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Debt ceiling: The trillion dollar mystery
The two calamity-avoiding debt ceiling measures under consideration in Congress have something in common. House Speaker John Boehner says his bill has $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending cuts over ten years. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says his bill has about the same level of such cuts. If either bill is adopted, the cuts would easily be some of the biggest in history. Here's the problem: Nobody knows which federal programs are on the chopping block. The bills for the most part avoid targeting specific programs for cuts. Instead, they set spending caps that would limit growth over a ten-year period. But ... (full story)