Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Articles about the 2011 2012 budgets

CBO: GOP Budget Would Increase Debt, Then Stick It To Medicare Patients | TPMDC

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com 4 hours ago - CBO's initial analysis of the House GOP budget is filled with nuggets of bad news for Republicans.

» Read full story

[Correction: This post was based on a misreading or the GOP budget, and on Republican claims that the budget would save money by repealing the the health care law. The budget itself doesn't claim that repealing the health care law will reduce the deficit as we reported. It claims repeal will reduce spending outlays, and at times characterizes those reductions as "savings". That's true so far as it goes. But the budget does not grapple with the fact that repealing the law's taxes and other savings would more than make up for the spending reductions, resulting in a deficit increase. We regret the error.]
The budget plan unveiled by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Tuesday does a neat trick: It claims that repealing the health care reform law will actually reduce the federal budget deficit -- despite extensive analyses by the Congressional Budget Office that show exactly the opposite.
The CBO -- which is the gold standard for budget analysis and number crunching on Capitol Hill -- has issued a series of reports which conclude that the health care law will reduce the deficit and, by corollary, that repealing the health care law will cause the deficit to go back up.
This is a problem for Republicans, who dismiss CBO findings out of hand. Indeed, the budget they unveiled Tuesday morning relies on unofficial numbers to create the impression that repealing the health care law willreduce the deficit.
According to the GOP budget, repealing the health care law will reduce the deficit by $1.4 trillion by 2022. CBO, by contrast, holds that repealing the health law now will add well over $200 billion to the deficit over the same time frame.
It's not clear where Ryan is getting his numbers. Asked about this disparity at a Capitol briefing Tuesday, House Budget chairman Paul Ryan claimed to have used CBO figures and not to have dictated assumptions to its analysts.
When the 112th Congress began, Republicans had to exempt health care repeal and other deficit busting ideas from their own House rules package, which nominally are intended to prevent new deficits.
It's also worth pointing out that the budget also cites a Heritage Foundation study that claims Ryan's plan will reduce unemployment to levels below full employment, which is impossible under central bank policy.

More news

GOP Budget Ignores CBO To Claim Health Care Repeal Will Reduce The Deficit | TPMDC

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com 7 hours ago - The budget House Republicans unveiled Tuesday morning relies on unofficial numbers to create the impression that repealing the health care law will reduce the deficit.
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Republican budget: GOP budget would revamp Medicare and Medicaid

www.latimes.com 2 days ago - House Republicans ' 2012 federal budget plan will propose significant changes to Medicare , shift control of Medicaid to the states and aim to chop more than $4 trillion from the deficit over the next decade, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said
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House GOP's 'Radical' Plan To Overhaul Medicare, Medicaid | TPMDC

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com 1 day ago - If anything will make it easier for House conservatives to stand down on shutting down the government, it's the prospect of a different, and much larger fight over the safety net. House Republicans are prepared to introduce a 10-year budget that will over
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How The GOP Plan To Kill Medicare And Medicaid Would Work | TPMDC

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com 11 hours ago - On Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) will introduce a 10-year budget proposal that would over time eliminate two existing entitlements -- Medicare and Medicaid -- and replace them with less generous health care plans for the elderl
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GOP budget cuts would kill 700,000 jobs: report

www.rawstory.com 1 month ago - Tags: analyst, Analytics, barack obama, budget, democrats republicans, gop, gop budget, gop majority, health, jobs, mark zandi, Moody, real gdp, Report, republican budget proposal, Washington WASHINGTON – The Republican budget proposal to sharply cut fede
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GOP Is Demanding Budget Riders That Would Increase Federal Spending

thinkprogress.org 6 days ago - The ongoing budget negotiations between the House Republican leadership and Senate Democrats has broken down, as Republicans continue to insist that their spending bill — H.R. 1 — “serve as a starting point for all negotiations.” House Republicans “have d
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Everything You always wanted to know about steel tubing.: House GOP Considers Privatizing Medicare

steel-tubing.blogspot.com 1 week ago - Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee WASHINGTON -- Months after they hammered Democrats for cutting Medicare, House Republicans are debating whether to relaunch their quest to privatize the health program for seniors. House Budg
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GOP Unveils Plan To Remake Medicare And Medicaid : Shots - Health Blog

www.npr.org 6 hours ago - In an alternative to the administration's proposed budget, Republicans make their case for dramatic changes to Medicare and Medicaid. The GOP says the changes would save money. Democrats argue the cuts would go too far.
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House GOP Budget To Call For Dramatic Changes To Medicare, Medicaid

www.huffingtonpost.com 2 days ago - House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, will unveil a highly anticipated 2012 Republican budget next week that proposes dramatic changes to political lightning rods -- entitlements.
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Republicans Prepare To Reject Final White House Budget Offer | TPMDC

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com 1 week ago - It's been almost a week since House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House last sat down to hammer out a budget agreement, and the schedule's still blank. Accusations of bad faith are now flying about, and Republicans appear poised to reject a
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Yglesias » House GOP Budget Hammers The Special Olympics

yglesias.thinkprogress.org 3 weeks ago - Suzy Khimm reports on the latest round of lucky duckies to get the budgetary ax from House Republicans—disabled children: The House GOP’s budget, which passed last month, takes a hatchet to programs for disabled kids and Special Olympics athletes. The pr
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GOP budget plan would revamp Medicare, Medicaid

news.yahoo.com 35 minutes ago - House Republicans set up a politically defining clash over the size and priorities of government Tuesday, unveiling a budget plan that calls for both unprecedented spending cuts and a fundamental restructuring of taxpayer-financed health care for the elde
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Wonk Room » GOP Is Demanding Budget Riders That Would Increase Federal Spending

wonkroom.thinkprogress.org 6 days ago - By Pat Garofalo and Igor Volsky The ongoing budget negotiations between the House Republican leadership and Senate Democrats has broken down, as Republicans continue to insist that their spending bill — H.R. 1 — “serve as a starting point for all negotiat
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GOP Budget Proposal Seeks To Make $4 Trillion-Plus In Cuts

www.huffingtonpost.com 2 days ago - WASHINGTON — A Republican plan for the 2012 budget would cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, more than even the president's debt commission proposed, with spending caps as well as changes in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, its
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CBO: Obama Understates Future Budget Deficits By $2.3 Trillion

www.huffingtonpost.com 2 weeks ago - WASHINGTON — A new assessment of President Barack Obama's budget released Friday says the White House underestimates future budget deficits by more than $2 trillion over the upcoming decade. The estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Off
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GOP 2012 budget to make $4 trillion-plus in cuts

news.yahoo.com 1 day ago - A Republican plan for the 2012 budget would cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, more than even the president's debt commission proposed, with spending caps as well as changes in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, its principal author s
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GOP Budget point man unveils major budget cuts

news.yahoo.com 11 hours ago - Republicans controlling the House have fashioned plans to slash the budget deficit by about $5 trillion over the upcoming decade, blending unprecedented spending cuts with a fundamental restructuring of taxpayer-financed health care for the elderly and th
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CBO: Obama budget worse than projected on 10-year deficit - The Hill's On The Money

thehill.com 2 weeks ago - CBO estimates 10 years of deficits would total $9. 5 trillion, compared to administration's $7.
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GOP unveils plan to eliminate Medicare, press neglects to ask about it

www.dailykos.com 7 hours ago - Not a single question about the substance of the GOP's plan to eliminate Medicareduring their 37-minute press conference unveiling their 2012 budget proposal So a short time ago, Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, held a news conference unveiling their budg
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PETITION: Tell Speaker Boehner: America doesn’t support the radical Republican plan to end Medicare

www.dccc.org 3 hours ago - As part of their radical ideological crusade, House Republicans have proposed a budget that will end Medicare as we know it. Sign our petition right now telling Speaker Boehner that you don't support the GOP plan to end Medicare.
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IRS budget in crosshairs of spending fight - Mar. 9, 2011

money.cnn.com 3 weeks ago - The IRS budget is caught in the middle. The White House wants to increase funding in the hopes of increasing tax collection, while the GOP wants to slash funding for the agency.
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CBO: Obama understates deficits by $2.3 trillion - Yahoo! Finance

finance.yahoo.com 2 weeks ago - WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new assessment of President Barack Obama s budget released Friday says the White House underestimates future budget deficits by more than
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CBO: Obama understates deficits by $2.3 trillion - Yahoo! Finance

RNC Chair Priebus Criticizes Obama For Cutting Medicare, Then Touts Paul Ryan’s Medicare-Busting Budget

thinkprogress.org 7 hours ago - Throughout the health care debate, Republicans attacked reform as a raid on Medicare because it cut $500 billion from the program. But now as Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduces a new budget plan that would privatize Medicare completely, Republicans will hav
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Shah: GOP budget would kill 70,000 children | The Cable

thecable.foreignpolicy.com 5 days ago - As Congress struggles to negotiate a budget deal to keep the government running, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told lawmakers Wednesday that the GOP version of the budget bill would result in the deaths of at least 70,0
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Shah: GOP budget would kill 70,000 children | The Cable

thecable.foreignpolicy.com 3 days ago - As Congress struggles to negotiate a budget deal to keep the government running, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told lawmakers Wednesday that the GOP version of the budget bill would result in the deaths of at least 70,0
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Slashing $100 billion from the budget: Can the GOP do it? - Dec. 27, 2010

money.cnn.com 3 months ago - Republicans view their midterm electoral victory as a mandate to cut spending, and cutting $100 billion from a $3 trillion federal budget sounds like a reasonable goal. But GOP leaders say they will focus only on non-security discretionary spending, and w
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House budget chairman to propose Medicare, Medicaid changes

www.cnn.com 2 days ago - House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan said Sunday he will unveil a Republican budget for 2012 this week that proposes dramatic changes to Medicare, Medicaid and other political lightning rods.
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Paul Ryan Does Wall Street’s Bidding In Budget

thinkprogress.org 7 hours ago - House Republicans — led by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) — released their 2012 budget today. The plan includes a giant tax cut for the wealthy, as well as a complete dismantling of Medicare and Medicaid. But it also includes a gift for
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These GOP Budget Cuts Might Make You Puke (or Worse)

motherjones.com 3 weeks ago - How food safety could fall victim to the Republicans' budget-slashing mania.
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Santorum Wrong on Abortion, Birth Facts

March 31, 2011

Rick Santorum incorrectly stated that “one in three pregnancies end in abortion” in the United States. It’s actually fewer than one in four.

Santorum appeared on a New Hampshire radio talk show, blaming abortions for “causing Social Security and Medicare to be underfunded.” But he not only misstated the abortion statistic, he also got it wrong when he said that "our birthrate is now below replacement rate for the first time in our history." The total fertility rate, not the birthrate, is used to determine the stability of a nation’s population, and the U.S. total fertility rate was below its replacement rate from 1972 to 2006. Finally, Santorum also misrepresented France as lagging far behind its replacement rate.

The former senator from Pennsylvania, who is considering running for the Republican nomination for president, appeared March 29 on "The Advocates," a radio talk show on WEZS-AM in Laconia, N.H.

(Click image to listen to Rick Santorum’s interview on WEZS-AM.)

Santorum agreed with a caller who claimed "there would be no problem" funding Social Security if not for abortion.

Caller, March 29: The real problem is — and nobody even suggests this, I haven’t heard it anyplace — is the 50 million abortions in this country a year. Say 25 million, half of them, were paying Social Security taxes and the Medicare, there would be no problem. Why hasn’t somebody said that?

Santorum: … This caller is absolutely right. The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.

The caller was referring to the 50 million abortions in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. He merely slipped when he said there were 50 million abortions "a year." But Santorum was wrong when he said that a third of pregnancies end in abortion.

In a March 2011 report, the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute reported that there were 22.4 abortions for every 100 pregnancies in 2008, excluding miscarriages. (The chart can be found in Table 1 on page 3.) The 2008 data is the most recent available, according to Guttmacher spokeswoman Rebecca Wind. The institute’s chart goes back to 1973, and the abortion ratio never reached 33 per 100 pregnancies. Its peak was 30.4 in 1983.

Guttmacher favors abortion rights, but the abortion statistics it gathers are the most detailed available and are widely cited by both sides in the debate. And regardless of whether the abortion ratio is 33 or 30 or 22 percent, Santorum cannot assume that those aborted fetuses reduced the U.S. population by an equal number of people — which is what he suggests when linking abortions to Social Security’s financial problems. In an e-mail, Wind said that "most women obtain abortions to postpone childbearing not to prevent it altogether," and noted that some of the aborted pregnancies "would have ended in miscarriage."

Wind, March 31: The group of women most likely to have an abortion are in their early 20s. They may already have one child and don’t want another at that time, or they may be childless but desire to have children in the future. Either way, the abortion postpones the birth of their child, it does not eliminate it — and there is no impact on the overall population. Some abortions actually terminate pregnancies that would have ended in miscarriage, so again you can’t assume that every abortion would have otherwise resulted in a live birth.

In agreeing with the caller about the impact of abortion on Social Security and Medicare, Santorum went on to blame the collapse of "all of these programs" on the declining replacement rate — which is needed for a nation to maintain a stable population — in the United States and Europe.

Santorum, March 29: We’re seeing our birthrate is now below replacement rate for the first time in our history and in all of these programs — look what’s going on in Europe. They’re collapsing. You see all of these countries in horrible situations. Why? Because their birthrate is 1.2. You need 2.1 children per woman of childbearing age to maintain your population, and in France and Italy it is 1.2, 1.3, so they’re collapsing and we are going in the same direction.

Santorum is wrong to say that births in the United States are "now below the replacement rate for the first time in our history." Births were actually below the replacement rate for nearly a quarter of a century — from 1972 through 2005 — before exceeding the "replacement rate" for the most recent two years on record.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines the replacement rate as "the rate at which a given generation can exactly replace itself, generally considered to be 2,100 births per 1,000 women." (That rate assumes "no international migration," which accounts for "almost one-third of the current population growth," according to the Census Bureau.) A nation’s replacement rate is best measured by the total fertility rate, which uses current data of live births to women ages 15 to 44 to estimate a "completed family size," as the CDC explains in a 2010 report:

CDC, Aug. 9, 2010: The total fertility rate (TFR) summarizes the potential impact of current fertility patterns on completed family size. The TFR estimates the number of births that a hypothetical cohort of 1,000 women would have if they experienced throughout their childbearing years the same age-specific birth rates observed in a given year.

In a 2007 report, the CDC said that the U.S. total fertility rate had been below the replacement rate for much of the 1970s and all of the 1980s and 1990s — a trend that didn’t turn around until 2006. The U.S. total fertility rate in 2006 was 2,101 — a shade above the replacement rate needed to maintain a stable population. "The year 2006 marks the first year since 1971 in which the U.S. TFR was above replacement," the report said.

That trend continued in 2007. The Census Bureau’s 2011 Statistical Abstract for the United Statesshows the total fertility rate at 2,120 in 2007 — the most recent data that we could find — maintaining the trend started in 2006. The CDC noted the trend in its 2010 report.

CDC, Aug. 9, 2010: The U.S. TFR was above replacement for the second consecutive year in 2007, a trend not seen since 1970–1971.

A total fertility rate of 2,100 births per 1,000 women is equal to the 2.1 children per childbearing woman, as Santorum put it. The Central Intelligence Agency estimates that this year the U.S. total fertility rate will be 2.06, which would be lower than the replacement rate — although, as we noted, not for the first time.

The total fertility rate in France was 2.0 in 2008, the most recent data available, and has remained largely unchanged in the last decade, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The CIA estimates France’s total fertility rate at 1.96 for 2011.

Santorum was closer to the truth in Italy, where the total fertility rate was 1.4 in 2008 — slightly higher than it was in the early 2000s. The CIA estimates it at 1.39 for this year.

– Eugene Kiely and Michael Morse, with Lara Seligman

POSTED BY EUGENE KIELY ON THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2011 AT 5:46 PM

DHS Supports Exercise of Securing the Cities Program Designed to Detect Radiological and Nuclear Threats

TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2011


NYPD police assets mobilize for DHS/DNDO Securing the Cities full-scale exercise, Tuesday April 5. Photo Courtesy of NYPD

Beginning today, thousands of first responders and law enforcement officers from 150 agencies in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will participate in a five-day, full-scale exercise to evaluate the Securing the Cities (STC) program, a DHS-funded effort to protect New York City and other major metropolitan areas against the threat of illicit radiological and nuclear weapons and materials. The exercise is not related to a specific threat.

“The Securing the Cities program is a key component of the Department’s efforts to protect the nation from terrorist threats,” said Secretary Napolitano. “The STC pilot program has helped build a capability among first responders to help detect illicit radiological and nuclear weapons or materials in a major metropolitan area that simply did not exist four years ago.”

Securing the Cities began in 2006 as a pilot project for the New York City region, providing equipment, tools and training through cooperative agreements to the New York Police Department (NYPD), the lead agency for the STC program, which in turn distributes grant money to other participating agencies. In all, STC has provided more than 5,800 pieces of detection equipment, trained nearly 11,000 personnel, and conducted more than a hundred drills.

“Through Securing the Cities, the New York City region is providing thousands of first responders with the tools they need to detect radiological and nuclear threats,” said Warren Stern, Director of DHS’ Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO). “This full-scale exercise will help us to determine how we can continue to improve our ability to identify, prevent and respond to potential nuclear or radiological threats.”

Following an evaluation of the initial pilot, President Obama’s FY 2012 budget request outlines a transition from a pilot program to a more permanent capability that could be continued in the New York City region and replicated in other major metropolitan cities.

President Obama Kicks Off 2012 Campaign

MONDAY, APRIL 04, 2011

"Barack" sends video & email to supporters..."Are you in?"

President Obama is back on a first-name basis with supporters, as of today when he made an announcement via an early morning e mail that surprised no one: He's running for re-election in 2012. At left, the President's new campaign logo.

The e mail was signed, simply, "Barack," and aimed at re-engaging the grassroots base. It contained a short video titled "It Begins With Us," featuring a rainbow coalition of citizens urging their fellow citizens to sign on as campaign doorknockers, staffers, and fundraisers. The new campaign slogan is "Are you in?"

In his e mail, the President repeated a theme from the last two years: "Lasting change" does not come "quickly or easily," he wrote.

"The politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, but with you," the President wrote, althoughChicago Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet has reported that fund raising goals are in excess of $750 million.

"Even though I'm focused on the job you elected me to do, and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today," the President wrote.

The 2012 Democratic National Convention will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, and "Ed," a local, gets most of the screen time in the 130-second video.

The text of the letter, with video:

[Your Name Here]--

Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign.

We're doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, but with you -- with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends. And that kind of campaign takes time to build.

So even though I'm focused on the job you elected me to do, and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today.

We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. It never does. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we've made -- and make more -- we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.

As we take this step, I'd like to share a video that features some folks like you who are helping to lead the way on this journey. Please take a moment to watch:

In the coming days, supporters like you will begin forging a new organization that we'll build together in cities and towns across the country. And I'll need you to help shape our plan as we create a campaign that's farther reaching, more focused, and more innovative than anything we've built before.

We'll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year's fight.

This will be my final campaign, at least as a candidate. But the cause of making a lasting difference for our families, our communities, and our country has never been about one person. And it will succeed only if we work together.

There will be much more to come as the race unfolds. Today, simply let us know you're in to help us begin, and then spread the word:

http://my.barackobama.com/2012

Thank you,

Barack

FDA Unveils 'Consumer Friendly' Search Engine For Recalled Foods

TUESDAY, APRIL 05, 2011

America's eaters may have more questions than answers after using search tool...
T

he Obama Administration bills itself as the most tech savvy administration ever, and also the most transparent. But despite using taxpayer money to create all kinds of data sets and Apps with information collected by federal agencies, it still hasn't figured out how to accurately and rapidly transmit food safety information to the public. As one of the first salvos under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, signed into law byPresident Obama in January, FDA has unveiled a new "consumer friendly" web-based search engine so eaters can keep track of contaminated and possibly deadly edibles. Unfortunately, it has the potential to leave consumers more worried and confused than informed.

In a press release, FDA touts the search engine as the best way for consumers to keep track of recalls, and describes the tool thusly (see image below):

The search results provide data from news releases and other recall announcements in the form of a table. That table organizes information from news releases on recalls since 2009 by date, product brand name, product description, reason for the recall and the recalling firm.

"The news releases...provide the most up-to-date and user friendly information about any recall," FDA noted.

That is decidedly untrue. Outlets such as Food Safety News,Marler Blog, eFOODALERT, and Barf Blog, all run by private citizens who are food safety experts and professionals, frequently post information about food recalls and investigations far more rapidly than both FDA and USDA.

Needed: A single search engine for ALL recalled foods
The "historic" Food Safety Modernization Act provided for the first changes to food safety law in decades, and was supposed to create a new era in food safety. But consumers are still trumped by the fact that there are multiple agencies monitoring food. These agencies behave as if they are independent from each other (er, because they are). FDA's search engine covers only the foods that FDA monitors--and thus excludes meat, poultry and certain other foods, which are monitored by USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The GAO just released two back-to-back reports calling for a single food agency, and this search engine should be entered into the evidence file for why that's a swell idea.

Why not create a really consumer friendly search engine that lists ALL food recalls, regardless of the agency that has issued the recall? It's time to eliminate the bureaucratic red tape that ensures that food safety information for consumers remains barricaded behind the silos of the individual agencies.

Needed: Red Flagging
The search engine presents information with no way for consumers to easily and rapidly identify the most dangerous recalls. For instance, right now, the top ten recalls listed (in this order) are for bread, smoked fish, sprouts, seafood salad products, powdered protein products, bubble gum, baked goods, ice cream, and two more kinds of bread. Some of those products are being recalled for undeclared allergens, and some are being recalled for deadly pathogens. Some are being recalled for pathogens that only impact a certain portion of the population (such as children, the elderly, pregnant women). But the information is presented as if every recall has an equivalent level of emergency.

Class 1 recalls--foods that contain pathogens that have the potential to kill eaters--should be red flagged. There's a big difference between potentially fatal pathogens and the many other reasons FDA decides to recall foods. It also makes a difference if the recalled food has already been found to have made consumers ill, so this should be noted, too. It's not.

Needed: Retail outlet lists
There's also nowhere in the search engine to search for retail outlets. The news releases FDA refers to often mention the states where foods are being recalled, but infrequently mention by name supermarkets or restaurants or other outlets where poison food has landed. This information often comes later. If the tool is not updated on a daily basis, it's less than useful. Sometimes food products get recalled on the way to market, and never enter the public food supply chain. This is not noted on the front page of the search tool either, and should be.

“We encourage people to check out our new recalls search page for themselves, and use it whenever they have a question about a recall,” said Mike Taylor, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods said when announcing the new search engine. It's better than the old search engine, FDA said. (Above: A screenshot of the new search engine)

The search engine also has separate tables for recalls for drugs, animal health, biologics, and medical devices. FDA's press release about the project is here.

*Photo by Pete Souza/White House

Time running out for budget deal

Federal offices prepare to close; Boehner says he’ll offer a stopgap

By Paul Kane, Tuesday, April 05,12:21 AM

As federal officials began formal preparations for a government shutdown, House and Senate leaders struggled Monday to reach agreement over tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts that would avert the federal work stoppage.
After weeks of negotiating over money, time is now also a major concern. There is general agreement that the two sides must work out a deal by Tuesday night if it is to work its way through both chambers and reach President Obama’s desk before the government runs out of money Friday.
Late Monday, a senior White House aide told top agency officials to begin preparations for how to handle a shutdown, a move that was echoed in a statement by Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to House leaders.
But Boehner also announced his intention to offer Obama and Senate Democrats another stopgap funding measure that would keep federal funding flowing for an additional week. That offer would come with conditions, however: According to the House Appropriations Committee, Democrats would have to agree to $12 billion in further spending cuts and to fund the Defense Department for the remainder of the year — thus removing the Pentagon from the possible budget disruptions still faced by other federal agencies.
Short of a broad deal for the entire federal government, approving another short-term measure may be the only route to keep Washington open while the two sides work out their differences.
Many Democrats and Republicans have said they would not approve what would be the seventh stopgap funding bill since October, but some key conservative lawmakers said Monday that they would support one week’s funding if the bill included the Pentagon’s yearly spending. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been pleading with Congress to exempt his department from the piecemeal plans for funding the government a few weeks at a time.
If lawmakers cannot reach an agreement, the first federal government shutdown since the mid-1990s would start Saturday and the full impact would be felt on Monday, when millions of federal employees across the country would typically report for work.
As the deadline neared, Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) exchanged insults, each side blaming the other for the stalemate.
Boehner continued to deny that he had agreed to a widely reported compromise with Democrats of $33 billion in spending reductions — even as one of his GOP chairmen worked with Democrats to hit that mark.
“Despite attempts by Democrats to lock in a number among themselves, I’ve made clear that their $33 billion is not enough, and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors. That’s unacceptable,” Boehner said in a statement.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Reid insisted that “we agreed upon a number.” He accused Boehner of backing away from the compromise because of pressure from tea party activists who provided much of the energy in the GOP’s massive victory in the 2010 elections.
Many conservative Republicans in the House have said they would not vote for any budget deal unless it contained the full $61 billion in cuts GOP members approved earlier this year in a party-line vote. That measure was later rejected by the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.
“Republicans and the tea party continue to reject reality, and insist instead on ideology,” Reid said.
At issue, according to aides familiar with the talks, is the makeup of the spending cuts. Democrats want to reach the $33 billion through a combination of permanent cuts to a number of federal agencies and one-time reductions to other government programs, such as Pell grants and some agriculture subsidies.
Republicans are balking at many of the temporary cuts because they will not permanently reduce the size of government.
Even if the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees can agree on a package of cuts, and conservative House members decide to go along with the plan, there may not be enough time to approve it before the deadline.
According to a House rule Boehner put in place this year, no bill can come to a vote until members have had three days to read it — leaving almost no time for the Senate to act if the House could not approve its version until late Friday or over the weekend.
House Republicans huddled late Monday and, according to a GOP aide, gave the speaker an ovation when he informed them that he was advising the House Administration Committee to begin preparing for a possible shutdown. That process includes alerting lawmakers and senior staff about which employees would not report to work if no agreement is reached.
Boehner’s offer of another stopgap bill comes at a significantly higher cost than the $2 billion in cuts per week that accompanied the two most recent short-term funding plans. Also, Republicans are attaching some policy prescriptions to the one-week measure, including one that would prohibit federal funds going toward any abortion services in the District.
The issue will come to a head Tuesday at a White House gathering of Obama, Boehner, Reid, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.).
“The president has made clear that we all understand the need to cut spending, and significant progress has been made in agreeing that we can all work off the same number,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Monday.
Republicans and Democrats are eager to avoid a shutdown in part because neither side thinks it will be able to claim political advantage. In a new Washington Post poll, 37 percent say they would fault the Obama administration for a partial federal shutdown. The same number would blame the Republicans in Congress.
Those figures are nearly the same as in late February, despite five weeks of fierce negotiations and positioning on the issue.
This is a change from the government shutdowns in the mid-1990s. In late 1995, 46 percent of voters said they would blame then House speaker, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), if the government shut down, and 27 percent would blame President Bill Clinton.
The new numbers also indicate growing disillusionment among Republicans. While 81 percent of Republicans say they think Obama is “just playing politics” with the budget (up from 70 percent five weeks ago), 40 percent of all Republicans see the GOP in Congress as posturing on the budget — a 13-point increase.

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