OTTAWA, CANADA — While U.S. lawmakers debate a Trump administration tax cut that will inexorably deepen the bone-deep budget cuts that have been eroding American living standards for nearly 40 years, Canadians are going on a bit of a spending spree.
On November 3, professor John Mearsheimer made a short and stunning presentation at “U.S. Foreign Policy in the Trump Era: Can Realism and Restraint Prevail?” conference held at George Washington University in Washington, DC. In the unipolar world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he claimed, realists urged nonintervention and staying out of conflicts and countries that “really don’t matter much.”
President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget eliminates an independent agency that coordinates the efforts of several federal agencies which play a role in preventing and ending homelessness among other sweeping cuts. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
WASHINGTON — The White House is following up its longshot roster of budget cuts with a wish list of $18 billion worth of immediate reductions, including cuts to medical research, infrastructure, and community development grants.
America's Achilles Heel: Withholding from the "Undeserving" Poorby Gaius PubliusPresident Obama released his budget recently, and there's a lot in it, both to like and to not like. Rather than give an overview of its many provisions, let's focus on just two.
Garden State voters love Governor Krispy for his unflinching fiscal realism."The Center says New Jersey could get on track if the governor and legislature produced forecasts together, worked with outside experts, and opened up those discussions to the public."-- from a report by WNYC News's Jessica Gouldby KenPerhaps the reason we're hearing all this talk about a "comeback" for New Jersey Gov.
Wednesday the House Budget Committee approved Paul Ryan's latest Ayn Rand Budget, which cuts trillions in healthcare spending and repeals the Affordable Care Act. "His budget," reports Hospital CFO, "would make significant changes to Medicare, reducing program spending by $129 billion over the next 10 years.
Oh no, is it really "Poopy Paul" Ryan's last cartoon budget? (Yes, he's term-limited out of the House Budget Committee chairmanship.)"On net, we estimate that the House budget resolution would decrease GDP by 0.9 percent and decrease nonfarm payrolls by 1.1 million jobs in fiscal year 2015, relative to CBO’s current-law baseline. The following fiscal year, the “Path to Prosperity” would decrease GDP by 2.5 percent and cost 3.0 million jobs.
The do-nothing House is on vacation already, again. But the Senate is still working. It still haven't approved the awful Paul Ryan-Patty Murray "compromise," in which the plutocrats compromise nothing (as usual) and all the compromise is on the backs of working people. Amazingly, though, it's Senate Republicans threatening to kill the whole thing. There are probably only 3 progressive Democrats in the Senate willing to vote no today.
There's a last minute, rush/rush-end-of-the-world vote scheduled for Thursday in the House, presumably Friday in the House of Lords, for the Frankenstein's monster of a "compromise" that Establishment shills Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Patty Murray (D-WA) reached Tuesday. The Budget Deal sucks. Can progressives stick to their values and principles and defeat it? Probably not. It's either this or the Republicans will shut down the government again.
Remember when Canter and McCarthy screwed up on the Farm Bill and Boehner had to pull it? It just happened again-- this time with the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development funding bills. The House of Representatives is now officially an out-of-control madhouse. Boehner is just another Member with an agenda, who some Republicans follow and others ignore.
