budget

Stories 81 - 100 | << Prev   Next >>

Ballot Measures a Final Test for Schwarzenegger

Outgoing gov must convince Calif. voters to endorse budget fixes

(Newser) - Deep into Arnold Schwarzenegger's second term, the novelty of holding political office has given way to the hard realities of governing, the New York Times reports. In the eyes of his constituents, too, the Governator’s celebrity sheen has faded, enough that Schwarzenegger is worried about the passage of several...

Oakland Proposes Nation's First Pot Tax

City council approves pot levy; voters to decide in July

(Newser) - Oakland’s city council has approved a provision to apply a 1.8% tax to marijuana sold at medical dispensaries. If voters endorse the measure in July, Oakland would be the first city in the US to tax pot, reports the Wall Street Journal. Backers say it would bring in...

Congress OKs Budget Plan, Advances Health Reform

(Newser) - President Obama's plan to overhaul the nation's health care system got a big boost today as the Senate followed the lead of the House and approved a $3.4 trillion budget plan, the Washington Post reports. The approval sets the stage for lawmakers to hammer out legislation over the summer...

Full-Price Fury Sends Writer to the Dumpster

W. Hodding Carter fed up with supermarket prices

(Newser) - Since February, W. Hodding Carter's family of six has been living within their means on $550 a month, which means making hummus at home and slashing extras like candy and fancy cheese. But now, in a fury over the "unconscionably insufficient number of sale items" at his local supermarket,...

Cities Brace for Fallout From New Defense Budget

(Newser) - With President Obama and Robert Gates hoping to reconfigure defense spending, cities and towns around the country are bracing for the economic fallout, ABC News reports. Some of the places most likely to be pinched if Gates’ budget stands:
  • Marietta, Ga.: Where Boeing and Lockheed Martin assemble F-22s. About 2,
...

Unity Candidate Turns Into Most Polarizing Prez

Obama faces huge partisan approval gap: analysts

(Newser) - He ran on a message of unity and moderation, but Barack Obama is “the most polarizing new president of recent times,” writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. There’s a 61-point Obama approval gap between Democrats and Republicans, Pew researchers found. The widening gap has been a...

Gates Axes F-22 in Pentagon Budget Overhaul

Defense sec cuts deep, readies dep't for this century's wars

(Newser) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates today recommended halting production of the F-22 fighter jet and scrapping a new helicopter for the president as he outlined deep cuts to many of the military's biggest weapons programs. Gates said his $534 billion budget proposal represents a "fundamental overhaul" in defense acquisition...

Obama Can't Cull Farm Subsidies

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s attempt to slash farm subsidies seems to have died on the vine, the New York Times reports. The $9.7 billion in cuts Obama included in his budget outline were conspicuously absent from the outlines the House and Senate approved Thursday, squashed by farm state lawmakers. Now...

Many Medicare Patients Leave Hospital, Then Quickly Return

Readmissions cost US billions a year

(Newser) - One-third of all Medicare patients hospitalized each year are readmitted within 90 days of being discharged, costing taxpayers billions of dollars annually, a new study found. Meanwhile, half of patients who went back in the first month after treatment had not seen a doctor in the interim. "Given the...

GOP Pushes Budget With Tax Cuts, $500B Deficit

Alternative budget overhauls Medicare but repeals Obama spending

(Newser) - House Republicans are pushing an alternative budget plan that would cut income tax rates and radically overhaul Medicare, the AP reports. The plan unveiled today by Paul Ryan of Wisconsin also freezes overall spending on domestic programs and repeals most of the spending in President Obama's recently passed economic stimulus...

Would-Be GOP Successors Flee the Governator

But trashing Arnold could backfire on Whitman, Poizner

(Newser) - After years of getting the cold shoulder from Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Republicans are returning the sentiment as they mount efforts to succeed him, the Los Angeles Times reports. Top GOP contenders Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner have criticized Schwarzenegger’s budget and ballot measures, tossing in digs about his ego...

GOP Targets Critics With Own Economic Plans

Budget proposals seek to douse 'Party of No' label

(Newser) - “The Party of No” is rejecting that label by introducing alternatives to President Obama’s policies rooted in GOP ideology, Politico reports. The Republican Road to Recovery is a weighty fiscal counterpart to the Democrats’ economic agenda, and marks a new strategy in the minority’s response. Republicans laud...

Obama Meets With Dems to Push Budget

(Newser) - President Obama visited Capitol Hill today for a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats to push for his budget plan. As Senate and House panels began debating their own versions, Obama urged Democrats to retain his budget's core principles on health care, energy, education, and deficit reduction. He also asked them...

Budget Deficit Soars Past $1.8T
 Budget Deficit Soars Past $1.8T 

Budget Deficit Soars Past $1.8T

(Newser) - The federal budget deficit will surpass $1.8 trillion during the current fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said today. The figure far outstrips the previous estimate of $1.2 trillion and spells trouble for President Obama's proposed budget, the Wall Street Journal reports, but the White House budget director...

Obama Army's New Mission: Pass the Budget
Obama Army's New Mission: Pass the Budget
ANALYSIS

Obama Army's New Mission: Pass the Budget

Prez calls on legion of campaign supporters, but will they follow?

(Newser) - Four months after propelling Barack Obama to victory, his millions-strong army of volunteers is being asked to help out again, writes Jeff Zeleny in the New York Times. Anyone who contributed $5 or more to the campaign has been enlisted to support Obama's effort to pass his 2010 budget, which...

Dems Draw a Bead on 'Party of No'

After earmark battle, a plan to show GOP as devoid of ideas

(Newser) - Democrats are going on the attack in a new campaign labeling Republicans as “the party of ‘no,’” Politico reports. Officials and ads will argue that Republicans are playing a knee-jerk political game in opposing Democratic measures, like President Obama’s budget proposal, without offering alternatives. The...

Philanthropists Cry Foul Over Obama Budget
Philanthropists Cry Foul Over Obama Budget
OPINION

Philanthropists Cry Foul Over Obama Budget

Higher taxes, cap on deductions may lead to $4B less in charity

(Newser) - Charity may be a virtue, but in America there's another motivation for philanthropy: generous tax deductions of as much as 35%. Barack Obama's proposed 2010 budget may change all that; not only will it raise taxes on the most wealthy to almost 40%, it will cap charitable deductions at a...

White House Responds, With Civility
White House Responds,
With Civility
OPINION

White House Responds, With Civility

Brooks still hates the budget, but he applauds new tone

(Newser) - In the Bush years, publishing a New York Times op-ed criticizing the White House could get your wife outed as an undercover CIA agent. But when David Brooks wrote earlier this week that the 2010 budget was too liberal, the Obama administration was much gentler—he got calls from four...

Bernanke Backs Stimulus Bill
 Bernanke Backs Stimulus Bill 

Bernanke Backs Stimulus Bill

Bigger deficits are worth the benefits, Fed chair tells Congress

(Newser) - Ben Bernanke supported the Obama administration’s economic policy before Congress today, the Wall Street Journal reports. The $787 billion stimulus bill should boost “demand and production” and soften job losses over the next 2 years, the Federal Reserve chief told the Senate Budget Committee. The expansion of government...

Obama's Plans Require a Lot More Hands

Federal workforce could expand by 100-250K, experts say

(Newser) - President Obama’s ambitious budget and stimulus plans will require the government to hire scores of new workers, the Washington Post reports. Analysts put the number between 100,000 and 250,000 spread among various agencies, the biggest expansion of the federal workforce since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society days....

Stories 81 - 100 | << Prev   Next >>
Most Read on Newser