Congressional Democrats sealed an agreement on Monday night on a budget plan that would help US President Barack Obama overhaul the healthcare system, but allows his signature tax cut for most workers to expire after next year.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad announced the agreement and key details in a statement.
Most importantly, the congressional budget plan would prevent Senate Republicans from delaying or blocking Obama’s plan to vastly expand government-subsidized health care when it advances this fall.
The US$3.5 trillion plan for the budget year starting Oct. 1 embraces several of Obama’s key goals besides health care reform, including funds for domestic programs and clean energy, and a tax increase for individuals making more than US$200,000 a year or couples making more than US$250,000.
But the plan would allow Obama’s signature US$400 tax cut for most workers and US$800 for couples to expire at the end of next year. Even after squeezing the defense and war budgets to levels that are probably unrealistic, the plan would cause a deficit of US$523 billion in five years.
“I think this is a good budget,” Conrad said. But “much more will have to be done to get us on a more sustainable course,” including slowing the growth of benefit programs like Medicare and overhauling the tax code, he said.
Conrad forced cuts of US$10 billion from Obama’s US$50 billion boost for non-defense programs funded by Congress each year — not much in the grand scheme but strongly resisted by House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey. Future increases for non-defense operating budgets would be far less generous than Obama’s budget, averaging 2.9 percent, though history would suggest that Congress won’t follow through on the long-term promises.
Democrats also focused a lot of attention on preserving former US president George W. Bush’s tax cuts for middle-class workers, investors and families with children.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS