Friday, February 18, 2011

Budget Battle

You lose, American people.

"GOP proposes $35b in cuts to US spending; Party targets many Obama top priorities" by Lori Montgomery,  Washington Post / February 10, 2011

WASHINGTON — Republican leaders unveiled a list of proposed cuts in government spending yesterday that would strike hardest at priorities of the Obama administration, such as rail projects, scientific innovation, and a wide array of clean energy programs.

The list also includes deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal home heating assistance program, and federal block grants that aid cities facing budget woes. And it envisions slicing nearly $760 million from the White House request for the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program that provides support to pregnant women and their children.

The plan would cut all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, fulfilling a longstanding conservative pledge to cut federal ties with NPR and public television, and to AmeriCorps, the national service program that was championed by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Programs traditionally favored by Republicans would not escape unscathed: The list includes, for example, more than $750 million in reductions, compared with Obama’s budget, to agriculture and rural development programs that benefit many GOP districts.

The entire proposal aims to cut about $35 billion from spending for the rest of this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.... 

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"GOP leaders offer $26b more in spending cuts; Goal is to placate those who found initial plan timid" by Andrew Taylor, Associated Press / February 11, 2011

WASHINGTON — Piling cuts on top of cuts, House Republican leaders outlined an additional $26 billion in spending reductions yesterday in hopes of placating conservatives who rejected an initial draft as too timid....

No details were immediately available....

The new promise means closer scrutiny of the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and possibly even veterans’ accounts that Republicans had hoped to hold harmless. And it means the FBI won’t get the 4 percent increase Republicans had hoped to give it, and health research might be cut instead of being frozen at $31 billion.  

I notice all the agencies of tyranny get a real increase.

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RelatedScientists brace for leaner times

House GOP eager to slash much more

GOP in House takes aim at EPA authority, funding

Obama plans cuts to favored items

Obama seeks $53b for high-speed rail service

I'm on the fast track when it comes to reading the Globe these days.

"GOP blasts Obama’s proposed budget plan; Says reductions are not enough to shrink deficit" by Lori Montgomery, Washington Post / February 14, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s spending plans over the next decade would be cut by $78 billion with reductions in various weapons programs deemed unnecessary.  

Also see: Super Sunday: Republican Long Bomb

Only in an AmeriKan newspaper can pure increases be cast as a cut. Meanwhile, the real cuts come in the miserly social program scraps this war government so graciously shells out.

Still, $1.1 trillion in savings would barely dent deficits that congressional budget analysts say could approach $12 trillion through 2021.

So MOST of the CUTS will be NOT BE the SECURITY STATE, 'eh?

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And then Obama plunged the knife into his left flank liberal supporters:

"Deep cuts, chance of gains for state in Obama budget; Programs for poor would take big hit Targeted spending could add jobs" by Donovan Slack and Stephen Smith, Globe Staff / February 15, 2011

WASHINGTON — The $3.7 trillion budget that President Obama unveiled yesterday would deliver pain to many struggling residents of Massachusetts — from inner-city youths to the elderly — while doling out money for clean energy research and road construction that could create jobs in the state. 

Don't worry, though; Wall Street, the wars, and Israel will still be well-funded with taxpayer dollars.

Obama’s budget lays the groundwork for a political battle with the GOP-controlled House, which is urging much deeper cuts to fight the nation’s deficit more aggressively. Obama’s proposal also quickly drew criticism yesterday from the other side of the political spectrum, as some Massachusetts Democrats and social-service advocates decried the cuts as excessively harsh.  

How often can he disappoint?

The cuts would have a far-reaching impact. The budget calls for reducing federal subsidies for airline hubs like Logan International Airport, for instance, while threatening small community programs at museums like the Peabody Essex on the North Shore. Children’s Hospital Boston would lose millions it gets now to help train new pediatricians.

In Boston, social programs would be severely affected, local officials and advocates said. Fourteen food pantries would get less financial help; so would 6,000 city residents who get vouchers for day care. Fuel assistance for 27,000 Bostonians, including many elderly and disabled, would be reduced.

Cuts would be made in programs that prevent children from getting asthma and lead poisoning in their homes. Pell Grants for students attending college in the summer would be eliminated.  

Related: Student loan cut worries colleges

With his budget, Obama is seeking to reduce the federal deficit by $400 billion over 10 years with deep cuts in certain areas even as he proposes to stimulate job growth with greater spending in others, an initiative he calls “winning the future.’’

He would inject tens of billions of dollars into a New Deal-style effort to put people to work building highways and rail lines.  

He had $800 BILLION of BORROWED "STIMULUS" for that and we still continue to lose jobs.  

He seeks, with new enticements for investment and research, to fuel a fresh spurt in alternative energy production and technology. Such spending has the potential to help retain or create new jobs in Massachusetts.  

See: Slow Saturday Special: Evergreen Solar Burns Massachusetts

At the same time, however, the Massachusetts biotechnology industry denounced a planned reduction from 12 years to seven in their market exclusivity for new drugs. The move would save money for Medicare by introducing generic competition faster, but it would hurt the bottom line of biopharmaceutical companies that employ tens of thousands of people in the state....  

Related: Biotech Giveaway Was Borrowed Money

Sanofi chief hints Mass. may lose some Genzyme jobs

Also see: Massachusetts' Lost Decade of Jobs


The biggest reductions are in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is slated to take a 15.5 percent cut in its budget, and the Department of Labor, which would face a 27.2 percent decrease....

Balancing the budget on the backs of brothers and workers?

Some industries in Massachusetts stand to gain from the president's proposal, though....  

Yeah, some well-connected, agenda-pushing interests have connections and that's a good thing.

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So where are those "defense" cuts?

"Push is on to cut funds for engine from Lynn" by Theo Emery, Globe Staff / February 15, 2011

WASHINGTON — Tea Party freshmen in Congress are siding with President Obama and gunning to eliminate $225 million from a House budget for General Electric’s backup engine for the Joint Strike Fighter program, a key test of Republican pledges to purge waste and earmarks.  

Related: Obama Cuts Defense Budget Less Than One Percent  

That's the debate?

The GE alternative — which would be built separately from a Pratt & Whitney engine, the future F-35 jet’s primary engine — has remained in development despite the opposition of Obama and the Pentagon. With hundreds of jobs on the line at a GE plant in Lynn, Massachusetts lawmakers have joined colleagues from both parties to keep the program alive for years by inserting hundreds of millions at a time into federal budgets.

Obama has epitomized the engine as wasteful defense spending, again eliminating it from the budget he unveiled yesterday. That puts him in league with fiscally conservative House members backed by the Tea Party movement who, in defiance of GOP House leadership, want to kill the project....

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Related: Israel to purchase 20 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets  

Is it any surprise that Congress funds it? 

Also see:   

Tea Party Refuses to Take the Pledge

Tea Party Threatens Pentagon 

That explains the insulting treatment by AmeriKa's agenda-pushing corporate media.

"House axes funds for jet engine to be built in Lynn; Issue moves to Senate, where it may be revived" by Theo Emery, Globe Staff / February 17, 2011

WASHINGTON — The House rejected funding for a second engine for the Pentagon’s new jet fighter yesterday, dealing a major blow to a program that had promised to create more than 400 jobs at a General Electric plant in Lynn.

An unlikely alliance of liberal Democrats and conservative budget hawks, many newly elected with Tea Party support, defied Republican House leaders by approving a budget amendment stripping $450 million for the F-35’s backup engine. The measure, which passed 233 to 198, was seen as a test of the new conservatives’ willingness to reduce military spending....   

We need WAY MORE of THAT! 

Unfortunately, the FIRST STEP must be OPENING UP on 9/11 from the "left."

Although the action is a significant setback for GE, which is developing the backup engine with Rolls-Royce, it does not sound a death knell for the program. After the House votes on hundreds of other amendments, the spending measure goes to the Senate, where the funds could be restored.

That would be a difficult proposition: Despite bipartisan support there, the Senate ultimately rejected the funding last year, although it was restored in compromise budget legislation....   

Related: The Two-Headed War Party

You liking the newspaper fooleys, folks?

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"Obama budget fails to curb entitlements, GOP says; But leaders don’t propose specific cuts" by Theo Emery,  Globe Staff / February 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — Driven by two wars, the recession, and “fiscally irresponsible’’ policies, in the words of the commission, federal debt has risen from a third of gross domestic product to 62 percent of GDP in 2010, and will eventually reach 90 percent of GDP in 2020. By 2025, tax revenues will go entirely toward Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and debt payments, according to the commission.

How rarely the debt-destroying, budget-breaking, mass-murdering wars enter the equation, 'eh?

How about ending those f***ing things and saving billions of lives and dollars we can then use towards those entitlements? 

As for debt payments, if they are to banks f*** 'em.

Henry J. Aaron, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said “There’s a disconnect between the reality of the problem and the willingness of officials to support legislation that would deal with the deficit on a timely basis.’’

That's the way I feel reading the newspaper.

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