Posts Tagged ‘Budget cuts’
Well, we’ve waited and waited but it looks like it is finally time for the 2011 government shutdown!
After weeks of nowhere negotiations and temporary fixes, hope of a budget compromise between Democrats and Republicans is fading fast. If progress isn’t made by Friday the government will be forced to temporarily to stop day-to-day operations until a consensus is made.
The proposed shutdown is predicted to cause both political and economic turmoil. House Speaker John Boehner sees a definite problem for Republicans.
The Democrats think they benefit from a government shutdown. I agree.”
The last government shutdown took place in 1995 when President Bill Clinton and congressional Republicans found themselves in a similar predicament.
It is easy to think that the political system in Washington is broken… There seems to be little agreement on issues big and small.
But fixing the big issues in the country today isn’t easy. Take the economy…
Most agree that US Government debt is an concern for the economy. The disagreement comes from how and when to solve this problem.
Well, one man (and his party) claims to have a solution.
Speaking in the video above Republican Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, outlines his answer.
Analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office Ryan’s plan is expected to accomplish its goals as presently
debt held by the public is projected to rise from about 62 percent of GDP in 2010 to about 90 percent of GDP in 2050.
…Under the proposal, the ratio of debt to GDP would be significantly smaller over the long term—falling to 48 percent in 2040 and 10 percent in 2050.
What seems even more impressive is that this is done WITHOUT RAISING TAXES! How you might ask? Well as Free Exchange’s G.I. notes this is accomplished
Through an eye-watering assault on entitlement spending, in particular health care. Mr Obama’s health care reform would be ditched, Medicaid would be converted to block grants, and traditional Medicare would be replaced with vouchers.
The end of Medicare as we know it, the end of government guarantees for seniors, is generating the most anger. Over at Democracy in America, M.S. after analyzing the proposal states:
I agree with Mr Ryan that the government needs to limit taxpayers’ exposure to Medicare cost inflation. I think this plan is a fundamentally immoral way to do it.
With so much emotion felt over the issues of both Federal debt and social safety nets its no wonder that even Republicans are tentatively approaching the proposed budget.
Fears of the political fallout from such a plan Catherine Rampell notes have sunk past budget solutions and that
The country’s budget problems are not a failure of policy ingenuity, but a failure of political willpower.
Which has us wondering; what ever the right answer is will Washington ever actually find AND more importantly implement it?
By now you might have heard about the tremendous budget cuts being proposed by Republican members of Congress. What you may have missed is the impact of the plan on some of the country’s largest providers of free press.
In their proposal, the Republicans are calling for a complete de-funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an organization which provides funding to local television and radio stations all over the country. The CPB has already expressed their opinion:
Federal funding for public media is a smart and careful investment that continues to deliver proven benefits to the American people at both a local and national level. It is a successful example of a vital public-private partnership.”
Funding for organizations like the PBS and NPR has always been a heated issue between liberals and conservatives. As liberals prepare to fight the proposal on every front it doesn’t look like it will cool off anytime soon.
What do you do when college tuition goes up? American students have an answer: take out another student loan.
British students have found a different solution: riot.
Yesterday a peaceful protest by college students in the UK turned violent. The unruly rabble-rousers ransacked the headquarters of Britain’s ruling Conservative party (see the video above).
Why all the angry students?
Parliament, controlled by a Conservative and Liberal Democrats coalition, is planning to cut public universities funding and allow schools
to charge between £6,000 ($9,600) and £9,000 ($14,400) in tuition a year, up from the current cap of £3,290($5,264).
The cuts are due to fears that Britain’s debt is becoming unsustainable. Currently national debt is 68% of the UK’s GDP (compare this to America’s paltry 52%).
To get their spending under control the ruling government is making cuts all across the board.
Spending cuts are shaking up other parts of England as well. The Royal Navy, whose shining moment was the defeat of the French forces at the Battle of Trafalgar, will now be sharing their ships with the French.
These painful cuts may be a looking glass into America’s future. Yesterday, a bipartisan commission on the reducing the US deficit released a plan to cut America’s debt. The report provides steps to
reduce the deficit to 2.2% of gross domestic product by 2015, and achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction by 2020.
With British students standing up for their wallets we’d be interested to here what folks on our side of the pond think about tuition spikes and other government spending cuts. After all we can’t let the British out crazy us Yanks.
The great Madoff rip-off! Bernie may spend MUCH more than a weekend… in prison.
Wal-Mart takes advantage of the government… Well, the government’s money, at least.
Do we have to check our vision… or did the market actually just go up?
Budget cuts will keep us from talking about the past, according to The Onion.
Image courtesy of New York Magazine.
