March 4, 2014
What's in Obama's $3.9 Trillion 2015 Budget?
Photo Credit: Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
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The budget is not just about numbers, it’s about our values,”
–President Barack Obama.
Obama’s budget “is the most irresponsible yet,”
-House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.
Bloomberg News breaks down President Obama's $3.9 trillion budget request. http://goo.gl/mNqdDy
Highlights:
• Increased spending for employment, education and job-training programs to boost the economy.
• Includes $56 billion for “additional investments,” split evenly between defense and domestic priorities and including education, research and development.
• Enhance tax-credit programs for some families and childless workers and pump about $302 billion over four years into infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges.
• Projects the U.S. economy will most likely increase by 3.1 percent this year and 3.4 percent in 2015, while the unemployment rate may average 6.9 percent this year, falling to an average of 6.4 percent next year.
• The White House emphasized $598 billion in tax increases for the wealthy over 10 years, which includes adopting the so-called Buffett Rule, which would impose a “fair share tax” on upper-income families to collect a projected $53 billion over a decade.
• Proposes $7 billion for disaster relief and another $1 billion annually for wildfire suppression.
• Proposes $60 billion over 10 years to expand the earned income tax credit for childless workers and $66 billion to support preschool programs for all children.
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Who is Governing Ukraine?
Olexander Turchynov, Interim president.
Photo Credit: ITAR-TASS/Barcroft Media
Ukraine's new government is a mixed bag, consisting of 21 cabinet members; many are from Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Fatherland party. Some are drawn from the far-right nationalist Svoboda party; but there are also many new faces, including journalists and activists prominent in the "Euromaidan" protests in Kiev. The Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms party is not represented after it declined offers to participate in the new government.
The Guardian breaks down members of the new guard now running Ukraine. http://goo.gl/KREy4W
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- The Telegraph: Featured Maps Explain the Ukraine Crisis. http://goo.gl/EU4Mv1
- BBC: Ukraine v Russia militaries – in 60 seconds http://goo.gl/9FWIAH
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Mr. President…Don't Listen to the Warmongers!
In his latest column, American conservative political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist, Patrick J. Buchanan, asks: “What is the U.S. vital interest in Crimea? Zero. From Catherine the Great to Khrushchev, the peninsula belonged to Russia.''
Snippets from Buchanan's column:
``With Vladimir Putin's dispatch of Russian troops into Crimea, our war hawks are breathing fire. Russophobia is rampant and the op-ed pages are ablaze here.''
“Barack Obama should tune them out, and reflect on how Cold War presidents dealt with far graver clashes with Moscow.''
“When Red Army tank divisions crushed the Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956, killing 50,000, Eisenhower did not lift a finger. When Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall, JFK went to Berlin and gave a speech.''
``When Warsaw Pact troops crushed the Prague Spring in 1968, LBJ did nothing. When, Moscow ordered Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski to smash Solidarity, Ronald Reagan refused to put Warsaw in default.''
“These presidents saw no vital U.S. interest imperiled in these Soviet actions, however brutal. They sensed that time was on our side in the Cold War. And history has proven them right.'' http://goo.gl/3mvgph
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