April 17, 2011 The dueling deficit-cutting plans presented by congressional Republicans and President Obama both promise to restore the nation’s fiscal credibility. But if they fail to deliver, the result could be still higher deficits and the potential for another devastating economic crisis.
Even if the far-reaching and painful measures like those in the two proposals were adopted, economists say, more drastic action would be required in the years ahead to bring the deficit down to a sustainable level.
The GOP plan, drafted by Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, would reduce government red ink by $4.4 trillion over 10 years. It would cut federal spending by $5.8 trillion, but would offset that by $4.2 trillion in tax cuts. Ryan counts on the tax cuts to stimulate the economy and end up delivering substantially more tax revenues.
Obama would shrink deficits by $4 trillion over 12 years. He would make considerably smaller spending reductions, a total of $2 trillion, but would increase taxes by about $1 trillion, focusing on wealthy Americans. Since his definition of wealthy begins with families earning $250,000 a year, many working couples with hefty salaries but few if any tax shelters could feel the effects of his plan more sharply than the millionaires and billionaires he often talks about.
Obama’s savings rely in good part on future efforts by government regulators to hold down the costs of medical care — a major, but yet untested, element in the healthcare law that does not take full effect until 2014.
Both the Ryan-Republican plan and the one outlined by Obama in his speech last week are opening bids in what’s expected to be a drawn-out battle along partisan lines. But the two approaches agree on one thing: Over time, the nation’s mounting debt threatens the economic stability of the whole country, and the government — along with most voters — will almost certainly have to find ways to do more with less.
NEW YORK (AP) — A bill to translate ballots in New York City for Russian immigrants is making its way through New York’s Legislature.
Republicans accuse Democratic sponsors of the bill of trying to drum up Democratic votes in the city seeing a rise in Russian-speaking immigrants.
But Democrats say the measure to provide voting materials, instructions, and voter registration in Russian is needed to assure more immigrant citizens are assisted in voting.
The Senate passed the bill with bipartisan support and it’s headed to the Democrat-led Assembly where it has some powerful sponsors.
The New York Immigration Coalition says voting documents are already available in Spanish, Chinese and Korean.
Queens Dem voters are real fishy
Her husband died 10 years ago, so a Queens woman was startled to get a letter from the Board of Elections notifying her that he had changed his voter-registration form last month.
A Philadelphia businessman was equally perplexed when he received a letter saying his 92-year-old mother had filed a new voter-registration card in July that didn’t match her previous form.
“She’s legally blind and suffering from dementia,” the son told The Post yesterday. “I told them the reason for this discrepancy is because the information is fraudulent.”
Officials say those voter-registration forms were among 1,913 delivered to the Queens board between Aug. 3 and 17 by Lilianna Zulunova, campaign manager for Albert Cohen, one of six candidates running to succeed Councilwoman Melinda Katz (D-Queens) in today’s Democratic primary election.
More than half the registrations — 1,037 — had missing information, so the board sent out letters to the registrants asking that they supply the data.
Ninety-two were returned as undeliverable. In at least three cases, the registrants turned out to be dead.
Board officials removed those and other suspect registrations from the voter rolls and alerted higher-ups at central headquarters, who say they will conduct a “review” after the November election.
Zulunova insisted that Cohen’s campaign, which conducted the first exhaustive voter-registration drive in the Bukharan Jewish community, had nothing to do with any fake registrations.
“If they’re dead, they’re no good to me — they can’t vote,” she declared.
2009-10-14 04:07 JMT
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Robert Wexler, a senior Jewish Democrat, is reportedly retiring from Congress to head an NGO promoting Middle East peace.Wexler, who has represented his Delray Beach, Fla.-area
Jewish leaders meet with Democratic senators
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Leaders of 18 Jewish organizations met with Democratic U.S. senators on Capitol Hill.
The Jewish leaders on Wednesday outlined their priorities to the 22 senators on hand for at least a portion of the one-hour meeting, which was organized by the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee and chaired by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).
Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs focused on climate change and the environment; Ken Jacobson of the Anti-Defamation League discussed hate-crimes legislation; AIPAC’s Howard Kohr discussed Iran and security progress in the West Bank; and David Harris of the American Jewish Committee criticized elements of President Obama’s Cairo speech and discussed the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Each prefaced their remarks by saying that Iran was the most critical issue for the community. The senators then called on representatives of other groups, who brought up health care and other matters.
One participant said that Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told the group that its help was still needed to pass legislation expanding federal government involvement in investigating hate crimes. Both houses of Congress have passed the legislation, but it still faces a conference committee.
Also, the participant said, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called Israel “our best friend in the world.” The participant said, though, that most of the meeting was devoted to Jewish leaders providing their views instead of hearing the opinions of the senators.
Stabenow’s committee has held similar meetings with Jewish organizations the past two years.
