Free Republic

The federal budget will be where a lot of the war will be fought between President Obama and the new Republican Congress in 2015 Everything begins with the budget, and the Republicans are gun-shy. They have been beaten up so bad in the past, and falsely accused of hating Americans every time they force a government shutdown, that they are afraid to stand up against Obama and the Democrats on federal spending. Frightened, or not, the war has come to their doorstep, and it has become now. . . or never. The establishment believes the liberal left narrative that the...

Do you think Congress and the White House will agree on a 2011 budget before the Friday deadline? Yes. Then the battle will quickly turn to government spending in 2012 and beyond. Not sure, but I wonder if the 2011 budget debate is being driven by 2012 politics. No way. This is a game of political chicken and neither side is ready to blink. Other (post a comment).

U.S. businesses are bracing for layoffs and disruptions along their supply chains if the federal government shuts down later this week because of an impasse over the federal budget. (snip) Especially hard hit are small and midsized businesses that rely on steady flows of revenue from federal contracts to provide a wide array of products and services such as information technology consulting, building construction and maintenance, or food service at national parks. (snip) Should the government close, the Treasury could provide a several-hundred billion dollar cushion by borrowing from Social Security, federal pensions and other funds, says Gary Hufbauer, a...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Warning of economic repercussions, the Obama administration said Wednesday that a government shutdown would halt the processing of tax returns and limit small business loans and government-guaranteed mortgages during peak home buying season. Obama's administration sought to put the prospect in terms people would care about, even saying the beloved Cherry Blossom parade in the nation's capital would be wiped out.

Rolling out a plan that is as shocking in how much it cuts as President Obama’s first budget was in how much it spent, Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is laying out a case for huge spending cuts in a new white paper that couches the coming battle in almost apocalyptic terms. “This generation’s defining moment has arrived,” Ryan says in his conclusion. At issue is the GOP’s proposed budget, which cuts $5.8 trillion over 10 years, including massive cuts to entitlement programs experts say are driving the government towards a fiscal cliff. The bold move by Ryan and House...

House Speaker John Boehner says congressional leaders and President Barack Obama did not reach a budget agreement following a White House meeting. Boehner says Republicans are rallying behind a short-term cure. Obama met with Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the top House and Senate appropriators Tuesday in hopes of breaking an impasse in talks to set spending levels through the end of September. Without an agreement by Friday, the government would be forced to shut down. Boehner said he told Obama that House Republicans are preparing a short-term measure that would keep the government running for another week...

A visibly frustrated President Obama said Tuesday that Democrats have agreed on how much to cut from the budget and that he won't accept another temporary spending bill that House Republicans are rallying behind to prevent a government shutdown this weekend.  "We've already done that twice," Obama said in a surprise appearance at the White House briefing room. "That is not a way to run a government. "I can't have our agencies making plans based on two-week budgets." Obama said both sides are closer than ever to a deal and that politics shouldn't stand in the way of preventing a shutdown...

There was no deal reached over the budget after President Obama hosted Democratic and GOP leaders at the White House.Speaker John Boehner's office said a meeting between congressional leaders at the White House Tuesday morning did not resolve the standoff over funding the government for the rest of the year. The Ohio Republican's office said "no agreement was reached" on a long-term spending bill during the talks despite a "good discussion." Read more: The Hill

“Federal employees are being held hostage because these plans are not being made available,” said William R. Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, whose members include civilian Defense Department workers. “It’s disrespectful to hold these folks in limbo until the last minute.”He called “inexcusable” the government’s decision not to tell federal workers who would be sent home and who would be told to keep working.It was some of the strongest rhetoric that federal unions have used against a White House that has generally had the support of government unions. As a shutdown has loomed for weeks, with...

On Saturday, The Hill reported that momentum in the budget battle had shifted to the Democrats, in an odd and thinly-sourced story. The article cited “political experts” twice as the source of claims such as these: Momentum in the partisan messaging battle over who’s to blame if the government shuts down has shifted in recent weeks to favor Democrats, according to political experts. …Political experts say the outspoken role of the Tea Party will influence the blame game if there there’s a government shutdown. Despite the use of plurals in both cases, the article only quotes one person in each...

Even before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs the state's overdue budget, turmoil in the housing and credit markets is cutting into state tax revenue and threatening to make next year's budget battle even worse. Economists say a continuing slump in new-home sales and construction, layoffs and bankruptcies in the mortgage-lending industry, and an increasingly volatile stock market have begun erasing revenue that lawmakers assumed would materialize to cover the $145 billion budget. With another $5 billion deficit looming for the state next summer, falling revenue only will make it harder for lawmakers to close the gap without considering painful cuts to...

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez on Friday laid down a battle line for upcoming state budget talks, saying legislative Democrats will hold out for a budget that spends $3 billion more than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed for education. "We will not leave the negotiating table and we will not sign on to a budget until and unless we fully protect (education) funding because doing less than that would be doing a disservice," Núñez said. The Assembly's top Democrat joined two statewide officeholders and Sacramento Assemblyman Dave Jones at Phoebe Hearst Elementary School, where Jones' daughter is a student, to criticize...

LONG BEACH – With partisan disputes having stalled negotiations over the already late state budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger again went directly to voters Friday, reusing a tactic that has helped break previous legislative deadlocks. Calling Democrats "off track again in their partisan world," Schwarzenegger told diners at a California Pizza Kitchen in Long Beach that he would whip into a shape a Legislature that is "outdated and out of touch." Schwarzenegger has taken this path before, appearing before crowds dazzled by his movie star past and larger-than-life persona as governor to prod reluctant legislators into giving him what he wants...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - An agreement with Indian gambling interests that would generate nearly $1.3 billion for the state next year has not been signed, but budget negotiators have already seized on the new revenue as the potential bridge between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Democratic leaders say they want to add at least $400 million to the governor's proposed $103 billion spending plan for next year. The wish list, lawmakers and legislative aides say, includes money to lift a cap on enrollments at state colleges and universities that will cost about $60 million. They want to restore $98...

<p>SACRAMENTO - One of the cardinal rules of politics is to know how to count.</p> <p>A politician must be able to marshal votes to pass laws and to calculate how much cash he needs to win the next campaign.</p> <p>As the victor in five statewide elections, Gray Davis is one of the best political counters in California history. Yet as the state girds for another long budget stalemate, the Democratic governor seems to have lost the formula for success.</p>

<p>Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles, center. Flanked by Assembly Minority Leader Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, left, State Sen. President Pro tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, right, and State Sen. Minority Leader Jim Brulte, R-Rancho Cucamonga, background, Wesson said outlined the plan that wouldhelp reduce the state's record deficit by nearly half over the next two years.</p>

More battles inevitable, but is income tax? NEWS ANALYSIS By Richard Locker locker@gomemphis.com July 7, 2002 NASHVILLE - The monumental political battle over state tax reform ended after 3 years Wednesday when income tax advocates conceded defeat. Hours later the General Assembly approved a 17 percent increase in the state sales tax - from 6 percent to 7 percent - that opponents said made Tennessee's tax system even more regressive than it was. And although tax reform advocates admit they lost the battle, they say they are not surrendering. Even conservative Republican Sen. David Fowler of Chattanooga, an income tax...

Last week, Democrats who control the state legislature showed they have no appetite for deep spending cuts to balance next year's budget. Monday night they also made clear they couldn't stomach raising taxes in an election year. So Tuesday, Democratic leaders who had hoped to solve the budget crunch through an open, orderly committee process ended up back at square one, scrambling into a closed-door meeting with Gov. John G. Rowland's budget chief and Republican lawmakers to begin negotiating a budget deal. By the time they emerged after a brief introductory chat, the leaders conceded that they wouldn't be able...