Budget Deficit

I would like to respond to Roz Ellis ("Cut military spending, not entitlements," Readers Respond, July 30). Our humongous military outlay is never on the table because it is not humongous. The cost of national defense accounted for approximately 19 percent of the federal 2009 budget. In contrast, the cost of Social Security, Medicare and other social programs accounted for approximately 55 percent of the budget. It may be prudent to scrap old ships and cut the defense budget, but these things will not solve our financial problems.

"Our biggest problems over the next 10 years are not deficits," President Barack Obama told House Republicans last week, according to those who attended the meeting. The president needs to deliver the same message to the public, loudly and clearly. The biggest problems we face are unemployment, stagnant wages, slow growth and widening inequality -- not deficits. The major goal must be to get jobs and wages back, not balance the budget. Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan is designed to lure the White House and Democrats, and the American public, into a debate over how to balance the federal budget in 10 years, not over whether it's worth doing.

Whether the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction - the so-called supercommittee - reaches a deal to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion or stalemates on Nov. 23, Democrats appear intent on handicapping the national economy with higher taxes and imperiling national security by cutting defense. Those are the wrong places to solve the nation's budget woes. In 2007, just prior to the financial crisis and when Democrats took control of Congress, the deficit was a manageable $161 billion.

American workers got an unpleasant surprise this month when they received their first paychecks of 2013. The typical full-time worker, who earns about $40,145 a year, found that his two-week paycheck was $30 lighter than his last check of 2012. The lost money is the result of tax increases contained in the Jan. 1 agreement between Congress and the White House to avoid the "fiscal cliff," a package of spending cuts and tax increases intended to reduce the federal budget deficit. Though $30 doesn't sound like much, it's unwelcome for households that continue to struggle in this long-stagnant economy.

It is a proven fact that the average American doesn't care about the federal budget deficit. Sometimes on the "NBC Nightly News," for fun, Tom Brokaw will say, "Next: the federal budget deficit." Then they'll show a 15-minute videotape, without sound, of a dog eating peanut butter. They never get a single phone call, because the instant Tom says "budget deficit," the viewers grab their remote controls and switch to sleazy tabloid shows full of "news" about Roseanne Barr Arnold's husband's tattoos and the William Kennedy Smith sex-change operation.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke imposed a hiring freeze on city government yesterday, hoping to fend off a projected $24.4 million budget deficit next year.Schmoke will formally announce the hiring freeze this morning, but he told a group of residents meeting last night at Roland Park Elementary School that he took the step in hopes of avoiding layoffs of municipal employees or severe cuts in city services."

Former U.S. Sen. Warren B. Rudman warned yesterday of "deep long-range concerns" about what the federal budget deficit will do to the U.S. economy, even as Maryland business leaders took in a series of upbeat forecasts for the nation and Maryland for 1994."

The last time Baltimore officials outlined a dire budget deficit, the city raised a series of local fees, finished off the year with a surplus and then shaved two cents off the property tax rate. But that was 2005 and this is now, and the chances of a turnaround in these depressing times are slim to none. The scenario outlined last week by Mayor Sheila Dixon projects a $65 million deficit for the budget year that begins in July, lost revenue that could result in layoffs and cuts in essential city services.

Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden is being urged to speak up in the debate over the state budget deficit for the good of the county.Mr. Hayden has refused so far to be drawn into the debate on how the state should solve its deficit problem, and relieve pressure on the counties. So far, the county has had to cut its budget by $53 million to make up for losses of state aid and a decline in revenues caused by the recession.In an attempt to move Mr. Hayden, a boisterous crowd of about 1,000 Baltimore County workers, parents and children, chanting "These Cuts Won't Heal" and "Where's Roger?

WASHINGTON - As the government closed the books on the 2003 fiscal year this week, the Bush administration received a modest piece of good news: The 2003 budget deficit, while still the largest in history, was smaller than predicted. In August, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit would be $401 billion when the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. Now the office says the deficit will top out at $374 billion - still more than double the 2002 gap of $158 billion.

Amid the boasting typical of a governor's budget proposal, Gov. Martin O'Malley's new spending plan includes this peculiar claim to fame: The O'Malley administration has managed to effectively eliminate Maryland's structural budget deficit not just once but two times. This is a bit like bragging that you've married the same person twice - it suggests you've gotten to the right place in the end but glosses over some unpleasantness in the middle. The fiscal unpleasantness, in Mr. O'Malley's case, was particularly severe, and to be fair, not really his fault.

I wish President Barack Obama would explain to the nation that the federal budget deficit isn't the nation's major economic problem and deficit reduction shouldn't be our major goal. Our biggest problem is lack of good jobs and sufficient growth. And our goal must be to revive both. Deficit reduction leads us in the opposite direction -- away from jobs and growth. The reason the "fiscal cliff" is dangerous (and it's not really a "cliff" but more like a hill, because we won't fall off it immediately on Jan. 1)

With the election behind us, I had hoped our politicians would get beyond games of chicken. No such luck. First, you need to understand that the upcoming game of chicken isn't about how much or when we cut the budget deficit, or even whether the upcoming "fiscal cliff" poses a danger to the economy. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned last week that the automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to start in January amount to too much deficit reduction, too soon.

The following is the 2012 State of the County Address delivered by Harford County Executive David Craig at the Feb. 21 county council legislative session: Harrisburg, PA: Requesting Bankruptcy. Jefferson County, AL: Bankrupt. The State of Maryland: A "negative outlook" on its bond rating; A $1.2 billion budget deficit. The United States of America: A drop from a Triple A rating to Double A; An unbalanced budget; A new trillion dollar deficit.

Sport, said broadcaster Howard Cosell, is "human life in microcosm. " Ain't it the truth at the University of Maryland athletic department, where the economic mood strikes approximately the same chord as that of the unemployment rate and the budget deficit. University sports budgets, it turns out, can't grow forever any more than subprime mortgage originations or government spending. In what President Wallace D. Loh called one of his "most painful and heart-wrenching decisions," the University of Maryland, College Park, is eliminating more than a fourth of its varsity teams, including men's and women's swimming and diving, men's tennis, and men's track and field.

Whether the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction - the so-called supercommittee - reaches a deal to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion or stalemates on Nov. 23, Democrats appear intent on handicapping the national economy with higher taxes and imperiling national security by cutting defense. Those are the wrong places to solve the nation's budget woes. In 2007, just prior to the financial crisis and when Democrats took control of Congress, the deficit was a manageable $161 billion.

WASHINGTON - President Bush will leave his successor with a record-high budget deficit of $482 billion, according to an administration estimate released yesterday. White House officials blamed the slowing economy and a $150 billion bipartisan stimulus package for the worsening picture for the 2009 fiscal year, while Democrats put the blame on the president's tax cuts and poor fiscal management over his eight years in office. "The important point to remember is that near-term deficits are both temporary and manageable if, and only if, we keep spending in check, the tax burden low and the economy growing," said Jim Nussle, director of the Office of Management and Budget, which released the midyear budget report - the last of Bush's presidency.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government legally shut itself down at midnight, as the White House and Congress remained locked in a high-stakes budgetary standoff.With the two branches unable to agree on a new budget plan for the 5-day-old fiscal year, federal facilities around the country were to be shuttered today, and all government activities -- save for those related to U.S. military actions in the Persian Gulf and others required to "protect life and property" -- were to come to a halt.

After seeing that a majority of those polled blame the Democrats for the S&P downgrade, I am beginning to be concerned about the mental health of some of your readers. After all, it was the Republicans who caused the nation to erroneously obsess about the budget deficit rather than job creation and economic recovery, and then to take the dangerous step of holding the nation hostage on passing what had been a routine debt-ceiling increase. To make matters worse, the Republican leadership refused to consider a debt reduction package that balanced job-killing spending cuts with revenue increases that would affect only those enjoying preferential tax loopholes.

I would like to respond to Roz Ellis ("Cut military spending, not entitlements," Readers Respond, July 30). Our humongous military outlay is never on the table because it is not humongous. The cost of national defense accounted for approximately 19 percent of the federal 2009 budget. In contrast, the cost of Social Security, Medicare and other social programs accounted for approximately 55 percent of the budget. It may be prudent to scrap old ships and cut the defense budget, but these things will not solve our financial problems.