Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/481492
ByDavidEspoand Andrew Taylor TheAssociatedPress WASHINGTON Making good on last fall's campaign commitments, Republicans advanced conservative bud- gets in both houses of Con- gress on Wednesday, setting up a veto struggle over the fate of the health care law and promising a whopping $5 trillion in spending cuts to erase deficits by the end of the coming decade. The possibility of billions more for the Pentagon and an overhaul of the tax code also emerged as Repub- lican priorities, although there were significant dif- ferences between the day- old proposal in the House and the one unveiled dur- ing the day by Senate Re- publicans. Defense spending aside, Medicare was chief among them. Senate Republicans, already eying the 2016 elec- tions, balked at a politically sensitive House plan to turn health care coverage for se- niors into a voucher-like program for those who en- roll beginning in 2024. Republicans claimed a balanced-budget, no-tax- increase approach. By contrast, Senate Ma- jority Leader Mitch McCo- nnell of Kentucky said Pres- ident Barack Obama's bud- get from earlier in the year raised "taxes by nearly $2 trillion, and increased the national debt by more than $7 trillion. In other words, it was more of the same old tired, failed policies of the past." He said the Republicans promise a plan "that will support economic growth and more opportunity for hardworking families, while protecting our most vulnerable citizens." Obama leaned in. Claiming credit for the improving economy, he said Republicans offer "a path to prosperity for those who have already prospered." Reprising a criticism he leveled in his winning 2012 campaign against Mitt Romney, he said in Cleve- land that the GOP budget "doubles down on trickle- down." It will be weeks or months — if then — before Republicans can turn their non-binding blueprints into legislation and send it to the White House for Obama's signature or veto. Before that, they will concentrate on pushing the rival budgets through the two houses. Next, they will try to agree on a com- promise that they concede will stand as a test of their ability to govern. Republicans promised during last fall's campaign they would try to balance the budget if they won power. They also said over and over they would work to eradicate the health care law that Obama has pledged to defend and the adminis- tration now says has pro- vided coverage to more than 16 million individuals who previously lacked it. Details contained inside the budgets make a veto struggle with Obama over the health care law a vir- tual certainty. Senate Re- publicans said they intend to use legislation that Dem- ocrats cannot block to ac- complish that goal. Both budgets envision a significant campaign to cut spending, with much of the savings coming from Medi- care, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare. Defense spending re- mained a work in progress. The House proposal rec- ommended hiking existing funding by about $36 bil- lion over a decade through an increase in an overseas account that has financed the wars in Iraq and Af- ghanistan. The budget's au- thors were under pressure to give the Pentagon more in the face of a rebellion from defense hawks. The Senate recom- mended less than the House — and less than Obama sought. Republicans there held out the possibility of an increase only if offset- ting cuts could be found elsewhere in the budget. The uproar over defense comes as automatic cuts known as sequestration are approaching for the Penta- gon and domestic agen- cies. Both Republicans and the White House have in- dicated they would like to ease the cuts in the next couple of years and replace them with longer-term cuts and, perhaps, new reve- nues, much as was the case in 2013. To achieve their core campaign commitment, Re- publicans in both houses re- sorted to a series of sleights of hand. Both budgets assume that dozens of popular tax breaks will be allowed to expire. One allows businesses to off- set the cost of research and development, and another allows individuals and fam- ilies to deduct the cost of sales tax in states with no in- come tax. Together, the cost of renewing all of them to- tals $900 billion, money not in either budget. Both budgets also esti- mate large savings from the economic benefit of imple- mentation of their spend- ing proposals — $164 billion over a decade in the Senate, $147 billion for the House. Without these amounts, the Senate budget would be unable to show even its mi- nuscule $3 billion surplus for 2025, or the House its $46 billion in black ink in 2024 and 2025 combined. CONGRESS Republicanspushconservativebudgetsinbothhouses By Darlene Superville The Associated Press CLEVELAND Dismissing Republican budget pri- orities as recycled ideas, President Barack Obama on Wednesday cited the current economic recov- ery as evidence that his own economic policies have succeeded despite GOP warnings that they would fail. Obama is taking the of- fensive against Republi- can lawmakers as they un- veil their own budget blue- prints that set spending priorities for the year and policy ideas for the next de- cade. Obama pointedly noted that the unemployment rate has dropped to 5.5 percent, corporations have stron- ger balance sheets, health care costs are growing at a slower rate and the stock market is booming six years after the Great Recession. "I'm going to take a little credit," Obama told mem- bers of the City Club of Cleveland in a speech de- signed to draw contrasts with the Republican-con- trolled Congress. He said Republicans are standing by the policies they promoted previously and have upped their criti- cism of policies Obama first promoted at the start of his presidency. "The debate we were having then bears on the debate that we are having now," he said. "Corporate balance sheets are stron- ger than they have ever been because of my terrible business policies...We were told our goals were mis- guided, that they were too ambitious, that they would destroy jobs." Obama says the reality of the current economy shows that Republican "trickle- down economics" don't work. The House Republicans released a $3.8 trillion bud- get on Tuesday that spends on defense, partially priva- tizes Medicare and elim- inates deficits in 10 years. Obama's budget pro- posal would target corpo- rate profits overseas, raise taxes on the rich, spend bil- lion on roads and bridges and reverse automatic bud- get on defense and domes- tic spending. FEDERAL BUDGET Obama claims 'a little credit' for recovery JACQUELYNMARTIN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS President Barack Obama speaks about the economy and the middle class on Wednesday at the City Club of Cleveland. CLIFF OWEN — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A copy of the House Republican budget proposal lays on a podium. By Ted Bridis The Associated Press WASHINGTON The Obama administration set a record again for censoring govern- ment files or outright deny- ing access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, accord- ing to a new analysis of fed- eral data by The Associated Press. The government took lon- ger to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn't find documents and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially news- worthy. It also acknowledged in nearly 1 in 3 cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were im- proper under the law — but only when it was chal- lenged. Its backlog of unan- swered requests at year's end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. It also cut by 375, or about 9 percent, the num- ber of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of em- ployees working on the is- sue in five years. The government's new figures, published Tuesday, covered all requests to 100 federal agencies during fis- cal 2014 under the Free- dom of Information law, which is heralded globally as a model for transparent government. They showed that despite disappoint- ments and failed prom- ises by the White House to make meaningful improve- ments in the way it releases records, the law was more popular than ever. Citizens, journalists, businesses and others made a record 714,231 requests for infor- mation. The U.S. spent a re- cord $434 million trying to keep up. It also spent about $28 million on lawyers' fees to keep records secret. "This disappointing track record is hardly the mark of an administration that was supposed to be the most transparent in history," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has co-sponsored leg- islation with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to improve the Freedom of Information law. Their effort died in the House last year. The new figures showed the government responded to 647,142 requests, a 4 per- cent decrease over the previ- ous year. It more than ever censored materials it turned over or fully denied access to them, in 250,581 cases or 39 percent of all requests. Sometimes, the government censored only a few words or an employee's phone num- ber, but other times it com- pletely marked out nearly ev- ery paragraph on pages. On 215,584 other occa- sions, the government said it couldn't find records, a per- son refused to pay for cop- ies or the government deter- mined the request to be un- reasonable or improper. The White House touted its success under its own analysis. It routinely ex- cludes from its assessment instances when it couldn't find records, a person re- fused to pay for copies or the request was deter- mined to be improper un- der the law, and said under this calculation it released all or parts of records in 91 percent of requests — still a record low since President Barack Obama took office using the White House's own math. "We actually do have a lot to brag about," White House spokesman Josh Ear- nest said. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION Wh it e Ho us e se ts r ec or d for withholding files PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. Thankyou! (530) 529-1220 100 Jackson Street Red Bluff NewMonthlyRates $28 to $32 Call for details STOVEJUNCTION The TheNorthState'spremiersupplierofstoves 22825 Antelope Blvd., Red Bluff 530-528-2221 • Fax 530-528-2229 www.thestovejunction.com Over 25 years of experience Tues-Sat9am-5pm• ClosedSun&Mon Now Carrying! 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