U.S. House Republicans push energy, science cuts
U.S. scientific research, environmental protection and other priorities of the Obama administration would face steep cuts under a congressional Republican spending plan released on Wednesday.Remember all those mid-term election campaign promises to create jobs. Thus far Republicans have not proposed one piece of legislation to create jobs, but have proposed legislation to kill jobs. Amazing what Republicans can say and not be held accountable for.
More than 60 programs would be eliminated entirely, including Obama's effort to build a network of high-speed passenger trains.
Birth control funding, the Americorps volunteer program, public broadcasting, the community-oriented policing program and a "weatherization" program to insulate homes and office buildings also would be eliminated.
The proposal has virtually no chance of becoming law because President Barack Obama and the Democrats who control the Senate are certain to oppose it.
But it will frame a debate over federal spending that is likely to dominate Washington this year.
Republicans in the House of Representatives aim to impose immediate cuts averaging 15 percent on domestic spending programs to narrow a budget deficit projected to hit a record $1.5 trillion this year, and show conservative voters that they are serious about scaling back the size of government.
"We have taken a wire brush to the discretionary budget and scoured every program to find real savings," said Republican Representative Hal Rogers, who as chairman of the Appropriations Committee is leading the effort.
Republicans congressional leaders emerged from a White House lunch with Obama voicing optimism that they would be able to work with the president on budget cuts.
But with Obama pushing for targeted increases in scientific research and other areas, consensus will not come easily.
"This is all a political statement to try to appeal to a relatively narrow base, and I suspect when they finish their work that it's going to be an even narrower base," Democratic Representative Jim Moran told Reuters.
The plan would eliminate 60,000 jobs, said Moran, who sits on the Appropriations Committee.
Republicans have taken to saying they are the party of Reagan. Who can blame them after Bush 43 turned out to be a disastrous presidency in both domestic and foreign policy. They are hoping no one remembers what an awful president Reagan was, Five myths about Ronald Reagan's legacy
2. Reagan was a tax-cutter.The rest are at the link.
Certainly, Reagan's boldest move as president was his 1981 tax cut, a sweeping measure that slashed the marginal rate on the wealthiest Americans from 70 percent to 50 percent. The legislation also included smaller cuts in lower tax brackets, as well as big breaks for corporations and the oil industry. But the following year, as the economy was mired in recession and the federal deficit was spiraling out of control, even groups such as the Business Roundtable lobbied Reagan to raise taxes. And he did: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was, at the time, the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history.
Ultimately, Reagan signed measures that increased federal taxes every year of his two-term presidency except the first and the last. These included a higher gasoline levy, a 1986 tax reform deal that included the largest corporate tax increase in American history, and a substantial raise in payroll taxes in 1983 as part of a deal to keep Social Security solvent. While wealthy Americans benefitted from Reagan's tax policies, blue-collar Americans paid a higher percentage of their income in taxes when Reagan left office than when he came in.
...4. Reagan shrank the federal government.
Reagan famously declared at his 1981 inauguration that "in the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." This rhetorical flourish didn't stop the 40th president from increasing the federal government's size by every possible measure during his eight years in office.
Federal spending grew by an average of 2.5 percent a year, adjusted for inflation, while Reagan was president. The national debt exploded, increasing from about $700 billion to nearly $3 trillion. Many experts believe that Reagan's massive deficits not only worsened the recession of the early 1990s but doomed his successor, George H.W. Bush, to a one-term presidency by forcing him to abandon his "no new taxes" pledge.
The number of federal employees grew from 2.8 million to 3 million under Reagan, in large part because of his buildup at the Pentagon. (It took the Democratic administration of President Bill Clinton to trim the employee rolls back to 2.7 million.) Reagan also abandoned a campaign pledge to get rid of two Cabinet agencies - Energy and Education - and added a new one, Veterans Affairs.
