NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors is taking a big step toward repaying taxpayers for last year’s $50 billion bailout, announcing it will repurchase $2.1 billion in preferred stock held by the Treasury Department.

The automaker has already repaid about $6.7 billion in loans. The plan to repurchase the preferred stock will leave Treasury’s 61% stake in the company’s common stock as the only part of the bailout yet to be repaid.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — There’s at least one stimulus program that’s creating jobs and winning praise from both sides of the political aisle.

A little-known Recovery Act initiative is expected to put more than 200,000 unemployed people back to work in 32 states and the District of Columbia. It’s called the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Emergency Fund, and it subsidizes jobs with private companies, nonprofits and government agencies.

NEW YORK – In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.

This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Sick of sending big checks to the IRS? For some business owners, this tax season will bring a rare reversal: A stimulus-fueled tax change is putting cash back into the pockets of qualifying entrepreneurs.

Bill Hewitt, who owns several real estate ventures in Denver, recently collected a $150,000 refund check from the IRS thanks to the new tax rules. “Without that money, I probably would have gone under,” he says. “When you can’t get any loans from anybody, it kept me alive.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The watchdog charged with monitoring the government’s $700 billion bailout unleashed one of his harshest criticisms of the program to date, questioning its overall effectiveness.

In his latest quarterly report to Congress, special inspector general Neil Barofsky said that the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, has failed to boost bank lending as well as halt the spread of foreclosures — two key aims of the sprawling program.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — GMAC Financial Services will receive a third round of bailout funds from the U.S. Treasury Department and the government will have a controlling stake in the company, according to a government report Wednesday.

The troubled auto and mortgage lender will collect $3.8 billion of additional aid on top of the nearly $13.5 billion already received since December 2008, the Treasury said in a statement Wednesday.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is setting aside $30 billion from the financial bailout fund for a program designed to encourage lending to small businesses to aid the economic recovery.

An internal document obtained by The Associated Press spell out how the Treasury Department plans to spend money from the fund before it expires in October 2010. The document show $40 billion would go to consumer and business lending programs.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — So just how many jobs has the $787 billion stimulus package created or saved?

A new government report raises a new round of questions on the Obama administration’s figure of 640,000 jobs, saying there are many concerns surrounding the data recipients reported.

“There is a range of significant reporting and quality issues that need to be addressed,” said Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general, in a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday.

NEW YORK – After a lot of heartbreak, the nation’s automakers aren’t looking to commit.

They’re taking small, tentative steps to raise production to meet the revived demand for new cars and trucks sparked by Cash for Clunkers. Carmakers are offering overtime or Saturday shifts at slack plants, but aren’t willing to go as far as opening shuttered factories, concerned that demand may ebb when the program ends.

It typically takes a month for factories to ramp up for a full-fledged sales revival, and automakers worry current levels of demand won’t last that long. Sales are usually dry in the early fall anyway, when the next model-year’s vehicles hit dealer lots and summer clearance sales end.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The days of cataclysmic layoffs may be waning, but companies are still cutting every position they can spare. Employment at America’s small businesses, those with less than 50 employees, dropped by another 138,000 workers in July, according to estimates released Wednesday by payroll processor ADP (ADP, Fortune 500).

July’s report marks the 18th straight month of declining small business employment. The rate of decline has slowed, and economists see an end ahead, but workers are in for a few more months of turmoil before hiring picks up.

“The labor market, like the overall economy, shows signs of beginning to stabilize,” said Chris Varvares, president of Macroeconomic Advisers, ADP’s partner research firm. “Our expectation is that job losses will dwindle toward zero by year end.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — AIG suffered another setback in its effort to pay back the government this week, again calling into question whether the troubled insurer will ever be able to make good on the billions of dollars it owes U.S. taxpayers.

A large part of the company’s plan to pay back the $83.5 billion of federal loans it owes involves selling non-core assets, including its Wall Street headquarters. That plan hit a snag over the weekend when Franklin Templeton Investments, the lead bidder for one of the insurer’s asset-management units, dropped out of negotiations, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Big businesses are battling to take home chunks of the government’s billion-dollar stimulus pie and AT&T is among the leaders on the telecom front.

While the telecom giant can’t go after stimulus funds directly, its clients include many government agencies that are on the receiving end of those funds. And that puts AT&T in a strong position.

AT&T (T, Fortune 500) is by far the nation’s largest telecom company, racking up $124 billion in sales last year. That’s nearly double the revenue logged by its closest competitor, Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500).