Free Republic

In the great Woody Allen comedy, Love and Death, Allen plays a Russian nebbish who is celebrated for his heroism when, after hiding in a cannon during a battle, he gets fired into the Napoleonic command tent, taking down four enemy generals and thereby winning the battle. His rival, played by Harold Gould, derides his newfound celebrity with the understated line, “I understand your heroism was quite inadvertent.” Americans may soon realize that the newfound celebrity of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin may be due to something similar. The Build Back Better Bill, also known as the $5 Trillion spending plan,...

WASHINGTON - President Bush unveiled a $3.1 trillion budget proposal on Monday that supports a sizable increase in military spending to fight the war on terrorism and protects his signature tax cuts. Bush called the document "a good, solid budget," but Democrats, and even a top Republican, attacked the plan for using budgetary gimmicks to project a budget surplus in four years. The budget proposal, which shows the government spending $3 trillion in a 12-month period for the first time in history, squeezes most of government outside of national security, and also seeks $196 billion in savings over the next...

Legislative leaders on Monday said they had reached a tentative agreement on a roughly $131 billion state budget and hope to bring the spending plan to a vote before Saturday, the start of the new fiscal year. The announcement indicated Republicans and Democrats have broken a logjam over health care funding for children of illegal immigrants and competing plans for using a tax windfall to pay down state debt. Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia of La Jolla and Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Fullerton released a joint...

President Bush on Thursday signed a $94.5 billion emergency spending bill to fund hurricane relief and the Iraq war that includes $30.4 million for Sacramento flood protection and levee repairs. The money includes $23.3 million targeted for 29 levee sites that state officials say represent an urgent risk. Last month, the state and federal governments agreed to allow expedited environmental reviews so those projects can be completed by Nov. 1. State officials now estimate the total cost of repairing those levees at less than $150 million. The remaining $7.1 million is for stream repairs in south Sacramento. The total was...

SACRAMENTO – State lawmakers early Friday approved a series of bills that would place a record public works spending plan before voters in November, reviving a proposal that had broad public support but failed to pass the Legislature earlier this year. The $37.3 billion package would be the largest bond issue in California history and now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor, who proposed an even larger spending plan in January, called the votes in each house “a landmark accomplishment that will yield benefits for generations to come.” “For the first time in a generation, we are making a...

Sacramento -- A giant bond proposal being weighed by state lawmakers has far more in it than billions of dollars to build schools and highways and strengthen California's levees. Restoration of the Salton Sea, retrofitting diesel school buses, acquiring land and creating urban parks are a few examples of spending included in the most recent version of the bond, which would go before voters in June if lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can work out a deal in the next couple of days. "Protection of environmental resources is as much of a long-term investment in California's future as is the...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Members of a two-house conference committee outlined sharply different priorities Thursday as they began working over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $222.6 billion public works spending plan. "We're all going to have to give up some things" to get an agreement, the chairman, Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, said after a two-hour hearing during which Republicans and Democrats expressed concerns about Schwarzenegger's proposals. "We're all going to have to give a little and get a little," he said. The Republican governor wants the state to spend $222.6 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade highways, expand intercity rail,...

Perils of Good Intentions Roh's idealism has turned South Korea into a debtor state By B. J. Lee Newsweek International Sept. 6-13 issue - South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun came to power last year as a populist outsider, and in recent months has spelled out spending plans that deliver on his promises in a big way—some say too big. The total amounts to as much as $300 billion over 10 years, a vast sum for a $600 billion economy with an annual government budget of $150 billion. There's $100 billion to support financially troubled farmers and fishermen, $52 billion...