Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

16 Dec 2011 14:23

tags

Politics: Three major cuts in the shutdown-avoiding omnibus spending bill

  • one In the biggest change, the popular Pell Grant program for low-income students could run dry for as many as 100,000 students, as eligibility standards tighten.
  • two Foreign aid will decline, with a 17 percent drop in the operating budget coming to USAID. It’s part of a larger $6 billion cut coming to the State Department.
  • three The GOP won a health care victory, blocking the IRS’ ability to implement the Affordable Care Act’s provisions in 2012. The individual mandate hits in 2014. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Nov 2011 20:10

tags

Politics: Obama offers tough words on debt supercommittee failure

  • They’ve still got a year to figure it out. They can still come together around a balanced plan. I believe Democrats are prepared to do so. My expect is that there are some Republicans who are interested in preventing the automatic cuts from taking place.
  • President Barack Obama • Discussing the failure of the supercommittee to make a deal on cuts, as required by the debt ceiling deal he made in August. The president’s tone was tough — “I will veto any effort to get rid of those spending cuts,” he said — but did offer some wiggle room for Congress to get their act together. The cuts — half defense, half domestic — offer a lot of pain for both sides of the aisle, so who knows? Maybe we’ll see a deal — perhaps the elusive “balanced” one the president is pitching. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Jun 2011 17:13

tags

U.S.: Eric Cantor, Jon Kyl leave negotiations on debt limit vote

  • Each side came into these talks with certain orders, and as it stands the Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases. … Given this impasse, I will not be participating in today’s meeting and I believe it is time for the President to speak clearly and resolve the tax issue.
  • Rep. Eric Cantor • Speaking on negotiations between Democrats and Republicans on raising the U.S. debt limit. Cantor, as well as Senator Jon Kyl, have abandoned the negotiations over tax raises the Democrats insist on pairing with the spending cuts the GOP is thirsting for. Speaker Boehner says that talks could continue if tax raises are off the table, which is obvious — if the Democrats abandon what they want out of this deal, it could get done, but that’s more caving than compromise. Cantor says they did find areas of compromise, though: “I believe that we have identified trillions in spending cuts, and to date, we have established a blueprint that could institute the fiscal reforms needed to start getting our fiscal house in order,” he notes. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Apr 2011 15:58

tags

U.S.: Democrats, Republicans can’t settle terms of spending cuts

  • $73 billion the amount of spending cuts the Democrats say they’ve agreed to in an effort to avoid a looming government shutdown
  • $33 billion the amount the Republicans say is actually being cut under the Democratic compromise, a number they consider unacceptable source
  • » So where’d the $40 billion go? Basically, the Democrats had agreed to cut spending by $73 billion, but that’s explicitly based off the levels President Obama wanted in his budget. Since that budget hasn’t passed, the Republicans are arguing that the cuts are really only $33 billion less than current spending levels (which is rather hard to argue). Notwithstanding the dispiriting accounting tomfoolery going on here, though, this is supposedly a deal between the two parties, and between position D (don’t cut spending) and position R (cut tons of spending), even a $33 billion cut strikes us as an entirely reasonable compromise — both numbers are a tiny, tiny slice of the budget in any event, so the quibble seems more symbolic than functional.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Feb 2011 14:58

tags

Politics: Report from Moody’s Analytics brings troublesome news for both sides

  • 700,000 the amount of jobs to be lost under the Republican spending cut plan, as projected by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi
  • $400B the amount that must be cut every year over the next decade to bring revenue in line with spending, a little bad news for both sides source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Feb 2011 15:32

tags

U.S.: Gov. Rick Scott is not one to buck Republican orthodoxy

  • $5 billion in proposed budget cuts to Florida over the next two years
  • $4 billion in proposed tax cuts to Floridians over the next two years source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
top tags