Word: ax
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...painful surgery begins next month, when the White House and Capitol Hill begin looking for $50 billion in savings. Under Gramm-Rudman, this year some 70% of all federal spending, including sacred cows like Social Security and antipoverty programs like food stamps, is protected from the budget ax. At least half the budget will be protected in future years. That, of course, means deeper cuts in everything else, from environmental protection to federal housing subsidies...
...about 70% of this year's budget, and at least half in future years, could be protected from automatic cuts. That means the increasingly painful slashes will have to come from just part of the pie, and more than half of that portion goes to the military. The ax would thus fall mightily on many unprotected programs citizens have come to expect from Government: the National Park Service, student loans, Amtrak, air-traffic controllers, federal prisons, the FBI, border patrols, medical research, farm supports, transit aid, Coast Guard missions and countless other programs. In addition, the new legislation will hinder...
...reduction in military spending after inflation, it could probably be accomplished thanks to "shock absorber" clauses that apply only for the current fiscal year. In future years, cuts in military spending of 10% or more may have to be made, with little Pentagon discretion about where the ax will fall...
Thirty years ago, it would have been big news that Battle is black. Today it is hardly worth mentioning, since talented black women singers are readily accepted at opera's highest levels. The soprano rarely discusses race. Says she: "I don't think I have an ax to grind on that issue...
Second, Richler's onscreen "writer" (aren't they supposed to be sensitive?) is demolished by James (Once Upon a Time in America) Woods in a typically overheated ax murderer's job of acting. His nostrils perpetually flaring and his mannerisms obstinately childish even at "significant" moments (like the awful scene where his writer-pal dies), one thought sums Woods up: he gives great stereotypes. As Mr. Ackroyd would say: "The essence...