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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

The article in today's Sun by Rep. Chris Van Hollen ("Medicaid cuts would hurt us all," July 25) demonstrates how difficult it will be to reduce our budget deficit. While giving lip service to the need to reduce our federal budget deficit, he then maintains that there should be no reduction in the federal Medicaid program. Not one dime. Conspicuously absent in his article are any proposals to bring our deficit down. There is a reason for this. He has none. He was perfectly willing to pass budgets containing huge deficits when he and his party were in the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he will continue to do so if given the opportunity.

It's important to remember that ideological myths were one cause of the economic collapse, especially myths about regulating special interests. Politicians who receive money from Wall Street, the oil and gas industry and others justify the protective corporate welfare given their benefactors by invoking ideological doctrines such as those that insists that all government regulation and taxation is inherently bad. Only by leaving special interests...

Brendan Madigan's recommendation that Maryland follow the lead of Texas is quite interesting ("A Texas solution to Maryland Jobs," June 23). Is he aware that the "Texas miracle" has led to a budget deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years? Or that, in response to this deficit, the Texas legislature approved a new budget with $15 billion in cuts, $4 billion of which will be from public education? As Barbara Bush wrote in an opinion piece in February of this year, "[Texas]

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.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer is warning that "startling efforts to balance Maryland's ailing budget could touch programs and employees in nearly every level of state and local government.Depending on which projections are used, the state is facing a deficit of $395 million to $450 million in its current $11.5 billion budget.Unless remedies are found, the state's money problems are expected to grow more serious next year.Dramatic spending cuts, early retirements and layoffs of state employees, and raising taxes are being considered in earnest.

With a slow economic recovery looming over families in Maryland and all across America, the debate over the continuation of the Bush tax cuts has boiled to the surface. As essential programs struggle to survive on decreased revenue in a time of increasing need, newly elected tea party conservatives stubbornly refuse any reform that would increase government revenues. We two — a director of a nonprofit that advocates for working families and a wealthy beneficiary of the Bush tax cuts — are united in our understanding that those tax cuts were a mistake that helped lead us to our current budget crisis.

Farm subsidies could finally be on the chopping block. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently acknowledged that corn and ethanol "subsidies need to be phased out" over time. And on a swing through Iowa, Mr. Vilsack suggested that the Obama administration will support some cuts in next year's budget. On the right, Sen. Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, has called for an end to sugar subsidies, and the budget plan from Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would reduce agricultural handouts - which often go to large corporate farmers - by $30 billion over 10 years.