Budget // Current TV

Offshore Everywhere: The Plan to End National Sovereignty as We Know It

By Tom Engelhardt Make no mistake: We’re entering a new world of military... more

Incredulous
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3 days ago
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9 comments

Ron Paul: Cut Spending Overseas! Don’t Punish Innocent People at Home

Ron Paul on the Jason Lewis Show 1/30/12... more

JRBarilla
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10 days ago
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2 comments

Ryan Is Still Targeting Medicare

If you are on Medicare, about to go onto Medicare, or intending to go onto Medicare,... more

TomCat1948
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17 days ago
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1 comment

Obama administration warns the left: You will not like our budget

Obama administration warns the left: You will not like our budget By Alexander Bolton... more

KB723
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24 days ago
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15 comments

Are We a Psychotic Nation?

Yeah, WAR! What is it good for? We have been at war since 2001. We were pushed into... more

joeeddy
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1 month ago
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3 comments

This is something EVER AMERICAN should see. It's not Pro-Democrat or Pro-Republican. It is Pro-American.

Please take a moment. This is too important to our country's future, our budget,... more

finallysomeintelligence
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1 month ago
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0 comments

Congress Cuts Winter Heating Aid For The Poor While Boosting The Defense Budget

How thoughtful of them.

Luna2na
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1 month ago
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0 comments

Please Help Save My College

http://www.change.org/petitions/save-astorias-college Clatsop Community College,... more

Progresshiv
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2 months ago
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37 comments

Boehner: Savings from Iraq not to be used for jobs

These people are so unhinged, it would be laughable, if it weren't true. In the... more

lazloman
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3 months ago
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0 comments

Stop the undemocratic Super Committee!

The super-rich 1% have plunged us into a debt crisis by refusing to pay their fair share of taxes even as they strain the budget with wars, corporate welfare and bailouts. Now, the crisis they created is their excuse to force us to accept austerity measures.
Led by the Koch brothers and using the Tea Party as a front group, they succeeded in passing a bill that set up a Super Committee charged with drafting legislation by November 23 to slash $1.5 trillion from the federal budget.

If the Super Committee fails to produce a budget reduction plan or if the plan does not become law, spending will be lowered by $1.2 trillion, with $109.3 billion in cuts per year, half of which, $54.7 billion, comes from military spending and the other half from the rest of the budget. These cuts affect both mandatory and discretionary spending with proportionate cuts to both, but Social Security and Medicaid are protected while Medicare providers would see, at most, a two percent reduction in payments.

Why the Supercommittee Should Disband

Defense Contractors Pay Little To No Corporate Income Tax While Earning Billions
Fraudulent defense contractors paid $1 trillion

The dozen Super Committee members are the targets of countless corporate lobbyists and campaign donors working to protect defense contracts and industry subsidies while encouraging spending cuts and privatization for Food Stamps/SNAP, School Meals, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

In the last three months, the Farm Bureau and Biotech have spent $700,000 to influence the Super Committee and stave off cuts to direct payments for commodity producers (most are huge corporations growing Monsanto's genetically engineered crops) by gutting nutrition programs for hungry people.

If Congress had to put each of these deficit reduction measures to a vote, they would lose. Maintaining corporate welfare and tax breaks for the richest 1% by looting programs that serve the working poor and unemployed in a time of economic crisis isn't a good reelection strategy.

The Senate recently voted 84-15 to cut farm subsidies to anyone with an average income over $1 million. They voted 58 to 41 to defeat cuts to Food Stamps/SNAP.

The Super Committee process is designed to avoid votes like that. Congress will have to vote up or down on the debt reduction package without amendments or filibuster.

The Super Committee shuts down democracy. We need to shut down the Super Committee!

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation to do just that (H.R.3201). Here's her argument:

More at the linkThe super-rich 1% have plunged us into a debt crisis by refusing to pay their fair... more

JanforGore
added this
3 months ago
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25 comments

Good Budget Zoom Lenses

Budget Zoom Lenses

benjaminkanarek
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3 months ago
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0 comments

Staples on Lang and OLeary - Shipbuilding - October 19 2011.avi - YouTube

Does Canada need new warships ?

mollymew
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3 months ago
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0 comments

Obama Pushes GOP: 'In God We Trust' Doesn't Create Jobs (VIDEO)

The president once again used an aging bridge as a backdrop to demand that the GOP... more

StewSteve
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3 months ago
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0 comments

How I Go About Choosing Comparable Pictures - Baseline Intelligence

Veteran Film Business Plan Expert Jeffrey Hardy explains what factors to consider when... more

jamesluk
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4 months ago
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0 comments

Senate Democrats Revise Obama plan to Raise Taxes

"There are businesses, small businesses, that struggle. So we believe the million... more

StewSteve
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4 months ago
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0 comments

Why is the Department of Defense wasting $490 Million a Year on Printing?

Two senators have made a budget cut proposal that should appeal to tree-huggers, thrifty mothers and you--use less paper for printing at the Department of Defense (DoD) and save a cool $20 million in fiscal year 2011.

The DoD spends a staggering amount printing, copying and faxing documents: at least $1.4 billion each year, according to a report put together by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). That’s nearly triple the Government Accountability Office's entire budget. The report also estimates that $490 million of these funds are wasted through unnecessary printing, as many of the lengthy printed documents are already available online.

POGO made a rough calculation and found that if the DoD is spending an average of $29 per 10 reams of paper (5,000 sheets), it’s using about 240 billion sheets of paper per year. Granted, this doesn’t include the cost of ink, or bulk deals the DoD might be getting on paper. But that’s still enough dead trees to make the Lorax grab his Truffala seeds and run weeping towards the hills.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Sen. Coburn introduced a bill back in May—S. 1021—that would rescind $20 million from the DoD’s FY 2011 budget “from among amounts…for printing and reproduction costs.” It was most recently referred to the Committee on Appropriations and is awaiting further action.

The bill comes on the heels of a similar piece of legislation (H.R. 1246) that passed the House unanimously in April but hasn’t yet cleared the Senate, which would cut the DoD’s printing budget by 10 percent. According to Rep. Allen West (R-FL), the bill’s sponsor, this bill alone would save taxpayers about $35.7 million in 2012 and nearly $180 million over the next five years.

Sometimes, finding budget cuts in the DoD is akin to pulling teeth—this one however, would seem like an easy one to get behind. On my first day at POGO, I was immediately given a stack of recycled paper to use as a reporter’s notebook. As the DoD scours for ways to tighten its belt, it really ought to take a (reused) page from POGO’s book.

In the words of the wise, furry Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing’s going to get better. It’s not.”Two senators have made a budget cut proposal that should appeal to tree-huggers,... more

dliebelson
added this
4 months ago
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1 comment

Bipartisan Pootie Heads

Who says bipartisanship is dead? Clearly there are dumb asses on both sides of the aisle.

omnipotentpoobah
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4 months ago
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0 comments

Marking Time in Making Films - Baseline Intelligence

Film Producer, Consultant, and Teacher Norman C. Berns explains the long road it truly... more

jamesluk
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4 months ago
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0 comments

Congress Starves the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs: the GAO

Congress announced plans this week to starve the goose that's laying the golden eggs--and the name of that goose is the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Fairy tale knowledge a little rusty? Here's a refresher: once upon a time, there was a government agency that returned about $87 to taxpayers for every dollar the government fed it. In the last year alone, this agency—the GAO—laid $50 billion in golden eggs. Well, that’s what the magical goose said anyway, so take those numbers with a grain of salt. Anyways, despite the bird’s best efforts, famine struck and the government had to find at least $1.2 trillion in budget cuts or else it was going to lose the farm to sequestration. But did Congress continue to feed this industrious egg-laying goose? Not exactly.

The Huffington Post reported this week that Congress has proposed slashing the GAO’s budget by about $50 million (the agency’s total budget is $557 million.) David Walker, who headed the GAO from 1998 to 2008, told the paper: “GAO generates one of the highest returns on investments of any governmental entity in the world, and that needs to be recognized.”

These cuts would also force the watchdog agency to consider layoffs, according to Government Executive. The president of a GAO’s Employees Organization, Ron La Due Lake, told the paper that both the agency and the union were concerned about the extent of potential cuts, and he “didn’t believe anyone was expecting it.”

According to the House Appropriations Committee, the cuts won’t substantially affect the work the office does. It wrote in a press release, “this funding level will allow the continuation of the essential work of the GAO to provide Congress with accurate reporting of how taxpayer dollars are spent, while cutting spending for additional hiring, travel, support contracts, and other lower-priority activities.”

But those working closely with financial oversight issues don’t necessarily agree. Sam Rosen-Amy, a federal fiscal policy analyst at OMB Watch, told POGO that GAO does a range of investigations no other government agency covers—like the recent in-depth report they did on transparency in the Recovery Act.

“I imagine with this budget cut you’ll lose $50 million worth of investigations. If Congress is really serious about streamlining the government and saving money, it should be increasing, not decreasing, the GAO budget and also listening to their recommendations,” said Rosen-Amy.

POGO’s Bryan Rahija pointed out earlier this year that in times of fiscal duress in particular, investing in oversight is ultimately “a boon for taxpayers.” Given that the GAO has demonstrated repeatedly that its earning potential far exceeds its investment requirements, it would be a shame for Congress to further strap the GAO’s resources.

After all, if Congress is anything like the Aesop Fable, “As the farmer grew rich, he grew greedy. Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, the farmer killed it only to find—nothing.”Congress announced plans this week to starve the goose that's laying the golden... more

dliebelson
added this
5 months ago
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0 comments

David Stockman: "Republicans destroyed the US economy"

The rethuglicans love Ronald Reagan, but his budget director is not crazy about what... more

lazloman
added this
5 months ago
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2 comments

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