Consumer Protection

More than 90,000 families, more than a million kids, that's how many people in the Northwest have been getting more money in the bank every month from the enhanced child tax credits that were part of the American Rescue Plan put into action earlier this year. U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, doesn't think one more year is enough.

Nearly 93,000 families across the Pacific Northwest are getting their final expanded child tax credit payment of this year Wednesday. Over the past six months, families have received up to $300 for every child they claimed on their 2020 tax returns. The Biden administration believes the advanced credit payments lifted millions of American kids out of poverty this year.

A long-time program promised to forgive federal student loans for people who have worked in public service and made loan payments for 10 years. But that's not the way the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, has worked for borrowers.

Plans for a business resource center run under the Columbia Economic Team are moving forward, as the project has secured commitments for $150,000 in local dollars to match federal and state funding sources. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici earmarked $175,000 for the resource center in an appropriations bill that passed the House and is now awaiting Senate action.

U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Representatives Peter DeFazio and Suzanne Bonamici have called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to take all statutory eligibilities into account when distributing $10 billion in aid to agricultural producers hit hard by extreme heat, drought and wildfires this summer.