Word: deficits
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...winners get a blessing on the spot; everyone else takes home some holy water for a trouble-free new year. Newly elected Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou attended ceremonies on the Aegean island of Lesbos this year, but with Greece sinking under debt and a huge budget deficit as fast as a priest's crucifix, Papandreou is going to need more than holy water to get through...
Shortly after Papandreou took office in October, his socialist government revealed that Greece's finances were in far worse shape than the previous government had let on. The 2009 deficit was nearly 13% of GDP, more than four times the euro zone's 3% limit. The European Commission blasted Greece for the faulty stats, and ratings agencies downgraded Greek debt, sending yields on government bonds skyrocketing. Over the past two months, as fears have grown that Greece's poisonous finances could infect the rest of Europe, the euro has slipped by almost 7% against the dollar. The Greek crisis...
...scrambled to calm jittery investors and skeptical European Union partners that it can clean up its mess without any assistance. In mid-January the Papandreou government, which has to raise $75 billion to close its gaping fiscal shortfall, announced an ambitious three-year austerity plan to reduce the deficit to 2% of output by 2013. "Greece is playing by the euro zone's rules and it will put its house in order," Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou tells TIME. "To borrow words from an ad: Watch this space...
Lawmakers Tangle over Deficit...
President Obama's $3.8 trillion budget for 2011 drew fire from lawmakers who say the plan does not seek to make a deep-enough dent in the soaring U.S. deficit, expected to hit a record $1.56 trillion this year. Obama blamed the shortfall in part on the "decade of profligacy" under his predecessor, including two wars and tax cuts for the wealthy. Propping up the fragile economy, he added, remains a top White House priority--and it's not cheap. While the proposed budget includes a three-year freeze on discretionary spending and other deficit-reduction measures, it also calls...