WASHINGTON, May 23, 2026 — Key Takeaways: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has cleared the House. That is the easy part. It passed the lower chamber by a single vote — 215-214 — after two overnight sessions that required…
WASHINGTON, May 24, 2026 — Sixty-nine percent of Americans do not have a will. That number, drawn from the most recent national survey of estate planning behavior, has barely moved in a decade despite repeated campaigns by financial advisors, attorneys,…
WASHINGTON, May 23, 2026 — Every year, the financial planning community debates the relative merits of Roth IRAs versus traditional IRAs, 401(k)s versus taxable brokerage accounts, deferred compensation versus immediate income. Almost nobody talks about the account that beats all…
WASHINGTON, May 22, 2026 — The retirement income crisis in America has a number attached to it: $461.3 billion. That is how much Americans deposited into annuity contracts in 2025, according to LIMRA, the insurance industry’s primary research organization. It…
WASHINGTON, May 21, 2026 — Key Takeaways: For years, first-time homebuyers across America have lost bidding wars not to other families but to companies with unlimited cash and no mortgage contingency. In 2025, first-time buyers accounted for just 21% of…
WASHINGTON, May 21, 2026 — The federal student loan system has been through more consequential changes in the past 18 months than in the previous two decades combined. Courts have intervened. Plans have been killed. A new repayment structure is…
AUSTIN, May 20, 2026 — Key Takeaways: The Trump primary machine does not take days off. Two days after Thomas Massie fell in Kentucky and three days after Bill Cassidy fell in Louisiana, the president turned his endorsement apparatus toward…
WASHINGTON, May 20, 2026 — More Americans filed for bankruptcy in the first three months of 2026 than in any first quarter since the pandemic disrupted the courts in 2020. The numbers are not the result of a single catastrophic…
WASHINGTON, May 19, 2026 — Key Takeaways: The most consequential corporate deal in American energy history arrived quietly Monday morning, buried beneath Iran war diplomacy and Wall Street’s digestion of the Moody’s credit downgrade. NextEra Energy, the Florida-based giant that…
WASHINGTON, May 19, 2026 — The most common reason Americans give for not having adequate life insurance is that they cannot afford it. Research has now quantified exactly how wrong that belief is — and how much it is costing…
WASHINGTON, May 18, 2026 — Key Takeaways: The United States government has not had a perfect credit rating from all three major agencies since August 2011. It still had one from Moody’s — the oldest and, in some ways, the…
WASHINGTON, May 18, 2026 — The IRS raises retirement contribution limits most years. The numbers get slightly bigger, workers adjust their payroll deductions if they remember to, and most of the change passes unnoticed. That is not what happened in…