Title:
US Congressional Committee Fails to Identify Budget
Cuts
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
In late November, an American congressional
committee failed to agree how to cut the federal
budget deficit by 1.2 trillion dollars over ten
years. The co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee
on Deficit Reduction said "we have come to the
conclusion today that it will not be possible to
make any bipartisan agreement available to the
public before the committee's deadline." The
twelve-member committee was created under the Budget
Control Act of twenty-eleven. The group was equally
divided between Democrats and Republicans. The goal
was to find acceptable ways to cut federal deficits.
Now, without an agreement, that will fall to
involuntary cuts through the act of sequestration.
The budgetary terms "sequester" and "sequestration"
mean that the Treasury Department will withhold or
cancel a set amount of spending. By law, equal cuts
in both civilian and military spending will begin in
twenty-thirteen. A total of 1.2 trillion dollars
needs to be cut. This is in addition to cuts of
about nine hundred billion dollars required by the
budget law that created the congressional
supercommittee.Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has
warned the combination of cuts could hurt his
department. "If the sequester goes into effect and
it doubles the number of cuts, then it will truly
devastate our national defense." This has made some
lawmakers feel uneasy. Representative Howard McKeon
of California opposes new cuts in military spending.
"National defense has contributed enough to deficit
reduction." Many lawmakers are concerned that, with
elections next year, programs important to voters in
their areas will be cut. That would add to
increasing voter anger over what they consider a
lack of action by lawmakers. President Obama has
warned Congress that he will block any efforts to
cancel the spending cuts. "Already, some in Congress
are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My
message is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get
rid of those automatic spending cuts." Experts say
that Congress and the Obama administration could
still reach agreement on budget cuts and taxes
before the sequestration takes effect. For VOA
Special English, I'm Alex Villarreal. Special
English is VOA's daily source of news and
information for people learning English. You can
read, listen and learn with texts, MP3s and podcasts
at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also get English
lessons three times a day, Monday through Friday, at
the VOA Learning English page on Facebook.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
