Word: budgeteers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Anyone believing the global economic crisis to be over should have taken a look around Europe this week. Desperate to revive his country's feeble economy, Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan promised $6 billion worth of savings in a budget aimed at taming the country's stubborn deficit. The plan is his second budget this year, and Ireland's harshest in decades. In a mini-budget announced a couple of hours earlier, Britain's Alistair Darling unveiled his government's latest plan to fix the U.K.'s broken economy, including a punitive tax on bankers' bonuses, a rise in social...
...take "courageous" steps to tackle the crisis. Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, part of the socialist government that won power in the country last October, duly pledged to do "whatever is required" to shore up the country's finances. Key to the recovery plan: slashing Greece's budget deficit next year from 12.7% - more than four times the level allowed under E.U. rules...
...Contrast that with Ireland. Since losing its edge in Europe - rising labor costs helped the country's share of euro-zone exports fall one-fifth between 2001 and 2008 - the Irish haven't shied from cutting their cloth in recent months. In his budget announced Dec. 9, for instance, Lenihan unleashed deeply unpopular cuts in public-sector pay that look set to trigger strike action. But when it comes to a spending squeeze of their own, says Tilford, "the Greeks are a long way from recognizing that they really have no choice." (Read "Ireland's Economy: Celtic Crunch Time...
Last year, the first round of budget cuts bid farewell to hot breakfast, the Widener Café, and free coffee in many of Harvard’s departments. Even after the administration offered eligible staffers early retirement packages in order to cut costs, Dean Michael Smith said there was still more hacking to go and to expect a restructuring of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. However, last week’s announcement that the administration is offering early retirement packages to faculty in FAS and four of Harvard’s professional schools comes...
Paul Van de Water, a longtime CBO analyst and now senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, says the CLASS Act doesn't have strong enough work requirements, which are intended to be a proxy for physical fitness. Americans who perform only seasonal work, for example, could qualify for the program. He adds that penalties for letting premium payments lapse are not strong enough. "The criticisms are absolutely true, but you design things the best you can. If we only did [legislation] that entailed no risk, I don't think we'd ever do much of anything...