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Analysis: Kansas governor owns aggressive tax cutsBy JOHN HANNA | Associated Press – Thu, May 24, 2012 TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Plenty of Kansas legislators' fingerprints are on the aggressive income tax cuts signed into law this week by conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, including those of some GOP moderates now describing it as a budget crisis in the making. But Brownback now owns the legislation, even though it strayed significantly from the tax plan he outlined in January and he and his allies sought less aggressive alternatives in the legislative session's final days. He not only signed the bill,...

You can almost hear the collective gasp from Ron Paul's loyal band of supporters. Speaking Monday at a town hall style-meeting event in Cleveland, presumptive GOP presidential Mitt Romney plunged a fork into the idea that he could come around to embracing Mr. Paul's call for deep cuts in federal spending. "My job is to get America back on track to have a balanced budget. Now I'm not going to cut $1 trillion in the first year," he said, distancing himself from Mr. Paul's (http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/oct/19/paul-time-cut-spending/) plan to slice more than a quarter of the estimated $3.8 trillion being spent by...

ANNAPOLIS — State budget analysts Tuesday suggested nearly $800 million in potential cuts as part of a “doomsday” budget that Senate leaders have vowed to consider if lawmakers cannot agree on a mix of cuts and revenue increases in this year’s spending plan. The analysts briefed the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on the reductions, which include cuts to education and health services, elimination of 500 state jobs and more than $300 million in cuts of local aid to counties. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said lawmakers are determined to make more aggressive cuts than those in Gov....

Dems vow: No more cuts for federal workersBy Mike Lillis - 02/29/12 07:21 PM ET Leading Democrats charged Republicans this week with "discrimination" against federal workers amid Congress's struggle to cut deficit spending. The Democrats said a series of federal pay cuts – most recently as part of the payroll-tax package – pile the deficit-reduction burden on one group of Americans while the rest of the country gets a free pass. The lawmakers – all of whom represent districts laden with federal workers – are vowing to oppose any future legislation that includes cuts in federal compensation. "'Bureaucrats' is used...

A United Airlines flight has taken off from New York without incident, and is now winging its way toward Los Angeles. Some passengers are readying their iPads and notebook computers in anticipation of an OK from the crew to power up their devices. Others are settling into their seats with a good book, or maybe a few winks of much-needed sleep. As the plane begins to level off at its assigned cruising altitude, the “Fasten Seat Belt” light is finally extinguished. That’s when all hell breaks loose. Three burly terrorists rush the cockpit door and ....

(CNSNews.com) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that the cuts in defense proposed by President Barack Obaama will create "risks" in America's "capability to respond" to threats. “The risks come with the fact that, you know, we will have a smaller force," Panetta said a t a Pentagon briefing. "As we said, it’s larger than we had prior to 9/11, but obviously it will be a smaller force, and when you have [a] smaller force there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond.” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed Panetta’s assessment, while pointing out that when the...

The University of Wisconsin System will have to cut an additional $46.1 million over six months, atop a previously approved $250 million two-year reduction, under a detailed budget-balancing plan Gov. Scott Walker's administration released Friday. The new cut to UW was part of $123.2 million in additional reductions ordered to be made across state government. The amount in cuts was approved under the budget passed in June but not specified until Friday. Walker's Department of Administration ordered agencies to make the cuts without layoffs, if possible.

If you want to know what a Tea Party America might look like, there is no place like Kansas. In the past year, three state agencies have been abolished and 2,050 jobs have been cut. Funding for schools, social services and the arts have been slashed. The new Republican governor rejected a $31.5 million federal grant for a new health-insurance exchange because he opposes President Obama’s health-care law. And that’s just the small stuff. A new “Office of the Repealer” has been created to reduce the number of laws and regulations, and the Repealer is canvassing the state for more...

Fitch, when it lowered its outlook to negative, had said it was giving the U.S. government until 2013 to come up with a "credible plan" to tackle its ballooning budget deficit or risk a downgrade from the AAA status. "A key task of an incoming Congress and administration in 2013 is to formulate a credible plan to reduce the budget deficit and stabilize the federal debt burden. Without such a strategy, the sovereign rating will likely be lowered by the end of 2013," Fitch reiterated. Rival ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating on the United States to...

U.S. defense cuts that begin in the 2012 budget will ultimately cost up to 800,000 jobs, and additional spending reductions could push that figure to 1.5 million over the next decade, a top Republican lawmaker testified Tuesday. Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said his panel estimated the initial $489 billion in defense cuts approved by Congress would cost 100,000 military jobs, mostly Army and Marines, as well as 200,000 civilian defense jobs and 500,000 defense industry positions. “We’re looking at … between 700,000 and 800,000 jobs,” McKeon told the House of Representatives Rules Committee during...

Defense cuts could cost 1.5 million jobs: lawmakerBy David Alexander | Reuters – 12 hrs ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense cuts that begin in the 2012 budget will ultimately cost up to 800,000 jobs, and additional spending reductions could push that figure to 1.5 million over the next decade, a top Republican lawmaker testified on Tuesday. Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said his panel estimated the initial $489 billion in defense cuts approved by Congress would cost 100,000 military jobs, mostly Army and Marines, as well as 200,000 civilian defense jobs and 500,000 defense industry...

Hundreds gather downtown to rally against cuts to government programsBy: Scott Newell, newsnet5.com Last Updated: 1 hour and 25 minutes ago CLEVELAND - A couple hundred protesters, worried about looming cuts to social programs, loudly raised their voices in Cleveland today, shouting, "No cuts now, no cuts ever." They are worried about cuts to some programs that have become staples for Americans: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "This is a promise that our government has made to the American people, said protester Wynne Antonio. “They worked in good faith all their lives and paid in to these systems and they...

Small businesses that are important to the safety and security of the nation are being gravely threatened by deep defense spending cuts. The NAVSYS Corporation is a small business in Colorado that developed the first GPS cell phone to provide the 911 cellular location services that exist today. That first cell phone will soon be displayed in the Smithsonian. NAVSYS has gone on to create other innovations, and many of its products play an important role in America’s defense technologies. On Monday, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R–WA) hosted a panel featuring female Representatives, CEOs, and small-business owners. Dr. Allison Brown,...

WASHINGTON - Ten years after President George W. Bush cut income tax rates, his decision still remains at the epicenter of debate over future economic policy. President Obama, who came charging into office vowing to repeal the Bush's tax cuts, has been blocked at every turn by the Republicans, but also by some members of own party who thought it was insane to raise taxes in the midst of a recession when businesses were struggling and so many Americans were out of work. He reluctantly threw in the towel at the end of last year when the Bush tax cuts...

In a display of compromise rarely seen during his time in office, President Obama has signed into law a $858 billion tax cut bill despite the misgivings of members of both parties. "We are here with some good news for the American people this holiday season," Mr. Obama said. The bill, which was largely worked out earlier this month between the White House and Congressional Republicans, extends the Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans for two years, extends unemployment benefits for 13 months and includes a one-year Social Security tax cut, among other measures. The measure is not paid for,...

<p>PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION, Fla. — The Navy's Blue Angels have been thrilling audiences for more than six decades with their acrobatic flying in fighter planes, but a new era of federal budget worries and proposed deficit cutting has some inside and outside the military raising questions about the millions it costs to produce their shows.</p>

A tax cut that reaches 160 million Americans and government aid for the long-term unemployed will expire at the end of the year — and suck $165 billion out of the economy next year — unless Congress takes action. Economists hoped the so-called congressional supercommittee would decide whether to extend both measures. But the committee couldn't even agree on how to reach its main goal, cutting $1.2 trillion from the federal budget deficit. If the tax cut goes away, the average family would pay about $1,000 more in taxes next year, the equivalent of an extra tank of gas every...

A long-running war between Democrats and Republicans over Bush-era tax cuts doomed the debt supercommittee's chances of reaching a deal. Efforts to overhaul the tax code may await the same fate as both parties gear up to make taxes a central issue in 2012 elections. Republicans insisted during the supercommittee negotiations that curbing tax breaks to raise revenues be coupled with guarantees that all the Bush tax cuts would continue beyond 2012. The tax cuts, which affect families at every income level, were enacted under President George W. Bush and were extended through 2012 under President Barack Obama. Republicans for...

Wilderness Society cuts staff, citing weak economyBy Bettina Boxall - Los Angeles Times Updated: 11/19/2011 05:48:14 PM PST The weak economy has taken a big bite out of the Wilderness Society, which last week laid off 17 percent of its staff. Headquartered in Washington, the organization is one of the nation's most venerable land preservation groups and has been a major force behind the creation and expansion of the federal wilderness system. After increasing its staff and spending in recent years, the group is retrenching. "The Wilderness Society, like so many other organizations, has been feeling the effects of a...

SUPER FAILURE: Deficit Committee Certain To Announce Failure Tomorrow Zeke Miller Nov. 20, 2011, 8:33 AM It's over. After months of posturing and secret negotiations, the super committee has failed at its task of reaching $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts. Via POLITICO's Mike Allen: The official deadline for action by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. The real deadline is Monday night, since any plan has to be posted for 48 hours before it's voted on. So conversations this weekend revolved around how to shut this turkey down. Aides expect some "Hail Mary"...

Pelosi to supercommittee Republicans: Tax the rich to avoid defense cuts By Mike Lillis - 11/17/11 12:04 PM ET If Republicans wish to avoid defense cuts, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned Thursday, they should agree with Democrats to tax the rich. The California Democrat accused Republicans of feeling more bound to the anti-tax pledge of Grover Norquist, head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, than to their oath to serve and defend the country. “The sequester is what it is,” Pelosi said during a press briefing in the Capitol, referring to the $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts that...

A group of Republican senators has proposed a plan to reform welfare — not so much because they expect it to succeed, but to make an important point: that the deficit supercommittee can meet its $1.2 trillion goal without raising taxes. “I think there’s kind of an acceptance that as long as there’s Democratic control of the Senate, we’re not going to pass anything good,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), one of the bill’s cosponsors. “Our point here is to show that there is a lot of money that we could save and deal with our deficit in a...

Under orders to cut the Pentagon budget by more than $450 billion over the next decade, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is considering reductions in spending categories once thought sacrosanct, especially in medical and retirement benefits, as well as further shrinking the number of troops and reducing new weapons purchases.

Panetta: Additional military cuts 'nuts'By John T. Bennett - 10/12/11 09:52 AM ET The Army must maintain its counterterrorism expertise and rebuild its ability to go toe to toe with another large ground force — all while facing deep budget cuts, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday. For a second day in a row, Panetta took a hard line against deeper military budget cuts than the $350 billion called for under the August debt deal. He called it "nuts" if $600 billion more in cuts were to be triggered if the congressional supercommittee fails to reach a deal on at...

WICHITA, Kan. -- As the first and only federal prosecutor in Kansas dedicated solely to handling criminal immigration cases, Barry Disney took a pragmatic approach to filing charges in an interior state that has become a mecca for immigrant labor drawn to its massive meatpacking plants and other food processing industries. Limited resources were spent on the worst criminals who had been deported and then come back to the United States. Disney's first trial in federal court dealt with two illegal immigrants found speeding through Kansas with an assault rifle wedged in the back seat of a truck and loaded...

As Washington looks to squeeze savings from once-sacrosanct entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, another big social welfare system is growing as rapidly, but with far less scrutiny: the health and pension benefits of military retirees. Military pensions and health care for active and retired troops now cost the government about $100 billion a year, representing an expanding portion of both the Pentagon budget — about $700 billion a year, including war costs — and the national debt, which together finance the programs. Making even incremental reductions to military benefits is typically a doomed political venture, given the public’s broad...

15:27 GMT, September 16, 2011 This week the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee cut $26 billion from the Obama Administration's fiscal 2012 budget request. The move is intended to align future Pentagon spending with the requirements of the recently enacted Budget Control Act. However, the cuts the subcommittee proposes to implement would destroy at least 200,000 jobs, and probably more at a time when the government is contemplating going deeper into debt to fund the president's jobs bill. Consider the $13.3 billion the appropriators propose to delete from military investment accounts -- $9 billion for procurement and $4.3...

Save the Lightning Why we need the F-35 By Thomas Donnelly The Weekly Standard Tuesday, September 6, 2011 Thanks to the provisions of the Budget Control Act and the subsequent directions of President Obama's budget director, Jack Lew, the Department of Defense is figuring out how to trim $1 trillion from its current and planned budgets. Perhaps the principal target in the sights is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program (aka the Lightning II)—a fact that neatly encapsulates the Pentagon's severe budgetary, programmatic, operational, and strategic problems. It's only modest hyperbole to conclude that as fares the Lightning, so fares...

If conservatives believe that reducing the burden of government creates economic growth, lefties at the Daily Kos have to believe the opposite: cutting government is an economic disaster. Take the Thursday blog post by Vyan titled "Cutting our way toward 3rd World status." The target is the Heritage Foundation, which apparently wants America to be a "third world nation with no middle class," like Somalia, because of the "(Koch Funded) Heritage Idea that the U.S. should change it's constitution to require it to only spend a maximum of 18% of it's GDP and require a Super-Majority Vote to increase

A coalition of environmental and taxpayer groups have come up with $380 billion in savings over five years -- that is roughly three quarters of a trillion over 10 -- from programs they conclude both waste money and harm the environment.Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Public Citizen and The Heartland Institute all manage to agree that subsidies to corn, crop insurance, nuclear power, oil, timber, mining, flood insurance and the like should go. They are urging the new deficit supercommittee, which has to come up with $1.5 trillion in deficit savings by Thanksgiving, to take a look....

AUGUST 19, 2011 Bank of America Set to Slice Jobs Reductions Total 3,500 in Current Quarter; Many More Seen BY DAN FITZPATRICK Bank of America Corp. is cutting 3,500 jobs in the current quarter and working on a broader restructuring that could eliminate thousands of additional positions, people familiar with the situation said. The 3,500 positions are spread across the nation's largest bank by assets, including investment banking and trading, and the cuts are expected to be completed by the end of September. Some employees already have been notified. Thousands of additional reductions are expected as part of an aggressive...

“How can the government help me?” This seems to be a growing sentiment among the American middle class. “The land of opportunity” is quickly becoming the “nation of the needy.” Here’s a question I received from a reader just last week: “I am not happy with how things are going since the Bush Administration allowed tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy. These cuts were supposed to end for those who just keep earning more off the middle class. My question is: I am told that investors can invest as little as $1000.00 in real estate, and make a living...

Reacting to last night’s GOP presidential debate, the White House said today that the 2012 candidates proved themselves to be out of touch with Americans by saying they would refuse to accept tax increases as part of a debt deal. In Ames, Iowa last night the candidates were asked if they would refuse to accept a budget deal with a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. All eight presidential contenders raised their hands. “That’s clearly not where the American people are,” Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters today. “That basically puts these candidates in a position...

Ratings agency Moody's repeated a warning on Monday it could downgrade the United States before 2013 if the fiscal or economic outlook weakens significantly, but said it saw the potential for a new debt agreement in Washington to cut the budget deficit before then. With U.S. markets still to open after rival Standard & Poor's stripped the United States of its AAA rating late on Friday, Moody's said in a statement its own decision to affirm the AAA rating on August 2 was on the condition that further cuts were found. "For the Aaa rating to remain in place, we...

Military pay raises, funding for veterans health care and the Post-9/11 GI Bill could be sacrificed to new fiscal realities as the result of the deal signed by President Obama on Tuesday to raise the federal debt ceiling, according to the Military Officers Association and veterans groups. The law requires the federal budget be cut $2.1 trillion over 10 years. The White House said it plans to cut $350 billion from the Defense Department budget (excluding war funding) over the next decade. Retired Air Force Col. Michael Hayden, the association's deputy director for government relations, said this means "everything is...

The no's came from both sides of the aisle. Two Illinois Democrats and three Republicans voted the deal down. ... Jackson Jr. voted against the bill saying the cuts will do nothing to get Americans back to work. Evanston Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky says she couldn't vote for a bill that opens the door to entitlement cuts and does not include tax increases for the wealthy. "I really couldn't in the consciousness do this, which raises $1 trillion in spending cuts[?] of the middle class, the poor, seniors, while millionaires and billionaires are still not asked to pay a single penny,"...

I just love Washington-speak which offers heartfelt phrases such as “baseline spending,” “debt ceiling,” “drop dead dates,” and my ultimate favorites, “the cut,” “to cut,” “a cut,” or just simply “cuts.” Like the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” a “cut” means different things to different people. Let me explain by first discussing common-speak, which is very easy to understand. When someone takes a cut in pay, it could mean going from $20 per hour to $15 per hour. Or, they’re paid $30,000 per year for a job that used to pay $35,000 per year. To most...

For those of you that don't know what the baseline is and how baseline budgeting works, let me give you the real quick explanation of it. When you put together your budget, if you do one, you take last year's spending and income and you take a look at it and you figure out if you spent more than you had, or if you didn't spend more than you had, what did you do with what you had left over, where did it get spent. If the next budget you prepare has to be smaller because your income's dropped, you...

Eleven arrested after Capitol sit-in against budget cutsBy Debbie Siegelbaum - 07/28/11 02:04 PM ET U.S. Capitol Police arrested 11 Christian and Jewish faith leaders Thursday after they staged a Capitol sit-in against budget cuts. The group called on the Obama administration and Congress not to “balance the budget on the backs of the poor,” according to the release sent out after the incident. The religious leaders, members of an interfaith coalition to protect the poor, have been charged with demonstrating within a U.S. Capitol building, according to a Capitol Police spokeswoman. All have been taken to Capitol Police headquarters...

Johnson & Johnson said Thursday that it's reducing the maximum daily dose of its Extra Strength Tylenol pain reliever to lower risk of accidental overdose from acetaminophen, its active ingredient and the top cause of liver failure. The company's McNeil Consumer Healthcare Division said the change affects Extra Strength Tylenol sold in the U.S. -- one of many products in short supply in stores due to a string of recalls. Starting sometime this fall, labels on Extra Strength Tylenol packages will now list the maximum daily dose as six pills, or a total of 3,000 milligrams, down from eight pills...

Senate Democrats today unleashed a torrent of criticism against the GOP's Cut, Cap, and Balance Act which passed the House late last night via a heavily partisan vote, re-branding it as a political scheme that would "kill medicare" and one that would never pass in the Senate. "Let me make this as simple as I can: the Republican scheme to cap, cut, and kill medicare is dead on arrival in the senate," declared Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at a press conference in Washington. "[It] would wreak havoc on our country's seniors, the middle class, military preparedness, and our country's standing...

Indiana ends budget year with $1.2B surplus July 14, 2011, 6:47 pm EDT INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- After a year of spending cuts to state agencies and school districts, during which state workers were asked to do more than ever, Indiana released its final budget numbers for the fiscal year that showed it sitting on a $1.2 billion surplus. State Auditor Tim Berry called the state workers who bore most of those budget cuts via greater workloads, "heroes." "The surplus was built on the backs of state employees," said Berry, after he thanked them for tightening their belts. Republican Gov. Mitch...

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings. • Save America 's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings. • International Fund for Ireland . $17 million annual savings. • Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings. • National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings. • National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings. • Hope VI Program. $250 million annual savings . • Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings . • Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.• U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings. • Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings . •...

Late last week, it looked like Tom Coburn might rejoin the Gang of Six in the Senate, which restarted their efforts to find a compromise on the budget as the debt-ceiling limit debate rages. Today, however, Coburn will become a Gang of One by releasing his own plan to reduce the deficit by twice the amount of the Paul Ryan plan. Unlike Ryan, Coburn plans on increasing federal revenues, but through reform of the tax code: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Sunday the federal government can save $1 trillion though tax reform, a proposal that will put him at odds...

The Wall Street Journal is reporting House Republicans will vote next week to cut $2.4 trillion over the next ten years while increasing the debt ceiling by a $2.4 trillion. House Republicans said Friday that they planned to vote next week on a proposal to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion, with matching cuts and guidelines to control future government spending. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said at a news conference Friday that the House next week would vote on a "cut, cap and balance" approach. The House plans to separately vote on a measure that would...

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell challenged President Obama’s claim to support trillions in serious spending cuts as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling – cuts the president says show he’s ready to anger Democrats to get a deal. In a sharply worded speech on the Senate floor today, McConnell labeled the Obama cuts a sham. “We all saw how it worked,” he said. “The administration leaked to the media, without any details, the idea that it was willing to go along with trillions in spending cuts.”But the cuts are largely illusory, McConnell indicated. Obama hoped “the budget...

Politicians often rail against government spending, except when it goes to the military. Conservatives believe there is no such thing as too much defense spending, and liberals don't argue, for fear of being labeled appeasers. So when there is talk of the two parties agreeing to cut the Pentagon budget, it sounds like a monumental change. But probably not. It's a good thing that defense, which accounts for roughly a fifth of all federal outlays, is no longer considered immune to the need for frugality. But both supporters and opponents have a stake in portraying any trims as far more...

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama is seeking $3 trillion to $4 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade, a move that would require putting Social Security, Medicare, defense spending and tax reform on the table as part of a balanced approach to cuts, Democratic officials familiar with the negotiations told CNN. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not say what types of cuts would have to be considered under such a proposal. In the past, one Social Security adjustment debt negotiators have discussed is cost-of-living.

Administration Offers Health Care Cuts as Part of Budget NegotiationsBy ROBERT PEAR Published: July 4, 2011 WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues. Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program. Before the talks led by Vice...

Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders announced today that they have reached an agreement on a new majority-vote budget plan. "We've had some tough discussions, but I can tell you that the Democrats in both the Senate and the Assembly have now joined with the administration and myself and we have a very good plan going forward with the budget," Brown said at a press conference in his office this afternoon. The proposal, outlined in this post, assumes that the state will bring in an additional $4 billion in revenues in the upcoming fiscal year, based in part on...