Cuts

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s plan to eliminate as many as 800 jobs — the second steep reduction for the Linthicum-based Electronic Systems division this year — could presage cutbacks by other federal contractors and further blows to the state's economy. Federal deficits — and a budget-cutting mood in Washington — have left Maryland companies less and less able to rely on government work, analysts said Thursday. Defense giants such as Northrop Grumman are particularly vulnerable, they said.

David Simon whose HBO show "Treme" is shot in New Orleans, is venting to the media site Poynter.org about plans to cut back the city's newspaper, the Times-Picayune. News broke this week that the paper's owners plan to publish the Times-Picayune just three days a week starting this fall. There will also be staff cuts. "It's grievous news as it would be for any American city," Simons told Poynter in an email, adding, "But New Orleans isn't immune. No one is. And this slow suicide - as the great Molly Ivins called it - will continue unabated until the industry swallows hard and takes its product - every last newspaper - behind a paywall.

Albert Lord doesn't like to wait - not in business or on the golf course. The colorful chairman of student loan behemoth Sallie Mae, who's embroiled in a nasty fight over the failed sale of the company, has spent 40 years in the accounting and banking industries. He said that experience should have instilled in him a measure of patience, but it hasn't. Whether in traffic, at the office or on the links, Lord said, he just doesn't like to wait. He can't do much about the first two, but he's got a sure-fire solution for the last one: He's building his own, an 18-hole golf course on land he's acquired amid shuttered tobacco farms and grazing horses in southern Anne Arundel County.

Salisbury coach Jim Berkman is fond of saying that it's fitting for the only two undefeated teams in Division III - the Sea Gulls (22-0) and SUNY-Cortland (21-0) - to meet in Sunday's NCAA tournament final at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Tyler Granelli has an entirely different motive. The junior faceoff specialist was cut by the Red Dragons in the fall of 2010 after compiling six points and 11 groundballs in 14 games as a freshman in 2009. Granelli elected to transfer to Salisbury and after sitting out 2010 to rehabilitate a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee, he has won 66.0 percent (446-of-676)

RG Steel LLC is cutting the salaries of managers and executives, including those at Sparrows Point in Baltimore County, because of weak economic conditions. The company sent a letter to employees Monday that said it would temporarily slash the pay of salaried workers by 10 percent beginning May 1. Company executive pay was reduced by 25 percent. RG Steel will also stop contributing to the 401(k) plans of the employees affected. "We view this as temporary until the company can get on better financial footing," said spokeswoman Bette Kovach.

I am writing to speak up for amputees and persons with chronic limb impairment. Several states have taken the extreme steps of trying to modify Medicaid benefits so that the state would deny access to artificial limbs. I am asking you to keep this from happening in Maryland. Recent studies such as the "Prosthetic and Orthotic Adult Benefit" by the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy have concluded that providing this essential health benefit saves money by helping patients avoid costly co-morbid medical conditions.

The congressional debate over reforming the nation's health care system is now complete. Yet, the challenge of quality care for our citizens is far from resolved. On Thursday, unless Congress acts, Maryland physicians and their colleagues across the nation will face an across-the-board cut of 21.2 percent to Medicare reimbursements, with more cuts expected to follow in the coming years. Given the current precarious state of the health care delivery system, a jolt of that magnitude would send it into shock.

In response to Garrison Keillor's Jan. 27 commentary ("Don't knock elitism; it could save your life"): What a childish pout we have here, in explaining the Republican plan for health care as "let them die." I sincerely believe that the Democrats' proposed health care plan will cut nearly $500 billion from Medicare because that has been promised. That will most assuredly let someone die. I recently saw my first "comparative effectiveness" study. I was shocked to see the conclusion that Zocor would be preferred over Lipitor because the additional heart attacks with Zocor didn't cause so much lost work time as to cover the cost of the Lipitor!

Community colleges are needed now more than ever to put people back to work, train employees in critical work force areas such as nursing and give high school graduates hope that they can receive a quality education that is affordable and accessible. The overwhelming majority of jobs in our "knowledge economy" require education beyond high school. Maryland's response to this reality includes a recent push to ensure that education is provided for people interested in careers that require more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree ("Not enough workers," March 2)

Dan Rodricks proposes to cut defense spending almost by half, but says he also wants our troops to have the technology they need. ("Austerity measures must apply to the Pentagon, too" Aug. 11). Like so many advocates of reckless defense cuts, he provides no specifics about how we could possibly accomplish these contradictory objectives. Defense spending didn't dig us into this hole and we shouldn't look to it to dig us out. Defense spending shrunk by more than half as a share of the budget since 1970, while spending on entitlements more than doubled.

Either County Councilman David Marks and county Chief of Staff Don Mohler are untruthful or they are sadly misinformed about the Baltimore County budget ("Balto. Co. Council poised to adopt 'bare-bones budget,'" May 17). The county is laying off the entire staff of the Medicaid Waiver Program. This is a program committed to keeping the elderly who qualify for nursing home care in their own homes or those of relatives. Instead of retaining the current staff, the case management responsibilities will be farmed out to temp agencies.

Just like our government, the tax-and-spend loving Sun doesn't get it ("Unfinished business," May 16). It's not really about a lousy 1 percent or 2 percent gas or income tax increase. The people of this state are rebelling against wasteful spending and ever-increasing budgets by our greedy, clueless government. If for once in their pathetic political lives, our politicians would start spending our money in a responsible and frugal manner, then just maybe we would be willing to consider an increase in taxes or fees without "hand-wringing and demagoguery" as suggested by The Sun. Here's my suggestion to our legislators: Stop the indiscriminate, wasteful spending, bloated budgets, and stealing of funds and replace all the money pilfered from our transportation fund, and maybe you would have enough money to fund needed projects without raising taxes in this depressed economy of ours.

President Obama achieved a major foreign policy goal in 2010 when he concluded the New START Treaty committing the U.S. and Russia to reduce the size of their long-range nuclear arsenals by a third within six years, to 1,550 warheads on each side. But as the president made clear in remarks at the time, even those cuts didn't go far enough. The world, he said, wouldn't be safe from the threat of these terrifying weapons until they were eliminated entirely. It was to be expected that Mr. Obama's critics in Congress would dismiss such views as either wishful thinking or as dangerously naive.

Baltimore County school officials told middle and high school principals last week that they must limit the number of leadership positions next year to save $814,000, a move teachers say means schools have again been targeted for cuts. The decision will strip the title and pay from some teachers who act as department chairs and perform certain roles, including helping principals evaluate teachers, making sure books and supplies are evenly distributed, and deciding how curriculum will be taught.

It took three carefully scripted days, but Maryland's ruling Democrats finally put in place the budget deal that eluded them in the waning hours of the state's regular session last month. The revenue package approved by the House on Wednesday will raise income tax rates on 14 percent of Maryland taxpayers while shifting some teacher pension costs to counties. The adjournment of this week's special session effectively ended the first budget impasse the state had seen in two decades.

Baltimore County parents and legislators will ask incoming schools Superintendent Dallas Dance to consider putting more teachers in high schools, where class sizes have swelled since positions were eliminated a year ago. Maryland Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat, said he wants Dance to examine restoring positions at high schools, where hundreds of classes have been dropped, soon after Dance takes over July 1. He said he warned county...

The Sun's recent editorial ("What's worse, the alcohol tax or education cuts?" March 13) correctly notes that raising revenue is preferable to cuts to vital services such as education and health care. Last Thursday, 1,800 parents, students, teachers and advocates braved the pouring rain to attend the Baltimore Education Coalition rally in Annapolis. Rally participants urged lawmakers to restore education funding cuts, keep their promise to fund an adequate public school system in Maryland, and use whatever resources they can develop to fill the $94 million shortfall in the governor's budget.

Recent articles on the FY12 budget debate have failed to recognize the incredible harm proposed cuts would have on low-income older Americans. The House Republican budget proposal would cut Medicaid spending by$1.4 trillion over 10 years. Right now, Medicaid pays for about 62 percent of the nation's total long-term care costs, and about 6 million seniors need long-term care. The proposal also would cut the Senior Community Service Employment Program by $150 million –on top of the $375 million just cut from the program in the FY11 budget.

Growing up in Texas, I played softball - fast pitch. After playing in the hot Texas sun, our team, the Sweetpeas, had a snack of oranges and water, in containers brought from home. Today, my husband and I are new Howard County residents, and we have gotten our children, ages 6 and 4, involved in sports activities, beginning with T-ball. We have been struck by the well-groomed baseball fields and the engaged volunteer parents. We were impressed with it all - until the post-game snacks came out. Over the last three weeks, these snacks have included chips, fruit roll-ups, sugary rice treats, chocolate-covered doughnuts with rainbow sprinkles, assorted fruit punch, and sports drinks.

Baltimore County's decision to cut nearly 200 teaching positions last year has had far-reaching consequences in high schools, where hundreds of classes have been dropped from the rolls, leaving many more students packed into classrooms. At Dulaney High School, for example, a chemistry teacher with a class of 34 said his students must take turns doing lab experiments because the stations are too small to accommodate more than three or four at a time. A journalism teacher doesn't have enough computers for each of her budding writers, so she sends part of the class to the library to do the work.