By: Brendan Keefe, bkeefe@wcpo.com CINCINNATI - More than 10 million US residents pay nothing for their cellphone service. So who pays their bills? The rest of us. If you take a close look at your monthly phone bill you'll likely see a fee called USF or "Universal Service." That's the fund that collects fees mandated by the federal government to subsidize phone service for those who can't afford to pay for it themselves. Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, the Federal Communications Commi... Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Steve Stivers (R – Columbus) today re-introduced the Land Acquisition to Cut National Debt Act, or LAND Act. The legislation suspends net federal land acquisitions by the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture until the federal budget is balanced for the year in which the land would be purchased. Read more

What would you do with $50,000? I am sure many ideas come to mind like setting aside money for a college education for your child, providing a down payment on a house, retiring, investing in the family business or starting your very own business. There is no doubt that most of us could find something productive to do with $50,000. This month the U.S. Treasury Department announced the national debt reached and exceeded $16 trillion, meaning that each American’s portion of the nation debt is now over $50,000. This is unprecedented and unacceptable. Read more

Some Americans aren’t waiting for Congress to reduce the nation’s $15.7 trillion debt. The BGOV Barometer shows that individual donations to the U.S. Treasury to stem the government’s red ink have risen sharply. The U.S. collected $3.6 million specifically for debt reduction in the first five months of the government’s 2012 fiscal year. Read more

WALL STREET JOURNAL As Congress considers a plan to use U.S.-made steel in pennies and nickels to save hundreds of millions in taxpayer money, it can look to Canada for some common sense on cents. Read more

Rep. Steve Stivers says the United States will save dollars if it makes pennies and nickels with steel instead of copper, zinc and nickel. A bill that Stivers introduced last year would ensure that pennies and nickels are made of steel, although pennies would be dipped in copper. Yesterday, the measure received a hearing in a House subcommittee. Read more

Canada recently stopped producing pennies, and there's a bill before Congress to make US pennies and nickels out of steel to cut costs. Next time you feel like giving someone your 2 cents, you won't need more than a penny. That's because when you factor in materials, manufacturing costs and overhead, it took 2.4 cents to produce a single Lincoln cent last year, the U.S. Mint says. Read more

Congressman Steve Stivers (R – Columbus) today introduced the Land Acquisition to Cut National Debt Act, or LAND Act. The legislation was introduced as part of the YouCut program and suspends net federal land acquisitions by the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture until the federal budget is balanced for the year in which the land would be purchased. Read more

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Federal government, consider this your year-end bonus from Rep. Steve Stivers. Stivers, R-Upper Arlington, announced last week that he is returning $100,000 from his congressional office budget to the federal treasury. He also returns $700 from each paycheck to pay down the national debt. Finally, he cut his office budget by five percent at the beginning of 2011. Read more

Congressman Steve Stivers (R – Columbus) today announced he was returning $100,000 from his Congressional budget and giving it back to the government. Stivers is currently serving his first term in Congress. Read more