Politics: "House passes Obama's economic stimulus bill"

clipped from www.breitbart.com

House passes Obama's economic stimulus bill

Handing the new administration a big win, the House Friday passed President Barack Obama's $787 billion plan to resuscitate the economy.

The bill was passed 246-183 with no Republican help. It now goes to the Senate where a vote was possible late Friday to meet a deadline of passing the plan before a recess begins next week.

All but seven Democrats voted for the bill

Republicans pointed out a bevy of questionable spending items that made the final cut in House-Senate negotiations, including money to replace computers at federal agencies, inspect canals, and issue coupons for convertor boxes to help people watch TV when the changeover to digital signals occurs this summer.

"This legislation falls woefully short," said House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio. "With a price tag of more than $1 trillion when you factor in interest, it costs every family almost $10,000 in added debt.

Warning to all Discover card carriers

It seems that Discover is changing some of their policies to cardholders, or at least regarding some of their cards.

There are several changes but one of them is that, due to the economy crap, I'm sure, the rates will now be variable rather than fixed. So, pay your card off in full each month to save yourself a lot of grief later on.

The second, which caught me off guard & was the cause for me to write this blog entry is any purchases made outside of the US will have a 2% fee charged to you. I assume this also would include anything purchased online from an overseas store. Something about currency exchange or something like that. This does not surprise me but it is something I am glad I read the "fine print" on. I typically toss these things to the side but I am very glad that I read this. So, if you are headed out of the States, you might want to consider another card.

Having said that, if any of you are world travelers out there, what would you suggest, credit card wise, when visiting other countries? My parents always told us not to us an American Express because it draws attention to the fact that we are Americans (as if our Southern Belle accent didn't alert everyone to that fact). However, most of the people that I know that own American Express cards are foreigners. So, I guess that really doesn't matter anymore.