HOW TAXPAYERS WANT THEIR MONEY SPENT While lawmakers engage in a constant battle over how to spend taxpayer dollars, taxpayers have a few suggestions of their own. A new online survey by TD Ameritrade (AMTD) shows respondents preferred the majority of their tax dollars go toward affordable health care, followed closely by job creation and public education. See the survey here.
UNIONS ON CUTS: ‘THEY WANT TO SEE US BLEED’ Union members are fed up with threats of furloughs and layoffs that are likely to result if Congress allows the sequestration cuts to take effect next month. Leaders from some of the largest union organizations in the country rallied today on Capitol Hill denouncing the cuts that threaten to slash the federal budget and the lawmakers ready to let them happen. “They want to see us bleed. They just want to kill us. Death by a thousand cuts, brothers and sisters. I’m not interested in going that way. … We have to end this sequestration madness right now,” said J. David Cox, president American Federal Government Employee’s president. - Read more at The Hill
SURPRISE-- SURPLUS! For the first time in five years, the U.S. posted a budget surplus in January, the Treasury Department reported Tuesday. The budget registered a $3 billion surplus, compared with a $27 billion deficit last January. Economists credit the windfall to the payroll tax increase that took effect at the beginning of the year. Read more at The Fiscal Times
