Make sure to get a cup of coffee or two, because I’m sure you couldn’t sleep last night because of the excitement of today’s budget rollout. Luckily, we got a little preview last night.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan got the ball rolling on budget talks when he released an op-ed to The Wall Street Journal.His budget is expected to focus on four specific policy areas- energy, healthcare, welfare reform, and tax reform. The budget will reduce the rate of growth of spending, rather than slash it.
As Ryan wrote, the budget says the government will “spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we’ll spend $41 trillion. On the current path, spending will increase by 5% each year. Under our proposal, it will increase by 3.4%.” Liberal demagoguery will be in full-form today and they will continue to call for more tax hikes as the way to fix the economy. Americans know that there is a better way.
Watch: Chairman Ryan Offers A Better Way With Budgets
Important Things On Tap For Today10:30 AM: House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, (R-WI) holds a news conference to unveil the House Republicans’ FY2014 budget resolution, titled “The Path to Prosperity: A Responsible, Balanced Budget.”
12:30 PM: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney holds his daily briefing with reporters.
1:50 PM: Vice President Biden delivers closing remarks at the annual legislative meeting of the National League of Cities.
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On The Radar
Economic Growth
Who Is Going To Stop Kicking That Fiscal Can Down The Road?from The Washington Post by Walter Pincus. “The last time President Obama and lawmakers tackled deficit reduction, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 — signed into law on Jan. 2 — increased the budget deficit for this year by $330 billion, and through fiscal 2022 by almost $4 trillion, says the Congressional Budget Office.”
Who’s Winning the Great Energy Rat Race? from Foreign Policy by Robin M. Mills. “According to preliminary figures reported this week, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest net oil importer. Nearly 6 million barrels per day flowed into the United States in December — the lowest figure since February 1992 — while Chinese imports jumped to 6.12 million barrels per day. The United States had held the top spot since 1972, just before the oil crises and stagflation of the 1970s.”
Small U.S. Banks Hit By Rising Insurance Costfrom The Wall Street Journal by Robin Sindel. “Thousands of small U.S. banks are feeling a financial pinch from the government’s efforts to punish executives and directors of banks that collapsed during the height of the financial crisis. Insurance premiums that cover directors and officers are rising sharply as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., seeking to replenish funds paid out to depositors of collapsed banks, accelerates its legal pursuit of officials from failed community lenders.”
In U.S., Nuclear Energy Loses Momentum Amid Economic Head Winds, Safety Issues from The Washington Post by Steven Mufson. “Industry officials still make the case for nuclear as a domestic source of energy that does not emit greenhouse gases. ‘Anyone concerned about global warming should acknowledge that if society seriously aspires to be anti-carbon, it also needs to be seriously pro-nuclear,’ Thomas F. Farrell, chief executive of Dominion Resources, said at a recent conference in Washington sponsored by the industry newsletter Platts. But Caren Byrd, executive director of Morgan Stanley’s global power group, said at the same conference that, on an economic basis, ‘it is hard to make the case for nuclear.’”
Immigration
Gang Of 8 No Pathway Agreement, Yetfrom Politico by Kate Nocera. “Three Republican senators working to craft immigration legislation in the gang of eight downplayed a report that they had reached an agreement on a pathway to legal status. The Chicago Tribune reported on Monday that the eight senators ‘have privately agreed on the most contentious part of the draft: how to give legal status to the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants.’ While the senators broadly said that giving legal status to the country’s undocumented immigrants remained a top priority as laid out in their proposal unveiled earlier in the year. ‘There’s ongoing conversations, I read some of those reports and I wouldn’t put a lot of stock into them,’ said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). ‘There’s still a lot of work to be done. You guys saw the principles we outlined, and what I read today what somewhat similar to that but obviously the details are what we are still working through.’”
Health Care
With Obamacare Entrenched, Democrats Feel Free To Gripefrom The Wall Street Journal by Jennifer Haberkorn. “But now that they feel its future is protected and it’s safe from repeal, Democrats are slowly becoming more vocal about small parts of the law that they want changed or eliminated — device taxes, a Medicare board, even kids’ dental coverage, to name a few. And with important 2014 deadlines closing in, they’re more willing to point out where they think the Obama administration isn’t implementing the law correctly.”
Medicaid Expansion Is Rejected In Florida from The New York Times by Lizette Alvarez. “Rebuffing Gov. Rick Scott’s support of Medicaid expansion, a Florida Senate committee on Monday rejected the idea, all but ending the possibility that the state would add more poor people to Medicaid rolls. But the Senate panel debating the expansion proposed a compromise: to accept the federal money but use it to put low-income people into private insurance plans. Accepting the money would please the governor and a number of Floridians, while steering people away from Medicaid, which many lawmakers and residents view as troubled.”
Consumers Don’t View Curbing Costs As Their Job When Choosing Treatments, Study Finds from KHN by Michelle Andrews. “In recent years, consumers have increasingly been encouraged by employers and insurers to help control rising health care costs by avoiding unnecessary tests, buying generic drugs and reducing visits to the emergency room, among other things. The hope is that a patient better educated and more engaged in health decisions will choose options that will promote better health and decrease costs. Such ‘patient engagement’ efforts assume that patients welcome the opportunity-or at least are willing-to get more involved in their own care. But as a study published last month in the journal Health Affairs found, a majority of patients didn’t want to factor costs into their medical decisions, nor did they want their doctors to do so.”
X-Factor
Top Law School Cuts Admissionsfrom The Wall Street Journal by Ashby Jones. “Northwestern University School of Law, one of the country’s top law schools, said it will reduce the size of its incoming class by about 10%, citing declining applications and a “shakeout” in the market for legal jobs. The admissions cuts, announced Monday, will leave room for about 20 to 25 fewer students in the class entering the school this fall.”
Lawmakers Ask Obama To Detail Drone Policyfrom Politico by Josh Gerstein. “Eight Democratic lawmakers are urging President Barack Obama to declassify documents detailing the legal basis for his administration’s use of drones, both against U.S. citizens and foreign nationals. In a letter sent to Obama Monday, the lawmakers say they’re ‘deeply concerned’ about legal claims in a leaked Justice Department white paper that appear to be “overly broad.”
