Word: deficits
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...students joined nearly 170,000 other children across Hawaii whose teachers on Friday began an unprecedented state furlough program that will close classrooms 34 days over the next two years. The "furlough Fridays" are part of a controversial effort by Gov. Linda Lingle to deal with a projected budget deficit of nearly $1 billion. The cost-cutting measure has angered parents, lawmakers and children. Popular musician and Hawaii public school graduate Jack Johnson sang at a rally Friday morning at the state Capitol to protest the furloughs. During the rally, parents handed a petition bearing thousands of signatures protesting...
Furloughs were the budget-gap solution of choice for Lingle, a tough-talking Republican. Her administration also hopes to narrow the deficit with a similar furlough program agreed to this week with the state's largest public worker union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association. On the same day as the schools were closed, government offices, including the state's unemployment office, were shuttered. A complicated schedule closes numerous state offices two Fridays a month...
Leading Republicans, who represent themselves as deficit hawks when opposing Obama’s domestic initiatives, now accuse him of “dithering” on Afghanistan. This whole episode looks like it will work out extremely well for Republicans. If Obama doubles down, as they want, the best that can be hoped for is an extended and expensive struggle that will be unpopular, especially with the president’s base on the left. If he doesn’t, he, not his predecessor who waged the war so poorly for the last seven years, will...
...year or two until we’ve emerged more from the recession so bad economic timing wouldn’t have to be an issue. How better to send the message that (1) certain things have to be done, even though they cost money; (2) increasing the deficit in the short term is inevitable because of the Great Recession; but (3) long-term initiatives should be deficit-neutral because the deficit is a threat to our future welfare. Such a plan could be proposed in Obama’s next budget, although he could make known his intention...
Ballooning federal debt will be a big theme, maybe the biggest, advanced by Republicans in the midterm elections. To counter the impression Republicans are trying to create that universal health care is going to grow the deficit, Obama has wisely made this claim a tough sell by insisting that health-care reform be deficit neutral. Why not take something that Republicans currently are clamoring for, in spite of the fact that it costs a staggering amount of money, and force them to prove their fiscal-conservative bona fides? Surely, the Republicans will oppose any surtax and lose...