President Barack Obama is unveiling his eighth and final budget, a $4 trillion-plus proposal that’s freighted with liberal policy initiatives and new and familiar tax hikes — all sent to a dismissive Republican-controlled Congress that simply wants to move on from his presidency. The budget will be released Tuesday morning, the same day as the…
Tag: budget
TRP News – Progressive News & Information – March 9, 2015
TRP News with James Andre. This week we have updates on the Supreme Court Affordable Care Act case and ISIS, a discussion of U.S. financial aid to Israel, and I try to answer the question ‘Why vote?’ LINKS ISIS http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-rules-revealed-foosballs-fine-ak-47s-women-leaving-not-n316026 http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/07/africa/nigeria-boko-haram-isis/ ISRAEL http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-27/israel-lobbies-for-more-missile-defense-funds-than-obama-sought SCOTUS http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/02/obamacare-supreme-court_n_6783894.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_interpretation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_intent DISPUTED SECTION of the ACA ‘SEC. 36B. REFUNDABLE…
Officials: Kansas Faces $279M Budget Gap By July
For the next fiscal year, the new projection was $5.8 billion in revenues — short of the nearly $6.2 billion that legislative researchers had been assuming in their unofficial forecasts. The projected shortfall of $436 million is about 7 percent, and higher than the $282 million gap estimated unofficially. The new revenue projection for the…
Special Report: The Cost of Crisis-Driven Fiscal Policy
Even as Congressional leaders and the president discuss a potential temporary solution to the current stalemate over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling, the repeated cycle of lurching from crisis to crisis has significant and real costs to the U.S. economy. A new report, prepared by Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC for the Peter G. Peterson…
China state media blasts US shutdown, calls for a ‘de-Americanized’ world
With days to go before the United States debt default deadline, Beijing aired its frustrations with the shutdown Sunday, saying it was time to consider a “de-Americanized” world order. With $1.28 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, China is easily the biggest foreign holder of American debt. China has also funneled billions of dollars into private American investments…
WTF Are The GOP Up To? Independent Senator Sanders Breaks It Down
This isn’t all about the affordable care act. This is about the destruction of the federal government. This is about a few rich people who don’t have enough, and want the federal government out of their way so that they can have an ever larger slice of the pie – all while you get less….
A U.S. Default Seen as Catastrophe Dwarfing Lehman’s Fall
Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever…
Yes, the White House Is ‘Winning’
Still, it is true that the Obama administration is winning the zero-sum contest. One way to measure this is polling, which already shows movement toward the Democratic side. Another way to measure it is that Republicans, who have spent months refusing any budget deal, are suddenly desperate to make a budget deal. A flurry of…
GOP Congressman Pushes For Obamacare Repeal: “This is not a Democracy”
Doug Collins, representative from Georgia came on Politics Nation and it was no surprise when he started spouting the typical one-sided nonsense about how they weren’t shutting down the government and were in fact funding the government – as long as it didn’t include the affordable care act. Nothing shocking there, but what may have…
Texas legislature passes tax cuts for businesses
Texas lawmakers sent Governor Rick Perry more than $1 billion in proposed business tax cuts shortly before the end of the biennial legislative session on Monday. The tax-cut package – the final piece of which was approved by the House and Senate late on Sunday – includes an extension of a business franchise tax…
14 GOP Congressmen Who Think Government Shouldn’t Borrow Have Big Debts Of Their Own
Government is nothing like a business and cannot be run as one — its aim is to protect its citizens, not to turn a profit. Businesses and individuals often borrow in the short term to make investments for the long term — mortgages, lines of credits, and other sorts of loans are facts of…
Paul Ryan’s budget: Social engineering with a side of deficit reduction
Here is Paul Ryan’s path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor and some combination of education, infrastructure, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts remain, but the military is spared, as is Social Security. There’s a vague individual…
Ryan in Fantasyland
Voters might not have focused on the fact that Ryan’s original plan wouldn’t have produced a balanced budget until today’s high-school students reached middle age, but the true deficit hawks in the House Republican caucus certainly noticed. They demanded a budget that reached balance much sooner. Hence Ryan’s revised plan, which claims to accomplish this…
Dueling Budgets Will Show Partisan Differences On Medicare And Medicaid
At the same time, President Barack Obama appears to be harboring hopes of reaching a big deficit-reduction deal that could include some of the money-saving changes that Republicans favor. The idea worries some congressional Democrats. The Wall Street Journal: Opening Budget Bids Set Parties’ Battle Lines Congress opens a new chapter in the budget…
Four Things To Know About The Next Big Budget Battle
Now that the sequester has taken effect, there’s a new phrase that keeps popping up in Washington: the “continuing resolution.” If Congress doesn’t pass a continuing resolution by March 27, the government will run out of money and will likely shut down. Here’s a list of four things you might want to know about how…
This is why Obama can’t make a deal with Republicans
My column this weekend is about the almost comically poor lines of communication between the White House and the Hill. The opening anecdote was drawn from a background briefing I attended with a respected Republican legislator who thought it would be a gamechanger for President Obama to say he’d be open to chained CPI — a…
Obama: more tax revenue needed to address deficit
President Barack Obama said on Sunday more tax revenue would be needed to reduce the U.S. deficit and signaled he would push hard to get rid of loopholes such as the “carried interest” tax break enjoyed by private equity and hedge fund managers. Obama, who won re-election in November largely on his promise to raise…
Obama’s Budget Is Running Late
The Obama administration’s fiscal 2014 budget is widely expected to arrive late on Capitol Hill, possibly not until sometime in March, primarily as a result of uncertainty created by fiscal cliff negotiations. The White House and Office of Management and Budget have not said when the budget will be released. By law, the spending proposal…
GOP Nominee Ryan: I Didnt Vote For The Defense Cuts I Voted For
Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan has gotten in hot water before for criticizing President Obama for the very same defense cuts that he voted for in 2011. When confronted with this incongruity today on Face The Nation, Ryan simply denied that he ever voted for the cuts, telling an incredulous Norah O’Donnell that he didn’t actually vote…
Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Supports Infrastructure Spending to Create Jobs
Conservatives claim the only way to create jobs is to cut taxes and spending, which will magically induce businesses to invest at a furious rate. The public seems to understand, however, that in today’s economic climate some spending might perform a useful role. One approach that meets with considerable public approval is spending on infrastructure….