White House Pushing for 'Bigness' in Deficit-Reduction Deal Fox News
The Obama White House is making a public push for "significant" spending cuts as part of a deficit-reduction deal, marking an apparent departure from the days when President Obama urged lawmakers to use a "scalpel," not a "machete," to fix the nation's budget woes.
After being branded by Republicans for the last two-and-a-half years as a chronic big spender, Obama and his aides are talking about deficit cuts -- big ones -- as something they wholeheartedly endorse.
The rhetoric may reflect the reality that congressional Republicans are demanding such cuts as a condition for raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. But the White House, while still at odds with the GOP over the prospect of tax hikes, has gone from complaining about Republican tactics to casting the talks as a unique opportunity to achieve historic cuts.
"Bigness is our target," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday, after Obama finished meeting with eight congressional leaders at the White House. He compared the negotiations to those that yielded a balanced budget during the Clinton administration.
It's Time Congress Get Serious About Debt Reduction & Job Creation and Stop GOP Assault ...
Leader Pelosi: But the fact is that what's happening this floor is not serious. It's not serious. But the subject it addresses is serious ...
Quicken 2012 Review With Video
For the last few days, I’ve been testing the new version of Quicken Home and Business. While most people who track their finances have moved to online services like Mint.com, some of us are holding out until the online software offers the same advanced features as the desktop Quicken software. I enjoy my ability to track my investments, create and customize reports, export information into Excel, and look into the future with planning tools.
Quicken 2012 is set to be released on October 10, 2011 and offers several new features, particularly in that last category. The programmers at Intuit have refreshed and improved the Budget Planner and the Debt Reduction Planner, available in all flavors of Quicken 2012.
Note: After posting this Quicken 2012 review, I was informed by Quicken’s public relations agency that, although it was not indicated in any previous communication, the information was to be under embargo until October 10 to coincide with the official press release. While I am not under legal obligation to do so, in the interest in maintaining good relationships with Intuit, I have agreed to comply. Now that it is October 10, I’ve republished the review below.
Quicken 2012 Budget PlannerThe new Budget Planner is a combination of the budget planner from previous versions of Quicken and the spending planner. When creating a new budget, you have two choices. The “Automatic Budget” looks at your recent spending to determine the five most important categories for budgeting. Quicken estimates the amount for each category on a monthly basis and presents its suggestions to the users for customization. The “Advanced Budget” invites the user to select the categories to be used in the spending and income plan.
Each line on the budget is configurable by period. You could, for example, assign a budget of $300 a month for Food and Dining (overall, which includes specific categories like Groceries and Restaurants) and set a budget of $10,000 per year for Property Taxes. If your annual salary is $60,000, you can enter this. Automatically, Quicken will assign the average monthly budget in this category to $5,000, but if you are paid bi-weekly, you don’t receive the same amount of income each month. You can edit the individual months if you like.
...
