Deficit Reduction

The budget proposal President Barack Obama laid out Wednesday offered a thoughtful, balanced plan for tackling the nation's debt crisis that both acknowledged the threat posed by spiraling federal deficits and honored the country's promises to its most vulnerable citizens. In the current atmosphere of partisan hysteria and sniping, the nation needed to hear a reasoned discussion of the problems confronting us, and Mr. Obama delivered by framing his proposals in terms of the core values and governing philosophy he ran on during his campaign for the presidency.

I completely agree with Professor Peter Morici's assessment ( "Republicans have a chance to lead on the budget: will they?" April 6) that neither political party is serious about tackling the deficit. The main driver of these budget shortfalls are health care costs. The Democrats abdicated responsibility to completely transform the system when passing the Affordable Care Act. While Rep. Paul Ryan does make significant cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, which will save the federal government trillions, his "Path to Prosperity" does not eliminate the perverse incentives that drive medical inflation.

This week, I started a liquid fast. I'm fasting to get Congress to stop using deficit reduction as a tool for the indefensible slashing of budgets that provide basic support to the poor and the hungry, at home and abroad. I am fasting because hunger and poverty are, at bottom, women's issues. Women and girls make up a little over half of the world's population, but they account for over 60 percent of the world's hungry. The hunger fast I joined was launched this week by former Ohio Congressman and Ambassador Tony Hall, who fasted for 22 days in 1993 when he was chair of the Congressional Select Committee on Hunger to draw attention to the needs of the hungry in the U.S. and abroad.

These are difficult times for our economy, and Americans want Congress to act now to develop a credible budget plan that will ensure our nation's future growth and prosperity. It's not an easy task, but it is one around which all of us — Democrats, Republicans, independents — must come together as a nation if we are going to deal with our budget deficit. Recently, I gave a speech on the U.S. Senate floor outlining what I believe it will take to get control of our deficit while also ensuring our economic recovery and future prosperity.

: Should money being returned to the U.S. Treasury by bailed-out corporations be used for a new stimulus program aimed at creating jobs or applied toward deficit reduction? Jobs 21% Deficit 77% Not sure 2% (1,006 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Gov. Martin O'Malley announced that the state and university system have agreed to 20-year contracts to buy nearly one-quarter of their energy from renewable sources. Do you support this plan?

Two years ago, when Congress was designing the new Medicare drug benefit that takes effect in January, lawmakers feared drug plans might not be offered in rural areas because private insurers would consider them unprofitable. Those fears proved wildly off base. Ten separate drug plans are available to Medicare beneficiaries nationwide, and thousands more regional plans have been offered, leaving no part of the country out. Thus, Senate budget cutters, looking to reduce the deficit without cutting direct benefits to people, figured the $5.4 billion in incentives intended to lure drug plans into rural markets was an obvious target.

WASHINGTON - Even if the United States saved billions of dollars by withdrawing all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush would still be unlikely to fulfill his promise of reducing the federal budget deficit by half within five years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said yesterday. In the last independent assessment of Bush's fiscal policies before the November election, the congressional agency predicted that, if no existing laws change, the federal deficit will decline to $312 billion in 2009 from a record of $422 billion this year.

The Baltimore school board approved last night the broad outlines of a spending plan for next school year that would increase class sizes, eliminate 250 teaching positions and reduce a troublesome $58 million deficit by 60 percent. After hours of poring over the details of the proposed operating budget for the fiscal year that will begin July 1, board members unanimously passed the plan despite saying they need more specifics and an explanation of how the system's top officials intend to educate 90,000 schoolchildren and responsibly spend money after the current year's fiscal disaster.

PALO, Iowa - Four-year-old Halle Galvin pushed her Barbie coloring book aside. President Bush had come to the cereal factory where her daddy worked to chat with a few middle-class families about tax cuts. And Halle was determined to have her say. She raised her arm high. When the president called on her, she was ready with her question: "What's your name?" she demanded. "George," the president told her. "Hi, George!" Halle called out, beaming. Then she went back to Barbie. The meeting last month was a thrill for Halle and her parents, Terry and Penny Galvin.