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FederalDeficit
Debate: Do We Need a New Way to Tax Citizens?
By not in system - AOL News(April 14) -- With worries about chronic massive budget deficits and economy-destroying national debt mounting, talk about a new "value-added tax" has grown increasingly loud. White House economic adviser Paul Volcker last week said the U.S. should consider a VAT, which is commonly imposed in European countries, and the Congressional Budget Office head noted that he's been getting a "lot of questions" from lawmakers about the VAT. Is a VAT -- which would impose a tax at each step of a product's production chain as value gets added -- a good idea? AOL News asked experts with different ...
Debate: Don't Take Anything Off the Table
By not in system - AOL News(April 14) -- Editor's note: This piece is excerpted from the current issue of National Affairs. Everyone understands that the federal government's finances are a mess and that policymakers have failed to take the problem seriously. "Paying for what you spend is basic common sense," President Barack Obama quipped in June. "Perhaps that's why, here in Washington, it's been so elusive." Unfortunately, this familiar punch line is no longer a laughing matter: The explosion of borrowing in the past two years, and the prospect of unrelenting deficits in the next decade and beyond, portend the ...
Live at the US Senate: Bunning Vs. Everyone
By Russell Berman - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (March 1) -- The usual political lines in the Senate pit Democrats against Republicans. This week, however, it's everyone versus Jim Bunning. The Kentucky Republican is holding up a measure that would provide a one-month extension of unemployment and health insurance benefits for 400,000 Americans, a bill that leaders of both parties had hoped to pass unanimously. Bunning, who is retiring at the end of the year, says the $10 billion extension, which also includes highway transportation funds, must be paid for with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. "We have run up $5 trillion ...
If Past Is Guide, Debt Commission Chiefs Agree on Little
By Russell Berman - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (Feb. 18) -- Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have the unenviable task of getting an 18-member commission and then a majority of Congress to agree on an unpopular combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that are likely needed to rein in the nation's enormous deficit. If their records are a guide, they may have a tough time just agreeing with each other. The two men President Obama named to lead a bipartisan fiscal panel have deep experience with the entitlement programs, chiefly Social Security and Medicare, that economists say are driving the trillion-dollar deficits for the ...
Spending Freeze Could 'Hit the Congress Where It Lives'
By Tamara Lytle - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (Jan. 26) – President Obama's proposal to freeze certain federal spending will have a tiny impact on the nation's deficit but a big one on some citizens who could see cuts to programs they rely on, according to budget experts. Obama wants to hold spending on $447 billion worth of domestic programs level for three years. That means no adjustment for inflation, population growth or demand for the particular service that's being cut. But Obama isn't including entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which take up a big chunk of the budget. And he's ...
Budget Office Projects Federal Deficit of $1.35 Trillion
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (Jan. 26) -- The latest congressional budget estimates out Tuesday predict a $1.35 trillion deficit for this year as the economy continues to slowly recover from the recession. The Congressional Budget Office report predicts a sluggish economic recovery and continued high deficits that present twin political problems for President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies. The report sees a slow rebound of the economy, with unemployment averaging 10.1 percent this year as the economy grows by just over 2 percent. It would grow only slightly more next year with an unemployment rate of ...
Obama Finds Trimming the Deficit More Difficult Than Expected
By David Sessions - Politics DailyA deeper recession than the administration initially predicted has made President Obama's goal of trimming the federal deficit in next year's budget much more difficult, the New York Times reports. Obama is preparing the budget he will have to present to Congress in February, and is still promising reductions to the deficit. But the slow recovery has increased the bill for government stimulus and job-creation programs beyond the $787 billion Congress passed last year, and the savings Obama predicted from winding down the war in Iraq have been offset by a new buildup in Afghanistan. In ...
Opinion: Who's To Blame for the Massive Deficit?
By not in system - AOL News(Dec. 29) – The temporary increase in the national debt ceiling approved this month – combined with the prospect of a huge trillion-dollar-plus increase early next year – has once again prompted criticisms of President Obama for runaway spending and record deficits. All this borrowing is only necessary, we are told, because Obama ran up $1.4 trillion of debt in his first year. It's true that the White House is pushing big spending items, not least of which is his multitrillion-dollar scheme for government-run health care. But many critics, either out of ignorance or malice, ...
Report: Health Bill Will Help Uninsured, But Raise Costs, Hurt Seniors' Choices
By Patricia Murphy - Politics DailyA report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent Democratic staffers scrambling over the weekend after the 31-page study revealed potentially damaging findings about the cost and coverage of the health care bill passed by the House of Representatives Saturday night. The report said, among other things, that rather than cutting costs, the bill would increase them by $289 billion over 10 years and could jeopardize coverage to seniors because of Medicare cuts. The report also undercuts promises by President Obama and top Democrats that health care reform would not add to the ...
Obama Calls For 'Budget Cuts' While Dramatically Increasing Spending
By Mark Impomeni - Politics DailyThe White House is touting President Obama's call for $17 billion in proposed "budget cuts" included in the details of his $3.5 trillion spending plan set to be unveiled today. But the Administration's intended claim of budgetary savings as a result crumbles under the reality of the overall spending increases that President Obama is proposing. The Administration's budget proposal calls for an eight percent increase in discretionary spending for the fiscal year beginning in October, while the cuts amount to only one half of one percent of the total federal budget.Most of the president's planned ...
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