government debt

Laurel City Council President Frederick Smalls is hoping for a best-case scenario with the sequestration. "I don't think we'll see any immediate or long-term impact from this or that Congress will let it (sequestration) have a real negative impact," Smalls said. However, not everyone in Laurel is as optimistic as Smalls. Laurel Board of Trade Chairman Matthew Coates said many local businesses could be hurt, including local cleaning companies, office suppliers, printers and others that do work

Record high Dow is welcome news but the stock market uptick is no endorsement of Washington's dysfunctional budgetary policies

Days after the Obama administration threatened widespread furloughs one of Maryland's largest federal agencies, the Social Security Administration said it might shoulder the deep, across-the-board spending cuts of the sequester without sending any of its full-time employees home.

With the BWI Marshall Airport terminal as a backdrop, members of Maryland's congressional delegation took turns Friday bashing mandatory federal budget cuts that they said could harm not only air travel but local businesses that rely on passenger traffic.

Federal budget cuts will cost Johns Hopkins millions, according to a letter from the medical system's executives.

Unfortunately, it may well take a bit of national financial pain before that reality is brought into sharp focus.

WASHINGTON -- Officials at the Woodlawn-based Social Security Administration informed employees they do not anticipate furloughs when across-the-board federal budget cuts go into effect, the union that represents many of those workers said Thursday.

Democrats fail to offer budget cuts to address deficit

Checks will arrive on time, but nearly every other task the Social Security Administration performs will be delayed if Washington fails to stop deep federal budget cuts this week — from answering phones to determining eligibility for disability claims.

For 36 years, students in Carroll County Public Schools have taken turns living at Hashawha for a week, learning lessons of environmental science and taking part in a middle school program that its director describes as "a cultural tradition" in Carroll.

Jonah Goldberg writes that both sides are pretending that looming budget cuts will be a disaster for the country.

Maryland's business leaders are pushing efforts to speak with a louder, more unified voice to state officials, seeing in federal budget cuts the necessity — or opportunity — of more attention for the private sector.

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of governors expressed concern Saturday over the impact looming federal budget cuts will have on their states but had few ideas for how to break the latest fiscal impasse gripping Congress.

A dozen neighborhood volunteers will spend their Presidents Day turning around the Barclay Recreation Center, which new sponsors envision reborn as an education and community center.

Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker III wasted no time in telling attendees of his third and final fiscal year 2014 budget hearing that it will be a "very difficult budget year across the county."

Sen. Ben Cardin had a simple request of researchers at the National Institutes Health looking for ways to defend their funding from looming budget cuts: "Put a face on this."

The Army is planning to move an over-the-horizon radar system, more than 100 soldiers and a pair of giant, blimp-like aerostats that fly as high as two miles up, to Aberdeen Proving Ground in the fall, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger said Thursday.

Going after the ratings agency that downgraded U.S. debt looks like a conflict of interest.

The specter of federal budget reductions has meant hundreds of jobs lost at Northrop Grumman Corp. in Maryland, but as the defense contractor vies to build a key U.S. Navy radar system, that same cost-cutting pressure could boost the importance of Northrop's Baltimore-area operations, company leaders said.

Libertarian says we should pay for government now rather than sticking future generations with the bill

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama began his second term Monday by calling for an end to the rigid ideologies of modern politics but laying out a broad policy agenda more likely to stoke partisan confrontation than avoid it.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget reflects an improved fiscal situation fostered by difficult choices lawmakers made in the last few years.

Robert Reich says cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits is the wrong way to tame the debt

Republicans are complaining about the fiscal cliff deal, but the truth is they got what they wanted most -- permanent tax cuts -- for almost everybody.

Robert Reich says the conflict in Washington is not over deficits but the size of government

A bipartisan plan to avoid federal spending reductions and tax increases that would hit Maryland especially hard won final approval Tuesday night in the House of Representatives even as outside groups warned that the bill would simply delay difficult decisions for a few months.

Hours before a midnight deadline would have ushered in an enormous tax hike on ordinary Americans, the White House reached a tentative deal with Congress on Monday to raise taxes on the wealthiest households while putting off tougher spending decisions for another battle in a couple of months.

Two of Maryland's most influential congressmen have a message for budget cutters eyeing the federal workforce for more savings: Look somewhere else.

Peter Morici says the Fed's efforts to reduce the deficit and keep interest rates low will end badly

Robert B. Reich says we are ignoring looming crises in child poverty, boomer health care and climate change

Maryland forms commission to study restoring dropped athletic teams

Robert Reich says jobs are growth, not debt and deficits, are the nation's biggest problems right now.

The GOP's right wing refuses to acknowledge the reality of the fiscal cliff, and that may preclude any deal on the budget and taxes before Jan. 1.

William R. Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, blamed what he called the "exodus" in part on "legislative attacks" by Congress that he said threaten to erode pay and benefits.

Robert Reich hopes Democrats don't blink first as they approach the "fiscal cliff"

Looming federal budget cuts make a whole lot of Marylanders nervous because a whole lot of Maryland depends on Uncle Sam for a paycheck — directly or indirectly.

Obama is correct that the rich should pay more in taxes

The pitch for Question 7 is upsetting even to those who are already cynical about politics.

General Assembly analysts released estimates Wednesday painting a much grimmer picture of the impact of a continued federal budget impasse than the O'Malley administration did less than a month ago.

Looming federal budget cuts the country faces in January could strike a body blow to Maryland's economy, gouging $2.5 billion in personal income out of residents' pockets and crimping social programs in health and human services, education, and workforce development, according to a recent state report and interviews with regional economists.

Baltimore's next police commissioner is walking through a west-side neighborhood with some of the community's most engaged residents, but that's not enough for Anthony W. Batts.

A trade group predicts Maryland will lose 50,000 small-business jobs from the federal government's looming automatic budget cuts — fifth-largest in the country.

Free-spending Fed is piling up debt that will bury the economy

ELTA North America, an Israeli defense company, has opened in Howard County

Israel Aerospace Industries' new ELTA North America subsidiary officially opened its headquarters in Howard County Monday with a plan to go from nine employees to 100 in the next four years.

Maryland lawmakers protest a plan by the Treasury Department and the General Services Administration to move the Financial Management Services facility in Hyattsville to West Virginia.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Departing from an economic message that has so far dominated the Republican National Convention, Maryland Rep. Andy Harris used an address to state party leaders here today to focus instead on how to deal with federal budget deficits and government spending.

Congress must not allow devastating cuts in defense spending

Maryland defense contractors are asking lawmakers for details on the so-called sequester — deep budget cuts, including $800 billion to defense spending, due to strike Jan. 2 because the congressional supercommittee failed last year to reach a deficit-reduction agreement.