Responding to a question on the possibility Congress will tackle entitlements this year OMB Director Jim Nussle highlighted the work if former Comptroller General of the United States David Walker’s “Fiscal Wake Up Tour” including: This “fiscal wake-up tour” I think has been one that has been waking up members …
Energy and environmental issues do not get much attention at budget time. Compared to the massive outlays for other programs and the overall 3.1 trillion dollar budget, the Department of Energy’s proposed 25 billion dollars, the Department of the Interior’s 11 billion, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s 8 billion are …
The Bush administration’s new budget request includes a $32 million increase for D.C. schools. The boost is proposed to support Mayor Fenty and Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s efforts to bring long-overdue reforms to the city’s struggling public schools. The budget also proposes increasing federal funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, …
A little more than a week before California’s February 5, primary, state legislators voted down Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $15 billion health care proposal. Since health care is the third most important issue for voters (behind economic growth and the war in Iraq) and failures like Schwarzenegger’s mean the health care …
President Bush unveiled his budget proposal for the Department of Education today—pushing Congress to hold spending levels flat from last year. Cue the hyperbolic press releases from liberals about how the Bush administration is dramatically under-funding education. The idea that public education has been under-funded during the Bush presidency is …
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez continued his ongoing campaign to undermine the democratic government of Colombia by securing the release of three more hostages from the terrorist group FARC this weekend. Chavez had surprised leaders world wide last month when he proclaimed that Venezuela now recognizes FARC as a legitimate political …
Among the many provisions of the Senate Finance Committee’s stimulus package is a legislative proposal to allow states to issue as much as $10 billion in new “mortgage bonds” to raise money to refinance the mortgage loans of troubled borrowers. States are already permitted limited use of such tax exempt …
