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Congressional Budget Office
Spending Cuts Not Expected to Dent $1.5 Trillion Deficit
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- The $38 billion in spending cuts agreed to last week won't prevent this year's budget deficit from setting another record high, estimated at $1.5 trillion. Most of the agreed-to spending cuts either affect future budgets or amount to accounting gimmicks that won't reduce actual spending. The Treasury Department reported Tuesday that the deficit already totals $829.4 billion through the first six months of the budget year - a figure that until 2009 would have been the biggest ever for an entire year. For March alone, the government ran a deficit of $188 billion. President ...
GOP Budget Proposal Would Increase Health Cost for Future Retirees
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- Most future retirees would pay considerably more for health care under the new budget proposed by House Republicans, according to an analysis by nonpartisan experts for Congress that signals problems ahead for the plan. The fiscal blueprint would put people now 54 and younger in a different kind of health care program when they retire, unlike the Medicare that their parents and grandparents have known. Instead of coverage for a set of benefits prescribed from Washington, they'd get a federal payment to buy private insurance from a choice of government-regulated plans. "A ...
House Votes to End Mortgage Reduction Program
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- House Republicans pushed through legislation Tuesday to terminate an underachieving Obama administration program designed to reduce mortgage payments for homeowners in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. Most Democrats, while acknowledging that the Home Affordable Modification Program has fallen short of original goals, protested the vote to kill it. The White House, in a statement, said that if the bill ever reaches President Barack Obama's desk, his senior advisers would recommend he veto it. The vote was 252-170. The GOP-led House this month has voted to kill three ...
Senate Sends 3-Week Funding Bill to Obama
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- Congress has approved $6 billion in spending cuts as part of legislation to keep the government running for three more weeks and give President Barack Obama and congressional leaders time to negotiate a far more sweeping package of reductions demanded by Republicans. The bill easily passed the Senate by a 87-13 vote, but patience is running out on both sides with stopgap funding measures that keep the government open for two or three weeks at a time. The White House and Capitol Hill Republicans remain far apart on larger legislation to cover the day-to-day operations of the ...
February Federal Budget Deficit Sets Record
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- The government ran the largest-ever budget deficit for a single month in February. The shortfall kept this year's annual deficit on pace to end as the biggest in U.S. history. The widening deficit reflects the impact of the tax-cut package President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans brokered in December. As a result, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in January raised its estimate for the annual deficit from $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. It said the tax cuts would add $400 billion to this year's gap. The budget year ends Sept. 30. The tax-cut package ...
Opinion: Government Waste by the Numbers
By John Merline - AOL NewsIn an organization as big and sprawling as the federal government, it's sometimes hard to grasp the magnitude of the waste that goes on. But the Government Accountability Office has released a report that gets at this problem in a unique way. It looks at government programs with an eye to rooting out duplication and overlap. What it finds should be shocking to anyone concerned with how their tax dollars are spent. Here's a sampling, by the numbers: 2,300 That's the number of different investments spread out across the Defense Department, all sharing the goal of business system ...
Opinion: Empty Words from Both Sides on the Debt
By not in system - AOL NewsLast month the Congressional Budget Office reported that Social Security had begun running permanent budget deficits. Medicare is facing future budget shortfalls larger than the entire budgets of most countries. In response to this looming crisis, President Barack Obama's 2012 budget proposes to ... talk about it. This gave Republicans an opportunity to seize control of the agenda and demonstrate that their new-found commitment to fiscal discipline was more than simple hostility to Planned Parenthood or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Given this chance, Republicans chose to ... ...
Opinion: Houston, We Have a Spending Problem
By John Merline - AOL NewsIn his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said that a key to "winning the future" is to "make sure we aren't buried under a mountain of debt." "Mountain" doesn't really do justice to how much debt the country has piled up. Right now the federal debt tops $14 trillion. To get a sense of how huge that number is, consider this: If you were to make a stack of 14 trillion $1 bills, it would make two round trips to the moon. The day after the speech, the Congressional Budget Office made it clear in a new report why this mountain exists. In a word: spending. As the chart ...
Opinion: The High Cost of Repealing Health Reform
By not in system - AOL NewsBefore the ink was even dry on the Affordable Care Act, opponents of reform have been working overtime, doing anything and everything they can to repeal health reform -- and the vital consumer protections that are included in the law. For anti-health care Republicans, "repeal" might make for good political fodder, but for the rest of us, it comes with serious consequences. AOL News Debate: Repeal Health Care Reform? No: The Costs of Repeal Are Far Too High -- Ron Pollack, Families USA Yes: Obamacare Is Already Falling Apart -- Sally C. Pipes, Pacific ...
Opinion: Obamacare Is Already Falling Apart
By not in system - AOL NewsLast week, the House of Representatives voted by a wide margin -- 245 to 189 -- to repeal the president's landmark health reform package. It's unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will bring the measure up in the upper body. But even he doesn't, the law is already showing signs of serious trouble. AOL News Debate: Repeal Health Care Reform? No: The Costs of Repeal Are Far Too High -- Ron Pollack, Families USA Yes: Obamacare Is Already Falling Apart -- Sally C. Pipes, Pacific Research Institute In recent weeks, some Democrats who ...
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