Word: bolster
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Antismoking advocates tout this month's record increase in the federal cigarette-tax rate, which on April 1 spiked from 39¢ to $1.01 per pack, as a move that will bolster the federal budget while saving an estimated 900,000 lives. Supporters say the measure will stop 2 million kids from lighting up and spur about 1 million adults to quit, but the sharp hike has some smokers fuming. Cigarette taxes, detractors argue, are a way for governments to line their coffers by legislating personal choice--and a prime example of a regressive "sin tax," the term often used...
...Geithner's plan, the companies would have to be so big and in such bad shape that their insolvency could threaten the financial stability of the U.S.; if they are, the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, in consultation with the Treasury Secretary, could decide either to bolster them with financial assistance or to seize them and break them into parts...
...That mounting pressure pushed Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany to announce Saturday that he would step down. At first, friends and enemies alike wondered if it was a trick by the wily politician to bolster the besieged government. But on Monday Gyurcsany said his resignation was permanent. "I hear that I am the obstacle to the cooperation required for changes," he reportedly stated at a congress of his Socialist party (MSzP) over the weekend. "If so, then I am eliminating this obstacle...
...Menkhaus, a professor of political science at Davidson University and one of the world's foremost experts on Somalia, told TIME that bin Laden's message would only bolster Sharif's standing in his own country. "There's nothing that plays as poorly in Somalia as foreigners trying to advance their own agenda in Somalia - telling them who they may or may not have as a leader - and al-Qaeda is falling into that category. In some ways, you could not script this any better for the new government. On paper, it all looks excellent...
That is the key. Gallup polls show that by huge margins, Muslims reject the notion that the U.S. genuinely wants to help them. The new Administration, with a fresh eye on the world, wants to bolster the position of the U.S. But "Obama will have a narrow window to act," says Burkholder, "because the U.S. has failed so often in the past...