Tagged: blair horner

 As the nation moves closer to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the debate continues.  The House of Representatives’ leadership will, once again, advance legislation to repeal the law.  Predictably, the effort will fail.

Tobacco companies are an extreme example of how greed trumps morality in America’s marketplace.  Every year roughly 500,000 smokers die from tobacco use and the industry knows it must at least replace those lost customers – plus the ones who successfully quit the addiction.

Americans are starting to feel the bite of the federal sequestration.  Sequestration is the term referring to the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts in the federal government’s domestic and military budgets.  Sequestration went into effect last month when Congress was unable to agree on an alternative.

Last week, President Obama offered his plan for the federal budget.  According to the President, his proposed $3.7 trillion budget for 2014 would cut deficits by $1.8 trillion over the next decade.  The President’s plan includes a number of proposals, most notably: ending the “sequester” (that’s the current law that has automatically cut federal spending), reducing spending in the Medicare and Social Security programs, as well as tax increases that would primarily hit high-income households and corporations.