Word: nationalizations
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Since he took office in January, President Barack Obama has made clear that he views this year as the best opportunity in decades to overhaul the nation's ailing health-care system; more recently, he has stressed that he wants the House and Senate to pass their respective bills before their monthlong August recess. That, to say the least, is not going according to plan. The Senate said on July 23 it would not make the deadline, and the House is also looking increasingly unlikely to produce a bill by then. This slows the momentum behind the President...
...Still, Democrats have said they won't pass anything that isn't fully paid for, and finding the money to plug an estimated $200 billion-to-$320 billion shortfall has been particularly tough. Obama's original proposal to raise the tax deduction for charitable giving by the nation's highest earners seemed dead on arrival, while the House idea of taxing the rich directly has run into resistance from conservative Democrats known as Blue Dogs. One proposal that has gained traction in the past week is to tax pricey, so-called Cadillac health-insurance plans, either directly or by taxing...
...world's most populous nation about to get more crowded? Reports surfaced in international media last week that in an effort to slow the rapid graying of the workforce, couples in Shanghai - the country's most populous city - would be encouraged to have two kids if the parents are themselves only children. Shanghai officials have since denied any policy shift, saying this caveat is nothing new, but the contradictory reports are another manifestation of ongoing rumors that Beijing is rethinking the controversial one-child policy that has for the past three decades helped spur economic growth - but exacted a heavy...
Before long, however, population growth was taking a toll on the nation's food supply. In 1955 officials launched a campaign to promote birth control, only to have their efforts reversed in 1958 by the Great Leap Forward - Mao's disastrous attempt to rapidly convert China into a modern industrialized state. "A larger population means greater manpower," reasoned Hu Yaobang, secretary of the Communist Youth League, at a national conference of youth work representatives that April. "The force of 600 million liberated people is tens of thousands of times stronger than a nuclear explosion...
...also offers longer maternity leave and other benefits to couples that delay childbearing. Those who volunteer to have only one child are awarded a "Certificate of Honor for Single-Child Parents." Since 1979, the law has prevented some 250 million births, saving China from a population explosion the nation would have difficulty accommodating...