Proposition 29 would increase the tax on cigarettes by $1 per pack, up from $0.87 to $1.87. The price of a pack of cigarettes is listed here as $5.19 in 2011, so this would increase the cost by a little less than 20%. The revenue will be devoted mainly to cancer and other smoking-related disease research. It is vacuously true, as the ads and ( Read more... )

JIM LEHRER: Explain what the McConnell-Reid idea ((to pass a debt ceiling increase)) is.

DAVID BROOKS: The McConnell-Reid is too complicated to explain and understand.

Here's the quote: ""

-- Eric Cantor

Here's the background:

...a meeting at the White House today ended without an agreement. A source tells Greg Sargent that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) didn't say a word at the meeting.

Political WireOtherwise interpreted as "If I can't get EVERYTHING I want, I'll hold my breathe until I turn ( Read more... )

14th Amendment. Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned...So if Congress passes a law authorizing the spending of money that exceeds the debt ceiling, the argument ( Read more... )

The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

NPR

Total health expenditures ((in 2009)) reached... $8,086 per person or 17.6 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, up from 16.6 percent in 2008.

CMS

One of the scariest things that I can think of for anyone who has ever had to deal with a private health insurance company is to think ahead to when you will be 75 or 80 years old and contemplate that you might have to battle with such an entity about a claim or referral denial ( Read more... )

You all know by now that the US spends about twice as much, in terms of percentage of GDP, as most other industrialized nations do on health care, with no better and possibly worse average outcomes and generally lower life expectancy ( Read more... )

Nate Silver, Budgetary Zugzwang

Try to find a winning move given this set of constraints imposed by public opinion...

schmengie has discussed the Republicans' proposal to cut $2.5 trillion over ten years from the Federal Budget. I thought I would post my own $2.5 trillion reduction plan, without such gimmicks as listing 'Mohair Subsidies Elimination' at $1 million per year. So here it is, an alternative, a simple 6-point plan that probably reduces the Federal deficit by ( Read more... )