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Chained CPI: 4 Opinions From the Press

Posted on 04/22/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsIt’s not only politicians who have mixed reactions to a different way of calculating cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits. Newspaper editorial writers and columnists are conflicted, too. The chained consumer price index, included in President Obama’s budget proposal, would mean that seniors’ checks would go up a little slower each year. The chained CPI assumes that as prices go up, consumers buy cheaper substitute goods to make up for it. Here’s how it’s playing among the mainstream press’s opinion …

Sequester Will Clip Air Passengers’ Wings

Posted on 04/19/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsThe nation’s air traffic controllers can’t hang out a “closed for the day” sign, so starting April 21 travelers will start to see the impact of furloughed staff. Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Michael Huerta testified April 18 that all of the agency’s 47,000 employees, many of them air traffic controllers, will be furloughed. Between April 21 and Sept. 30, each employee will be forced to take 11 days off without pay, leaving control towers short staffed. That means many snowbirds …

Congress Nibbles at Obama’s Budget

Posted on 04/18/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsNow it’s Congress’ turn. Last week President Obama made his budget proposal, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill already have begun trying to bend it to their will. On April 18, in fact, the House Ways and Means Committee will take up one of the most controversial pages in the budget book: the proposal to change the way that benefits under Social Security and other federal programs are adjusted for inflation. The “chained consumer price index,” or chained CPI, would mean …

The 3 Budget Plans: How Do They Stack Up?

Posted on 04/18/2013 by | News | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsNow that President Obama has sent his 2014 budget proposal to Congress, three blueprints for the nation’s fiscal future are on the table. The other two are sharply divergent plans drafted by the lawmakers who chair the congressional budget committees: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). The Republican-controlled House passed the Ryan budget on March 21; the Democratic-controlled Senate passed the Murray budget two days later. We surveyed news accounts and nonpartisan analyses to pull together the …

Can a Company Patent Your Genes (and Make a Boatload)?

Posted on 04/16/2013 by | News, Culture, Sights and Sounds | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsIf there’s a medical test that could save your life, should one company have the power to set its cost so high that few people could afford it? And what if the thing that makes the company’s test exclusive is a government-issued patent on a part of the human body? That’s what is at stake in a case the U.S. Supreme Court heard April 15 that could determine whether some biotech companies, by patenting particular human genes, can completely control …

Obama’s Budget Aims to Expand the Estate Tax

Posted on 04/16/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsJust a few months ago, President Obama and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill negotiated their way off the fiscal cliff and agreed to make the estate tax a mere shadow of its former self — so much so, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center, that only 3,800 estates will owe any federal estate tax in 2013. President Obama’s new budget proposal, however, aims to turn things back around. It would raise the estate tax rate to 45 percent …

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