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News Release | NHPIRG | Higher Ed

Responding to Students, Congress Extends Low College Loan Rate

Statement of Rich Williams, NHPIRG Higher Education Advocate, on the Congressional passage of bipartisan legislation to prevent subsidized Stafford student loan interest rates from doubling:

Congress listened to students and their families and delivered a bill that stops student loan interest rates from doubling. Students already face unprecedented student loan debt and adding an additional $1,000 more would not only crunch individual borrowers, but would have further weighed down the recovering economy. We applaud Congress for coming together to pass this much-needed legislation.

News Release | NHPIRG | Transportation

Transportation Bill is a Step Backwards

Statement by Phineas Baxandall, NHPIRG’s Senior Transportation Analyst, regarding the disappointing federal Transportation Bill as released from conference committee today.

News Release | NHPIRG | Health Care

Supreme Court Upholds Health Reform

Today’s decision is good news for consumers. Insurance companies can’t go back to the days of dropping your coverage once you become ill, or denying coverage to sick children. And beginning in 2014, the days of insurers being able to deny anyone coverage for “pre-existing conditions” will be history.

News Release | NHPIRG | Democracy

First-of-its-kind “Refrain From Political Spending” Resolution to Be Voted on at Bank of America Shareholder Meeting

On Wednesday, May 9, shareholders at Bank of America will vote “yea” or “nay” on a first-of-its-kind “refrain from political spending” resolution. Resolutions addressing political spending are among the most popular in the 2012 shareholder season, many dealing with disclosure of such spending. This is the first shareholder season for this groundbreaking resolution which was introduced by socially responsible investment firms Trillium Asset Management at Bank of America and 3M Corporation and by Green Century Capital Management at Target Corporation.

Report | NHPIRG | Consumer Protection

New Hampshire Lives at Risk

A new report by NHPIRG and Demos finds that Granite Staters lives, health and livelihoods would be at risk if so-called “regulatory reform” proposals were to become law, slowing or stopping the regulatory process. The new report details the number of us who will likely be harmed by just a one-year delay in the creation of three popular upcoming rulemakings.

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Media Hit

New Hampshire Union Leader: Business Briefs

NHPIRG held a news conference Monday to go over results of its survey, conducted last fall involving more than 200 small business owners across the state.

Media Hit

The Nashua Telegraph: More Claims Made on Care Act

A progressive research group that did a select survey of small-business owners found strong support for creating a state health exchange in New Hampshire, one of only two states in the country to turn down a federal grant to help set one up.

Media Hit

The Nashua Telegraph: New Hampshire gets D-minus in Report Gauging Transparency in Spending

New Hampshire is nearly failing when it comes to transparency in spending.

Media Hit | Tax

The Union Leader: State’s finance website lacks key data

CONCORD — A government watchdog group on Wednesday gave the New Hampshire state government a grade of D-minus for its efforts to improve transparency of spending information.

New Hampshire Public Interest Research Group praised the state for instituting the Transparency NH website, which includes an online checkbook register.

Media Hit | Democracy

A Bill to Speed up Reporting of Campaign Donations in New Hampshire Merits Support

Differences over political campaign finance break down into three general categories: (a) how much money, in total, influences election outcomes, (b) how many dollars individual people or organizations should be able to use to sway voters and (c) who, precisely, the donors are.

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Report | NHPIRG Education Fund

The Small Business Solution

Last fall, NHPIRG researchers went door to door, and interviewed over 200 small business owners about their health care concerns. Small business owners answered an anonymous survey and were invited to share their related experiences.

Report | NHPIRG Education Fund | Budget

Following the Money 2012

Over the past two years, the number of states that give citizens access to their state’s checkbook has increased from 32 to 46.
This report is NHPIRG Education Fund’s third annual ranking of states’ progress toward “Transparency 2.0” – a new standard of comprehensive, one-stop, one-click budget accountability and accessibility. The past year has seen continued progress, with new states providing online access to government spending information and several states pioneering new tools to further expand citizens’ access to spending information and engagement with government.

Report | NHPIRG | Democracy

Auctioning Democracy

Today NHPIRG Education Fund and Demos released a new analysis of the funding sources for the campaign finance behemoths, Super PACs. The findings confirmed that since their inception in 2010, Super PACs have been primarily funded by a small segment of very wealthy individuals and business interests, with a small but significant amount of funds coming from secret sources.

Report | NHPIRG Education Fund

Too Close to Home

The drinking water for 3,921,516 could be at risk of radioactive contamination from a leak or accident at Seabrook, and 3,114,882 people rely on water intakes which are vulnerable to a leak at Vermont Yankee.

Report | NHPIRG Education Fund | Democracy

Representation Without Taxation

Marking the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case—which opened the floodgates to corporate spending on elections—this report takes a hard look at the lobbying activities of profitable Fortune 500 companies that exploit loopholes and distort the tax code to avoid billions of dollars in taxes.

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STOP TAX DODGERS

Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.

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YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP

At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.

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Reclaim Democracy

The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."

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ADD YOUR VOICE
BUILDING A BETTER HEALTH CARE MARKETPLACE

Now the fight for health care reform is in Washington.

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Act Now
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Take Action

Some of the nation’s best-known companies—including GE, Google and Goldman Sachs—have avoided paying the taxes they owe, costing us $100 billion last year.

You Can Help

We have a chance to cut billions in junk food subsidies this year. Your support will help us do the research, advocacy and grassroots organizing to convince our elected officials to act.

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