Tag: deficit

In his zeal for deficit reduction, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has objected to Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-Wash.) bill to provide benefits to homeless woman...

For tens of thousands of the nation's teachers, it is the start of an endless summer. In the past month, the Los Angeles Unified School District has sent pink slips to 693 employees. The Detroit school system has laid off 1,983 teachers, including Michigan’s 2007 teacher of the year. And Greensboro, N.C., has received national attention for firing or reassigning more than 500 teachers in a district serving just 71,000 students.

Unnamed administration officials quoted by David Cho of The Washington Post say the federal deficit is lower than the White House’s initial projections. The...

Democratic leaders pushing health care reform this year like to argue that a vast majority of the proposals represent uncontroversial changes backed by most Capitol Hill lawmakers. And while that might be true, it hasn’t prevented some sharp disagreements between House and Senate Democrats over a handful of high-profile reform provisions.

WASHINGTON-- Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) recent one-man stand against legislation extending unemployment benefits offered a high-profile airing of a popular GOP message: Deficit spending, in almost any form, will cause more harm than good to a fragile economy. Standing in the way of the Republicans’ reasoning, however, has been another formidable group: budget experts.

With Democratic leaders hoping to bring up legislation to fix, once and for all, the formula to pay doctors who treat Medicare patients, a...