Struggling L.A. picks new mayor in low-profile race

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? City Hall is nearly broke ? and for many, is broken. The airport is an embarrassment. Freeways are clogged. And potholes, cracked sidewalks and untended trees infest many neighborhoods.

There are plenty of problems to solve in Los Angeles, but voters have been mostly indifferent about Tuesday's race for mayor. No single issue or candidate has seized their attention, much less their imaginations, in the contest to succeed outgoing Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa.

The likely outcome in the heavily Democratic city will send two City Hall regulars, Eric Garcetti, 42, and Wendy Greuel, 51, to a May 21 runoff, since it's unlikely any candidate will clear the majority needed to win outright Tuesday.

But in a race with little drama, a turnout that could dip below 20 percent could produce surprises, possibly opening the way for Democratic Councilwoman Jan Perry, 57, or former prosecutor Kevin James, 49, a Republican, to slip into the two-person runoff. Former technology executive Emanuel Pleitez, 30, is a longshot.

The latest polling suggests many voters are wavering.

The city could elect its first woman mayor (Greuel, the city controller, or Perry), the first openly gay one (James), or its first Jewish one (Perry or Garcetti, a city councilman). But the five leading candidates have dueled over issues more commonplace than of historical importance ? ailing schools, a looming deficit, 10.2 percent unemployment and how to stop rising pension and health care costs from snatching money from street repairs and other services.

"The same career politicians that caused our city's problems now promise they can solve them," says James, who's positioned himself as an outsider eager to upend the status quo at City Hall.

Villaraigosa's 2005 election made him Los Angeles' first Hispanic mayor since 1872, but this year's contest has followed a more familiar pattern. Angelenos are known to give local politics a collective shrug ? even turnout in Villaraigosa's closely contested primary in 2005 failed to reach 30 percent.

The mayor was re-elected in 2009 with a meager 152,000 votes, in a city of nearly 4 million people. He leaves office midyear.

The Los Angeles mayor presides over a budget that rises above $7 billion, but it's a notoriously weak office hemmed in by a powerful City Council. Unlike other big cities like New York, the Los Angeles mayor cannot directly appoint the head of schools or police.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/struggling-la-picks-mayor-low-profile-race-082514377.html

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Report: Schwarzenegger says he still loves Shriver

BERLIN (AP) ? Arnold Schwarzenegger is quoted in an interview in Germany's top-selling newspaper saying he's still in love with his estranged wife, Maria Shriver.

The actor and former California governor is quoted in Tuesday's Bild newspaper as saying that despite their separation, he spent Christmas with Shriver and their children.

Schwarzenegger is cited as saying "we're not fighting any war: I still hope for reconciliation; I still love Maria."

Shriver filed for divorce last year after 25 years of marriage following Schwarzenegger's admission he fathered a child with the family's housekeeper.

He has also acknowledged other affairs.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-schwarzenegger-says-still-loves-shriver-093208888.html

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Hoping to revive an ancient tongue, Pope tweets in Latin

16 hrs.

Reuters

Pope Benedict tweeted in Latin for the first time on Sunday, taking his mission to revive the Catholic Church's official language to a very 21st-century medium.

"Unitati christifidelium integre studentes quid iubet Dominus? Orare semper, iustitiam factitare, amare probitatem, humiles Secum ambulare," the pontiff wrote.

Baffled? So were many Twitter users. "Benny, nobody understands a word of Latin! #adviceforthepope" read one response on the online messaging service.

The pope's tweet meant: "What does the Lord command to those wholly eager for the unity of those following Christ? To always pray, to continually do justice, to love uprightness, to walk humbly with Him," according to University of Cambridge scholar Tamer Nawar.

The message was shorter and, arguably, more elegant in its original language ??one of the reasons why Latin-lovers want to conserve the tongue of ancient Rome, Pope Benedict foremost among them.

The Holy See, where even ATM bank machine transactions are available in Latin, is one of the last bastions of the language that gave rise to Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian.

In November the pope set up a new Vatican department charged with promoting the study and use of the language within the Roman Catholic Church and beyond.

Known for his traditionalist leanings, the 85-year old pontiff has also allowed a partial return of the old-style Latin Mass that was phased out more than four decades ago.

Once the international language of science and learning, Latin has declined in use among priests since the Church began allowing them to hold masses in vernacular languages in the mid 1960s.

To keep the language updated, Vatican produces a dictionary of modern words in the ancient tongue. "Inscriptio cursus electronici" is the vital word "email", while "brevissimae bracae femineae" means hotpants.

With just over 5,000 followers, the pope's Latin-language Twitter account is the smallest of his eight profiles, through which he communicates with more than 2 million followers in languages including Arabic and his native German.

However, Sunday's tweet was not actually the first instance of Latin used by the Pope on Twitter.

Benedict's Twitter handle "Pontifex" is a Latin word literally meaning "bridge-builder", an ancient title for high priest once held by the emperors of Rome.?

(Reporting by Naomi O'Leary; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/hoping-revive-ancient-tongue-pope-tweets-latin-1B8040228

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Building electronics from the ground up

Jan. 14, 2013 ? There's hardly a moment in modern life that doesn't involve electronic devices, whether they're guiding you to a destination by GPS or deciding which incoming messages merit a beep, ring or vibration. But our expectation that the next shopping season will inevitably offer an upgrade to more-powerful gadgets largely depends on size -- namely, the ability of the industry to shrink transistors so that more can fit on ever-tinier chip surfaces.

Engineers have been up to the task of electronics miniaturization for decades now, and the principle that the computer industry will be able to do it on a regular schedule -- as codified in Moore's Law -- won't come into doubt any time soon, thanks to researchers like the University of South Carolina's Chuanbing Tang.

Tang is a leader in constructing miniscule structures from the bottom up, rather than the top down. Currently, modern electronics are primarily fabricated by the latter method: the smooth surface of a starting material -- say, a wafer of silicon -- is etched through micro- or nanolithography to establish a pattern on it. The top-down method might involve a prefabricated template, such as a photomask, to establish the pattern. But the approach is becoming more and more challenging, because reducing the size of the features on the requisite templates is getting extremely expensive as engineers work their way further down the nanoscale. "Going from 500 to sub-30 nanometers is cost prohibitive for large-scale production," said Tang, an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry in USC's College of Arts and Sciences.

As a chemist, Tang uses a bottom-up approach: he works with the individual molecules that go onto a surface, coaxing them to self-arrange into the patterns needed. One established method of doing this involves block copolymers, in which a polymer chain is made up of two or more sections of different polymerized monomers.

If the different block sections are properly designed, the blocks will self-aggregate when placed on a surface, and the aggregation can be harnessed to create desirable patterns on the nanoscale without the need for any templates. Di-block copolymers of poly(ethylene oxide) and polystyrene, for example, have been used to construct highly ordered arrays of perpendicular cylinders of nanoscale materials. Solvent evaporation, or annealing, of these polymers on surfaces exerts an external directional field that can enhance the patterning process and create nearly defect-free arrays.

Tang's laboratory just published a paper for the special "Emerging Investigators 2013" issue of the journal Chemical Communications that takes this method to a new level. Working together with graduate student Christopher Hardy, Tang led a team that fabricated nanoparticles of pure, crystalline iron oxide with controlled size and spacing on silicon wafers by covalently incorporating a ferrocene moiety into a tri-block copolymer.

Incorporating metals into nanoscale designs is crucial for fabricating electronic devices, and Tang's method is a step forward for the field. Because ferrocene is covalently bonded to the block copolymer, there is no need for a complexation step to add a metal-containing compound to the surface -- a burdensome requirement of most previous methods. Moreover, their technique is a step beyond related polymer systems that contain covalent ferrocenylsilane linkages, in which removal of the organic components leaves behind silicon oxide as an impurity in the metal oxide.

The technique is a promising addition to the available tools for addressing the chronic need to decrease the size of electronic components. "The industry won't replace top-down methods," Tang said, "but they plan to use bottom-up together with the existing top-down methods soon."

There's versatility in the technique as well. "Here we use a ferrocene-containing polymer, which we convert into the inorganic iron oxide. But if we replace the ferrocene in the polymer with carbon precursor, we could make a perpendicular carbon nanorod, which would have a lot of potential uses," Tang said. "Or we can incorporate a semi-conducting polymer, like polythiophene, which would be very useful in solar cell applications."

The work was supported by Semiconductor Research Corporation (Task ID 2222.001) and National Science Foundation (CHE-1151479).

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Journal Reference:

1. Christopher G. Hardy, Lixia Ren, Shuguo Ma, Chuanbing Tang. Self-assembly of well-defined ferrocene triblock copolymers and their template synthesis of ordered iron oxide nanoparticles. Chemical Communications, 2013; DOI: 10.1039/C2CC36756D

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/6ua8hgbHCcs/130114124816.htm

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Eton launches a pair of ZoneGuard weather radios to rouse you with disaster warnings

Eton's range of disaster-ready hardware is growing with a pair of ZoneGuard weather alarms that'll keep you informed should the worst threaten to happen. Hooked up to a variety of early-warning systems, traffic-light LEDs will keep you informed of the danger levels with help from specific area message encoding data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As usual, the company has partnered with the American Red Cross, which will get a share of the profits when you buy a co-branded unit. It'll be available from Q1, with the ZoneGuard priced at $40 and the ZoneGuard Plus costing $80, and while this model comes with a pair of AAA-battery powered warning modules, you can also pick up additional units for $30 a pop.

Continue reading Eton launches a pair of ZoneGuard weather radios to rouse you with disaster warnings

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AP Source: Browns close to deal with Kelly

Oregon's Michael Clay, left, holds up the championship trophy as head coach Chip Kelly looks on after the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football game against Kansas State Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in Glendale, Ariz. Oregon defeated Kansas State 35-17.(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Oregon's Michael Clay, left, holds up the championship trophy as head coach Chip Kelly looks on after the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football game against Kansas State Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in Glendale, Ariz. Oregon defeated Kansas State 35-17.(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Oregon head coach Chip Kelly wipes his eyes after the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football game, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in Glendale, Ariz. Oregon defeated Kansas State 35-17.(AP Photo/Paul Connors)

Oregon head coach Chip Kelly gets soaked by his players during the final seconds of the second half of the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football game, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in Glendale, Ariz. Oregon won 35-17.(AP Photo/Matt York)

Oregon head coach Chip Kelly tosses a football to a Kansas State player during warmups before the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football game, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Paul Connors)

CLEVELAND (AP) ? Chip Kelly is closer to taking his fast-paced offense to the NFL.

A person familiar with the negotiations said the Cleveland Browns are nearing a deal with Oregon's offensive mastermind to be their next coach.

The Browns interviewed Kelly on Friday and the Ducks' coach also met with the Buffalo Bills in Arizona. Kelly has a scheduled interview with Philadelphia on Saturday. However, a person familiar with the interview said the Eagles are "heading in another direction" because Kelly is nearing a deal with Cleveland.

That person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the team isn't discussing its negotiations publicly, said the Eagles planned to interview several other candidates regardless of any conversations with Kelly. The Eagles were granted permission Friday to interview Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians and Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley and plan to meet Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy on Sunday.

ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported late Friday night that the Browns and Kelly met for seven hours ? five in negotiations with a two-hour break for dinner ? and agreed to talk again Saturday night. Mortensen said Kelly said still intends to meet with the Eagles some time on Saturday. The Browns are "favored," Mortensen reported.

The Bills confirmed in an email they met with Kelly, but gave no indication of how long they spoke to him. The team also interviewed former Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith and Syracuse's Doug Marrone.

The Browns, who made their last playoff appearance 10 years ago on Saturday, have declined to comment on any interviews during their coaching search.

Following Oregon's win over Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday night, the 49-year-old Kelly said he wanted to get the interview process over "quickly."

He came close to jumping to the pros last year but turned down an offer from Tampa Bay to return for his fourth season as head coach at Oregon, where he is 46-7. He has boosted the school's national profile ? flashy uniforms helped ? with a high-powered offense capable of turning any game into a track meet.

"It's more a fact-finding mission, finding out if it fits or doesn't fit," Kelly said after the Ducks beat No. 7 Kansas State 35-17. "I've been in one interview in my life for the National Football League, and that was a year ago. I don't really have any preconceived notions about it. I think that's what this deal is all about for me. It's not going to affect us in terms of we're not on the road (recruiting). I'll get an opportunity if people do call, see where they are.

"I want to get it wrapped up quickly and figure out where I'm going to be."

Kelly has been at or near the top of the Browns' list of candidates since the team fired Pat Shurmur, who went 9-23 in two seasons. Cleveland owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner have been conducting interviews in Arizona all week, searching for the team's sixth full-time coach since 1999.

Cardinals defensive coordinator Ray Horton confirmed he interviewed with Cleveland earlier this week. The Browns have reportedly met with former Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt, Marrone and Penn State's Bill O'Brien, who removed himself from any consideration on Thursday night and intends to stay at the school.

The Browns might have been interested in Alabama's Nick Saban, but the 61-year-old doesn't seem to have any interest in returning to the NFL after two seasons with Miami.

Kelly doesn't have any pro coaching experience, but aspects of his up-tempo offense are already being used by some NFL teams, including New England and Washington.

Kelly wouldn't say if he was leaning one way or another following the Ducks' bowl win.

"I said I'll always listen, and that's what I'll do," he said. "I know that people want to talk to me because of our players. The success of our football program has always been about our guys. It's an honor for someone to say they'd want to talk to me about maybe moving on to go coach in the National Football League. But it's because of what those guys do. I'll listen, and we'll see."

Oregon could be facing possible NCAA sanctions for the school's use of recruiting services, but Kelly indicated he isn't running from anything.

"We've cooperated fully with them," he said. "If they want to talk to us again, we'll continue to cooperate fully. I feel confident in the situation."

Oregon's players gave Kelly a Gatorade bath as the final seconds ticked off the clock in Thursday night's game, and afterward a few of the Ducks seemed resigned to their coach moving on.

"We'll have to see," quarterback Marcus Mariota said. "Whatever he decides to do, we're all behind him. He's an unbelievable coach. He's not only a football coach, but he's someone that you can look to and learn a lot of life lessons from. Whatever happens, happens. But we're all behind him.

"We'll see where it takes us."

___

AP Football Writer Rob Maaddi in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-01-05-Browns-Kelly/id-c270f821601d478c865f86793e501eea

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Video: Coral records suggest that recent El Nino activity rises above noisy background

Video: Coral records suggest that recent El Nino activity rises above noisy background

Friday, January 4, 2013

By examining a set of fossil corals that are as much as 7,000 years old, scientists have dramatically expanded the amount of information available on the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, a Pacific Ocean climate cycle that affects climate worldwide. The new information will help assess the accuracy of climate model projections for 21st century climate change in the tropical Pacific.

The new coral data show that 20th century El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate cycles are significantly stronger than ENSO variations captured in the fossil corals. But the data also reveal large natural variations in past ENSO strength, making it difficult to attribute the 20th century intensification of ENSO to rising carbon dioxide levels. Such large natural fluctuations in ENSO activity are also apparent in multi-century climate model simulations.

"We looked at the long-term variability of ENSO in the climate models and asked how it compares to the long-term variability of ENSO in the real world," said Kim Cobb, an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We show that they actually match fairly well. This project sets the stage for conducting more detailed data-model comparisons from specific time intervals to test the accuracy of ENSO characteristics in the various models."

The research, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was scheduled to be reported January 4 in the journal Science. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Minnesota also contributed to the work.

El Nino Southern Oscillation extremes drive changes in global temperature and precipitation patterns every two to seven years. The variations are particularly pronounced in the central tropical Pacific, where Cobb and her team collected the fossil corals used in this study. By analyzing the ratio of specific oxygen isotopes in the coral skeletons, the scientists obtained information about ENSO-related temperature and rainfall variations during the periods of time in which the corals grew.

"Fossil corals are the kings of El Nino reconstruction," said Cobb. "Corals grow in the heart of the El Nino region, and with monthly-resolved records, they provide a very high level of detail."

The researchers collected the coral samples by drilling into massive coral "rocks" rolled onto Pacific island beaches by the action of strong storms or tsunamis. Cobb and her team studied 17 such cores of varying lengths and ages recovered from beaches on Christmas and Fanning Islands, which are part of the Line Island chain located in the mid-Pacific.

The islands are ideal places for obtaining records of past ENSO activity because they are close enough to the source region for ENSO to be affected by its temperature and precipitation variations, but not so close that the islands' corals are bleached by large temperature increases during strong El Nino warm events.

The study of each core began with careful dating, done by analyzing the ratio of uranium to thorium. That work was performed by co-authors Larry Edwards and Hai Cheng at the University of Minnesota. Once the age of each core was determined, Cobb and her team chose a subset of the collection to be studied in detail.

They sawed each core in half, then X-rayed the cross-sections to reveal the growth direction of each coral. The researchers then drilled out small samples of coral powder every millimeter down the core and analyzed them with mass spectrometers at Georgia Tech and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to determine the ratio of oxygen isotopes.

The isotope ratio of the coral skeleton changes with the temperature and amount of rainfall, providing detailed information about environmental conditions during each period of the coral's growth. As many as 20 samples are analyzed for each year of the coral's lifetime.

"We are able to count back in time, following the seasonal cycles locked in the coral skeleton, as long as the core will allow us," Cobb explained.

In all, Cobb's team added 650 years of monthly-resolved information about ENSO variations across nearly 7,000 years. That required analyzing approximately 15,000 samples over the course of the study, which began in 2005.

Using the new sequences to quantify the range of natural variability in ENSO strength, the researchers have detected a modest, but statistically-significant increase in 20th century ENSO strength that may be related to anthropogenic climate change. However, the coral reconstruction shows an even higher level of ENSO strength 400 years ago, though its duration was shorter.

"The level of ENSO variability we see in the 20th century is not unprecedented," Cobb said. "But the 20th century does stand out, statistically, as being higher than the fossil coral baseline."

Information about the El Nino-Southern Oscillation is important for climate scientists because the cycle helps drive other aspects of global climate change.

"El Nino is something that people want to know about when they reconstruct past climate changes at a specific site," Cobb said. "Our data will provide a reference for the magnitude of ENSO-related changes that may have occurred, and allow researchers to probe the causes of past climate changes evident in other paleoclimate records and in model simulations of past climates."

The work has already called into question a long-held belief that ENSO was reduced some 6,000 years ago. Certain climate models support that picture, but Cobb said that fossil coral data from that period doesn't support a reduction in ENSO strength.

Looking to future research, Cobb believes the work will be useful in helping scientists assess the accuracy of climate models.

"Prior to this publication, we had a smattering of coral records from this period of interest," she said. "We now have tripled the amount of fossil coral data available to investigate these important questions. We have been able to provide a comprehensive view of recent variations in ENSO."

###

Georgia Institute of Technology Research News: http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu

Thanks to Georgia Institute of Technology Research News for this article.

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3 Ways In Which Video Marketing Can Help Grow Your Business ...

Are you looking for ways in which you can grow your business through online marketing, but are not entirely sure what some of the better methods that currently exist are? There are many different methods that you can utilize to grow your business through online marketing, so long as you are able toeffectively employ the strategies. One of the best strategies that you can utilize to grow your business is the creation of videos to promote it, and uploading them on the various video sharing websites. There are number of benefits to video marketing including the fact that it will drive traffic to your website, allow you to build back links which are going to grow your presence within the search engines, and also allow you to explain your business to what could be potential customers.

Drive Traffic To Your Website

One of the biggest benefits of employing video marketing strategies is the fact that you were going to be able to drive a lot of traffic to your website in a very short amount of time. If you are able to create interesting videos that users share with one another, that promote your business, as the videos gain attention on the video sharing websites, individuals will become interested in your business and this will allow you to drive a healthy amount of traffic to your website. Driving traffic to your website should be the main consideration when implying video marketing techniques, but is just one of a few different benefits.

Build Backlinks

As you probably know, building backlinks is a very important part of growing your presence within the search engines, and allowing your website to rank highly for a variety of search terms that are relevant your business. Most video sharing websites allow you to place a link in the description of your video, and when you are able to share that video on dozens of different websites, you are creating dozens of different backlinks that are relevant to your website, and your niche. With Google and other search engines taking social factors into account when ranking websites, it is become increasingly important to build backlinks on pages that are relevant to your niche, and contain content that is related to the content that is on your own website.

Explain Your business to Potential Customers

Another huge benefit to video marketing is the fact that you can utilize the video to explain your business to potential customers. One of the biggest disconnect that many businesses have, is being able to explain a complicated service or product to customers, and video marketing allows you to do so in a straightforward and visual manner, which will allow you to connect with a totally new base of customers, that you otherwise would not be able to connect to through copywriting alone.

If you would like to drive traffic to your website, increase your presence in the search engines, or explain your business to potential customers, video marketing can be an excellent strategy to employ.

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Beyond the 'cliff': Why spending cuts are next on the agenda (+video)

The just-concluded fiscal cliff deal answered most questions about taxes, for now, but until Obama and Congress address spending cuts, the federal deficit problem has not been solved.

By Mark Trumbull,?Staff writer / January 3, 2013

The US Capitol is seen amid reflections from inside the Cannon House Office Building on the last day of the 112th Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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The "fiscal cliff" deal reached over the holiday weekend lifted an immediate cloud of uncertainty over US taxpayers in the new year, but it didn't resolve the longer-term question of how to significantly reduce federal deficits.

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That's why the next round of fiscal policy talks is already in the works. And because the just-completed round centered heavily on raising tax revenue from the rich, the dominant issue in the next round promises to be spending cuts.

The question for President Obama and Congress will be how to pare back the projected rise in federal spending in a sensible way ? so that deficits come down without doing undue harm to the economy and to important voter priorities.

In recent days, Mr. Obama hasn't seemed eager to lead the way on this. He has signaled firm opposition to linking the approval of a higher public-debt limit to commitments on spending cuts as demanded by conservatives, saying the ability of the US to pay its bills should be nonnegotiable.

A White House fact sheet on this week's fiscal deal, meanwhile, didn't put urgent emphasis on the spending issue. Instead, the statement lauded the Jan. 1 fiscal plan as providing "greater economic certainty for families and businesses," while acknowledging the need for more progress.

Yet the spending questions can't be easily avoided, for several reasons:

? Politics. Republicans are pushing hard, and they control the House and have filibuster potential in the Senate.

?President Obama declared the other night that those he calls ?rich? are now paying their ?fair share.? So it?s time to move on," Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky said Thursday. "The president got his revenue, now it?s time to turn squarely to the real problem, which is spending."
?
? Economic reality. Bringing the deficit under control will require restraint on the spending side, as well as the new tax revenue that Obama has won. Here's a reality check: This week's fiscal deal includes an estimated $650 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years, compared with a "baseline" in which all Bush tax cuts and some other key policies were extended. But over the next 10 years budget deficits were on track to total $7.9 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).
?
So the Jan. 1 accord cuts deficits over the next 10 years by less than one-tenth. Few budget analysts are hoping for policymakers to bring deficits down to zero, but a widely voiced hope is that further bargaining could bring total deficit reduction to $4 trillion. That amount could make the difference between the national debt continuing to rise or falling somewhat, as a percentage of the year's gross domestic product (GDP).
?
For the economy, stabilizing or reducing it can pay big dividends. It would maintain investor confidence, a key enabler of job creation, whereas economic research suggests that the pace of GDP growth slows when debt is high and rising.
?
? Deadlines. Americans may be tired of the "cliff" metaphor that abounded in news reports leading up to Jan. 1, but now a new day of fiscal reckoning looms, in early March. The agreement just passed by Congress postponed sizable automatic spending cuts, which had been scheduled for January, until March 1. Neither side likes that automatic approach, called "sequestration." But to avoid it, they'll need to cut a bargain on spending.
?
Adding to the pressure: In early March, the government will start having trouble getting by without borrowing more money by issuing Treasury bonds and notes. For the government to borrow more, Congress must approve a hike in the official debt limit. Republicans don't want to agree to that unless a spending-restraint deal is reached, perhaps including some reforms of Social Security or health-care programs.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/3jdWy1NZsOY/Beyond-the-cliff-Why-spending-cuts-are-next-on-the-agenda-video

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