher rules were disappointed, as well.

Pauline Abernathy, vice president of the Institute for College Access & Success, said while the proposal is significant and has teeth, programs could continue to profit from federal aid when more than half their students can’t afford to pay down the principal on their loans.

“It is not as strong as it should be to protect students and taxpayers from getting ripped off by career education programs that over-promise and under-deliver,” she said.

The proposed rules will be published Friday in the Federal Register and a 45-day public comment period will follow. The final rules are scheduled to be announced in November and would take effect next year, although enforcement action that would strip schools of aid eligibility would not begin until the 2012-2013 school year.

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Proposed Federal Rules Target For-Profit Colleges

As it comes time for the federal government to issue new dietary guidelines, should it also consider the regulating the healthy (and it is healthy) consumption of delicious booze?

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Should the Government Encourage Drinking?

As it comes time for the federal government to issue new dietary guidelines, should it also consider the regulating the healthy (and it is healthy) consumption of delicious booze?

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Should the Government Encourage Drinking?

The Federal Trade Commission last week shot down Nestle’s claim thatits Boost Kid Essentials drinks, described as “a nutrient-laden beverage…that comes with a straw containing probiotic bacteria,” help prevent colds and keep kids from missing school. Here some other offenders.

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5 False Claims of Alleged Health Benefits of Food

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies would have to redouble their efforts to identify and recover billions of dollars lost annually to wasteful spending under a bill President Barack Obama was signing into law Thursday.

He also was expected to announce a goal of reducing improper payments by $50 billion by 2012.

With the federal debt and people’s worries about government red ink mounting, the bill marked the latest effort by the Obama administration to get a tighter handle on Washington spending.

Improper payments – from outright fraud to checks issued to the wrong person or for the wrong amount because of a typo – reached a high of nearly $110 billion last year, according to the White House. Federal auditors found that millions of dollars in benefits went to dead people, fugitives or others not eligible for them.

Key elements of the bill will require more agencies to report waste and to produce audited, corrective action plans with targets to reduce the errors that lead to such improper payments. The bill also requires all agencies that spend more than $1 million to conduct recovery audits on their programs.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., also gives agency heads authority to use any recovered money for purposes not currently allowed, including improving their financial management, supporting the agency’s inspector general or for the original intent of the funding.

Agencies would face penalties for failing to comply with the law.

Since taking office, Obama has taken steps to cut wasteful spending in part by reducing improper payments. Last month, he ordered creation of a federal “Do Not Pay List” – a database that agencies ultimately must search before cutting checks to individuals and contractors.

Toward the broader goal of trimming federal spending overall, Obama has proposed a three-year freeze in spending not tied to national security. He also has instituted changes in how government contracts are awarded to save billions in such costs, and has directed agencies to sell excess or underused real estate.

Obama also has established a special commission that is due to report after the November midterm elections on what spending cuts, higher taxes or combination of the two are needed to control future budget deficits.

More on Barack Obama

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Obama To Sign Legislation To Combat Wasteful Spending

CFTKTVTSX drops sharply after Bernanke testimonyToronto StarThe Toronto stock market dropped to a triple-digit loss Wednesday after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress the US economic outlook remains …Canadian stocks extend losses after Bernanke talkMarketWatchCANADA STOCKS-TSX dives as Bernanke comments rattle marketsReuters AfricaBernanke, Oil Weigh As TSX Drops To Two-Week Low — Canadian CommentaryRTT [...]

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