CRS Report: FAQ's on GSE Financial Status

Thanks to heads up from old favorite, beSpacific.

PDF is HERE.

PS...No one ever won the ITunes gift card I offered up in this prior GSE related post. Just sayin'...

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: CRS Report on 2012 Rising Gas Prices.

Report is HERE.

Table showing gas prices since 2008 pasted below: 

Click to Enlarge

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CRS Report on Federal Land Ownership

Looks like Oregon @53% is 5th in % of land in state owned by feds, CRS report is HERE. 

Who knew: 48% of California land owned by feds.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CRS Report with Details on Dodd Frank Financial Reform Rulemaking Requirements and Authorities.

Report is HERE. From page 8:

CRS searches of the Dodd-Frank Act identified a total of 330 provisions that expressly indicated in the text that rulemaking is required or permitted. For a variety of reasons, however, the number of final rules that will be ultimately issued pursuant to the act is unknowable. First of all, 182 of the 330 rulemaking provisions (55.2%) appear to be discretionary in nature, stating that certain agencies “may” issue rules to implement particular provisions, or that the agencies shall issuesuch rules as they “determine are necessary and appropriate.” Therefore, the agencies may decide to promulgate rules regarding all, some, or none of these provisions.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: CRS on Costs of Major US Wars; Iraq/Afghan Era 55% More Expensive Than Vietnam, 1/4 Cost of WW II.

Congressional Research Service Report is HERE.

My summary of table from page 5 of this report shows costs in 2011 current $$:

	Billions, Constant 2011 $$
WW1	334
WW2	4,104
Korea	341
Vietnam	738
Persian Gulf	102
Combined Iraq and Afghanistan,"Others"	1,147
Iraq	784
Afghanistan	321
All	6,786

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: CRS Report on Use of Budget Reconciliation Procedures, 1980-2008.

HERE. (22 measures have been passed by Congress, 3 vetoed by President Clinton).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: 1969-2010 Federal Employee and Congressional Wage Increases are ONLY Federal Pay/Retirement Programs That Lag Cost of Living Increases.

See graph I created HERE; note that Social Security increases for that time period are by far the largest of all federal pay/retirement programs.

Chart is based on data from January 2010 CRS report HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New CRS Report: Who Regulates Whom? An Overview of U.S.Financial Supervision.

Report is HERE.

(Table on PDF pages 10-11 serves as a quick cheat sheet).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New CRS Report on ACORN.

CRS report is HERE. (Discussion of federal agency funding of ACORN, including HUD funding, is on pages 41-47 of the report; why report does not show funding totals is a mystery).

Related House Judiciary Committee PR is HERE, says that GAO is also working on a review of ACORN activities.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New CRS Report: Overview of the Nonprofit and Charitable Sector

HERE.

New CRS Report: Income of Americans Aged 65 and Older, 1968 to 2008.

Lots of details about sources and amounts of income for the elderly in the new CRS report HERE.

My money take away:

The poverty rate among people aged 65 and older fell from 25.0% in 1968 to 9.7% in 2008.

Originally created and posted by the Oregon Housing Blog.

CRS Report: FEMA Disaster Housing from Sheltering to Permanent Housing.

Report is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: CRS Report on Climate Change Legislation-Costs and Benefits of Cap-and-Trade Provisions.

New comprehensive 100 page report from Congressional Research Service on climate change bill (H.R.2454) is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New CRS Report: Veterans and Homelessness.

You can find June 2009 Congressional Research Service report HERE.

Likely most concise, comprehensive review of veteran homeless data and programs you will find; link above also includes links to earlier related reports.

[Note: Veteran counts are available from American Community Survey; 2007 counts are HERE; 2008 ACS schedule says updated data is coming out at end of September for 1 year estimates, end of October for 3 year estimates.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CRS Report: ARRA Information Sources.

New Congressional Research Services Report HERE should have been titled, "Sources to Find out WAY More than Your Ever Wanted to Know about ARRA"

(Visually links don't look active, but they are, so click on link instead of copy/paste).

50+ CRS "Housing" Reports, and Thousands More, in New Excel Workbook.

Wikileaks published in February thousands of previously completed Congressional Research Service reports.

I have prepared a related Excel CRS reports workbook HERE which has two tabs:

• Tab 1. Pasted in hyperlinks to all of the Wikileaks reports , sorted by year and month.
• TAb 2. Pasted in hyperlinks to a subset of Wikileaks CRS reports, with the keyword "housing" in their title, sorted by year and month. There are a total of 54 such "Housing" reports, with more than 20 completed during 2008.

Workbook also includes a READ ME worksheet with links to Wikileaks CRS site and an idea for finding other subsets of CRS reports within tab 1 by using keywords (same method I used to locate "Housing" reports).

CRS Report: Community Service Requirements for Public Housing Residents.

From Wikileaks, the January 2009 report is available HERE.

'Nother New CRS Report-Preserving Homeownership: Foreclosure Prevention Initiatives.

I shuda' bundled with earlier post, but just found another new foreclosure related Congressional Research Service report HERE.

Highly recommended; comes as close to an A-Z coverage of topic that you are likely to find in any 28 page report.

New CRS Report: TARP and Foreclosures.

Congressional Research Service report is HERE.

Report actually describes provisions of H.R. 384 which passed the House. (My recollection is that bill has little chance of passage in Senate).

Perhaps of greater value is the background provided by the research, including:

"Three appendices describe the mortgage origination and securitization process, the net present value test, and the obstacles to loan modifications created by second mortgages."

The Safe Harbor provisions described in the report also may be useful background prior to the issuance of loan modification guidelines for the HARP program to be announced on March 4th.

CRS Report on HUD FY 2009 Appropriations.

Congressional Research Service Report HERE was completed mid January 2009.