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Budget deficit in 2008 surges to all-time high & ACORN defends efforts amid voter-fraud allegations & IRS promises fix to stimulus check problem
Budget deficit in 2008 surges to all-time high
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Tue Oct 14, 6:34 PM ET
The federal budget deficit soared to $454.8 billion in 2008 as a housing collapse and efforts to combat the economic slowdown pushed the tide of government red ink to the highest level in history.
The Bush administration said Tuesday the deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was more than double the $161.5 billion recorded in 2007.
It surpassed the previous record of $413 billion set in 2004. Economists predicted a far worse number next year as the costs of the government's rescue of the financial system and the economic hard times hit the nation's balance sheet.
Some analysts believe that next year's deficit could easily top $700 billion, giving the next president a formidable challenge.
The administration blamed this year's record deficit on a litany of economic woes. The prolonged housing slump sharply reduced economic growth and has sent the unemployment rate rising, developments that reduce tax revenues.
"This year's budget results reflect the ongoing housing correction and the manifestation of that in strained capital markets and slower growth," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a statement accompanying the deficit report. "While it will take time to work through this period, we will overcome the current challenges facing our nation."
Democrats said the administration's economic policies were responsible for the growing deficit. They noted that when Bush took office in 2001, the budget was in surplus with projections that total surpluses over the next decade would reach $5.6 trillion. Those surpluses never materialized. The economy fell into a recession and then faced unexpected costs such as fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and dealing with the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina. Democrats also cite the costs of Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as further reasons for the budget imbalances.
"The eight years of this administration will include the five biggest budget deficits in history," said House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C. "The resulting debt will be passed to our children and grandchildren."
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said the national debt had climbed by more than $1 trillion while Bush was in office and "the next president will inheriting a fiscal and economic mess of historic proportions."
The credit crisis that has swamped the financial system is boosting outlays because of the costs of protecting the depositors of failed banks.
Those costs will increase significantly in coming years. The government faces the prospects of paying for the $700 billion rescue plan that will boost spending as the government spends $250 billion in coming months to buy stock from banks to bolster their balance sheets and also buys up bad assets currently on banks' books.
Both of those programs are aimed at relieving strains on banks so they can resume more normal lending and ease a credit crisis that is threatening to push the country into a severe recession.
Many private economists believe the country will not be able to escape a recession even if the rescue program is successful at getting banks to resume lending.
The Bush administration is projecting that the deficit in the current budget year will rise to $482 billion, but that estimate made in the summer does not include the costs of the rescue program passed by Congress on Oct. 3.
The deficit for 2008 reflected the costs incurred in recent months for a $168 billion economic stimulus program that Congress passed at the beginning of this year in an effort to combat the economic slowdown. Those checks did give the economy a boost in the late spring and early summer. That impact has now faded leading many analysts to project that the current quarter and the first three months of next year will show declines in overall input.
ACORN defends efforts amid voter-fraud allegations
By ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 14, 7:45 PM ET
An activist organization on Tuesday defended its voter registration practices amid new allegations of voter fraud and a call from Republican lawmakers to investigate irregularities.
In Ohio, Democrat Barack Obama said the GOP shouldn't use the group's registration problems as an excuse to keep voters from turning out on Election Day, Nov. 4.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and working-class voters, the group says.
Some of those registration cards have become the focus of fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least five other states. Election officials in Ohio and North Carolina also recently questioned the group's voter forms.
More than 13,000 workers in 21 states recruited less-fortunate voters, who tend to be Democrats.
"The vast, vast majority were dedicated workers," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said at a news conference. "They did something remarkable in bringing all these new voters."
On Monday, election officials in Ohio's most populous county asked a prosecutor to investigate multiple registrations by four people who signed up through ACORN. One voter said he signed 73 voter registration forms during a five-month period.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections is reviewing suspect voter forms from at least two counties.
Meanwhile, House Republicans also have renewed their push for a Justice Department investigation of ACORN. On Friday, six GOP leaders wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey to urge him to make sure ballots by ineligible or fraudulent voters are not counted on Nov. 4.
A law enforcement official said ACORN has been on the radar of federal investigators. But the official would not say whether an investigation has been opened, and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue so close to the election.
Whelan said ACORN staffers separate applications with missing or false information and flag them for election officials. All applications, including problematic cards, are handed in because some state laws require it, he said.
Whelan said he did not know how many registration cards had problems but believed it was a small percentage. He was unsure how many workers were fired for purposely turning in duplicate applications or those with fake information, he said.
"If they look false, we identify them as such," Whelan said of the forms.
ACORN has been drawn into a back-and-forth between the presidential campaigns.
Republican John McCain's campaign on Tuesday said Obama should rein in ACORN's efforts in order to fight voter fraud. The campaign accuses the Democratic presidential candidate of having close ties to the group.
"Obama has a responsibility to rein in ACORN and prove that he's willing to fight voter fraud," McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said Tuesday in an interview with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.
Obama and two other lawyers represented ACORN in 1995 in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois to make voter registration easier. During this year's primary, Obama hired a firm with ties to the group for a massive get-out-the-vote effort.
Obama told reporters on Tuesday that ACORN was not advising his campaign on voter registration.
Last week, McCain called for a federal investigation of the organization during a campaign rally. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, has said Obama's connection to the activist group should be investigated.
"This is another one of those distractions that get stirred up during the campaign," Obama said.
___
Associated Press writers Christopher Wills in Oregon, Ohio, and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.
IRS promises fix to stimulus check problem
By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 14, 3:17 PM ET
The Internal Revenue Service says overdue economic stimulus checks will soon be mailed to about a quarter of a million married couples who had been denied the money because a spouse's married name and Social Security number didn't match.
When a couple marries and a spouse — usually the woman — changes names, the couple is supposed to alert the Social Security Administration. But tens of thousands have failed to do so and were unaware of the consequences until this year, when they didn't cash in on the rebate package. The package, enacted in February, resulted in payments to taxpayers of mostly $600-$1,200.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, an Internal Revenue Service spokesman affirmed that stimulus checks would be sent only to those whose names and Social Security numbers matched.
But on Oct. 8, without fanfare, the IRS updated the question-and-answer section on its Web site to say it will mail economic stimulus payments this month to an additional 260,000 married taxpayers whose names did not match Social Security numbers.
"During the processing of the 2007 returns for these taxpayers, the IRS was able to determine that the person listed on the return actually was the person associated with the SSN," the Web site reads.
Those people should be getting letters within days telling them how much they'll get. The checks should arrive by the end of the month, according to the IRS.
The IRS blamed itself for the problem, saying married taxpayers whose names and Social Security numbers didn't match "were inadvertently omitted from the initial economic stimulus payments."
"The IRS regrets the inconvenience for these affected taxpayers and will continue to work hard to deliver stimulus payments to qualifying taxpayers," the Web site reads.
An IRS spokesman declined interview requests, and would not say if the re-evaluation was prompted by inquiries from The Associated Press or other news organizations. It was also unclear if the recent economic downturn played a role in the decision as a means of giving a boost to more people.
Either way, the news was welcomed by Sam and Elaine Vilardo, both 51, of Sinking Spring, Pa. After the couple married in 2001, she failed to register her name change with the Social Security Administration. When they called the IRS several months ago, they were told they'd have to wait until next year for the stimulus money because of that oversight.
Not anymore.
"It's great news," Sam Vilardo said Monday. "We've already spent the money, so we might as well get the check."
Vilardo blamed procrastination for failing to get his wife's name change registered.
"After you get married you have all those paper changes," said Vilardo, a mechanical machine designer at a steel company. "You just drop the ball."
The problem with the checks affected mostly those who filed tax returns on paper rather than electronically, said Jackie Perlman, senior tax researcher for H&R Block's Tax Institute in Kansas City.
"If you e-file and have a name discrepancy you will get an immediate rejection," and thus be aware of the need to fix it, Perlman said.
The system works differently for paper returns, Perlman said. If the name and Social Security number don't match, the paper return is stamped "invalid," but is accepted. And the taxpayer isn't informed.
Perlman said the Social Security Administration and the IRS both stress through community outreach efforts the need to file name changes. Even with the checks on the way, she encouraged any married couple who has not filed for a name change to do so to avoid future headaches.
Affected couples may want to act sooner than later. A second stimulus package is being considered in Washington, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has not ruled out proposing another round of rebates.
___
On the Net:
IRS economic stimulus payment Q-and-A: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id181997,00.html
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Tue Oct 14, 6:34 PM ET
The federal budget deficit soared to $454.8 billion in 2008 as a housing collapse and efforts to combat the economic slowdown pushed the tide of government red ink to the highest level in history.
The Bush administration said Tuesday the deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was more than double the $161.5 billion recorded in 2007.
It surpassed the previous record of $413 billion set in 2004. Economists predicted a far worse number next year as the costs of the government's rescue of the financial system and the economic hard times hit the nation's balance sheet.
Some analysts believe that next year's deficit could easily top $700 billion, giving the next president a formidable challenge.
The administration blamed this year's record deficit on a litany of economic woes. The prolonged housing slump sharply reduced economic growth and has sent the unemployment rate rising, developments that reduce tax revenues.
"This year's budget results reflect the ongoing housing correction and the manifestation of that in strained capital markets and slower growth," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a statement accompanying the deficit report. "While it will take time to work through this period, we will overcome the current challenges facing our nation."
Democrats said the administration's economic policies were responsible for the growing deficit. They noted that when Bush took office in 2001, the budget was in surplus with projections that total surpluses over the next decade would reach $5.6 trillion. Those surpluses never materialized. The economy fell into a recession and then faced unexpected costs such as fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and dealing with the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina. Democrats also cite the costs of Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as further reasons for the budget imbalances.
"The eight years of this administration will include the five biggest budget deficits in history," said House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C. "The resulting debt will be passed to our children and grandchildren."
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said the national debt had climbed by more than $1 trillion while Bush was in office and "the next president will inheriting a fiscal and economic mess of historic proportions."
The credit crisis that has swamped the financial system is boosting outlays because of the costs of protecting the depositors of failed banks.
Those costs will increase significantly in coming years. The government faces the prospects of paying for the $700 billion rescue plan that will boost spending as the government spends $250 billion in coming months to buy stock from banks to bolster their balance sheets and also buys up bad assets currently on banks' books.
Both of those programs are aimed at relieving strains on banks so they can resume more normal lending and ease a credit crisis that is threatening to push the country into a severe recession.
Many private economists believe the country will not be able to escape a recession even if the rescue program is successful at getting banks to resume lending.
The Bush administration is projecting that the deficit in the current budget year will rise to $482 billion, but that estimate made in the summer does not include the costs of the rescue program passed by Congress on Oct. 3.
The deficit for 2008 reflected the costs incurred in recent months for a $168 billion economic stimulus program that Congress passed at the beginning of this year in an effort to combat the economic slowdown. Those checks did give the economy a boost in the late spring and early summer. That impact has now faded leading many analysts to project that the current quarter and the first three months of next year will show declines in overall input.
ACORN defends efforts amid voter-fraud allegations
By ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 14, 7:45 PM ET
An activist organization on Tuesday defended its voter registration practices amid new allegations of voter fraud and a call from Republican lawmakers to investigate irregularities.
In Ohio, Democrat Barack Obama said the GOP shouldn't use the group's registration problems as an excuse to keep voters from turning out on Election Day, Nov. 4.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and working-class voters, the group says.
Some of those registration cards have become the focus of fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least five other states. Election officials in Ohio and North Carolina also recently questioned the group's voter forms.
More than 13,000 workers in 21 states recruited less-fortunate voters, who tend to be Democrats.
"The vast, vast majority were dedicated workers," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said at a news conference. "They did something remarkable in bringing all these new voters."
On Monday, election officials in Ohio's most populous county asked a prosecutor to investigate multiple registrations by four people who signed up through ACORN. One voter said he signed 73 voter registration forms during a five-month period.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections is reviewing suspect voter forms from at least two counties.
Meanwhile, House Republicans also have renewed their push for a Justice Department investigation of ACORN. On Friday, six GOP leaders wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey to urge him to make sure ballots by ineligible or fraudulent voters are not counted on Nov. 4.
A law enforcement official said ACORN has been on the radar of federal investigators. But the official would not say whether an investigation has been opened, and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue so close to the election.
Whelan said ACORN staffers separate applications with missing or false information and flag them for election officials. All applications, including problematic cards, are handed in because some state laws require it, he said.
Whelan said he did not know how many registration cards had problems but believed it was a small percentage. He was unsure how many workers were fired for purposely turning in duplicate applications or those with fake information, he said.
"If they look false, we identify them as such," Whelan said of the forms.
ACORN has been drawn into a back-and-forth between the presidential campaigns.
Republican John McCain's campaign on Tuesday said Obama should rein in ACORN's efforts in order to fight voter fraud. The campaign accuses the Democratic presidential candidate of having close ties to the group.
"Obama has a responsibility to rein in ACORN and prove that he's willing to fight voter fraud," McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said Tuesday in an interview with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.
Obama and two other lawyers represented ACORN in 1995 in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois to make voter registration easier. During this year's primary, Obama hired a firm with ties to the group for a massive get-out-the-vote effort.
Obama told reporters on Tuesday that ACORN was not advising his campaign on voter registration.
Last week, McCain called for a federal investigation of the organization during a campaign rally. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, has said Obama's connection to the activist group should be investigated.
"This is another one of those distractions that get stirred up during the campaign," Obama said.
___
Associated Press writers Christopher Wills in Oregon, Ohio, and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.
IRS promises fix to stimulus check problem
By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 14, 3:17 PM ET
The Internal Revenue Service says overdue economic stimulus checks will soon be mailed to about a quarter of a million married couples who had been denied the money because a spouse's married name and Social Security number didn't match.
When a couple marries and a spouse — usually the woman — changes names, the couple is supposed to alert the Social Security Administration. But tens of thousands have failed to do so and were unaware of the consequences until this year, when they didn't cash in on the rebate package. The package, enacted in February, resulted in payments to taxpayers of mostly $600-$1,200.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, an Internal Revenue Service spokesman affirmed that stimulus checks would be sent only to those whose names and Social Security numbers matched.
But on Oct. 8, without fanfare, the IRS updated the question-and-answer section on its Web site to say it will mail economic stimulus payments this month to an additional 260,000 married taxpayers whose names did not match Social Security numbers.
"During the processing of the 2007 returns for these taxpayers, the IRS was able to determine that the person listed on the return actually was the person associated with the SSN," the Web site reads.
Those people should be getting letters within days telling them how much they'll get. The checks should arrive by the end of the month, according to the IRS.
The IRS blamed itself for the problem, saying married taxpayers whose names and Social Security numbers didn't match "were inadvertently omitted from the initial economic stimulus payments."
"The IRS regrets the inconvenience for these affected taxpayers and will continue to work hard to deliver stimulus payments to qualifying taxpayers," the Web site reads.
An IRS spokesman declined interview requests, and would not say if the re-evaluation was prompted by inquiries from The Associated Press or other news organizations. It was also unclear if the recent economic downturn played a role in the decision as a means of giving a boost to more people.
Either way, the news was welcomed by Sam and Elaine Vilardo, both 51, of Sinking Spring, Pa. After the couple married in 2001, she failed to register her name change with the Social Security Administration. When they called the IRS several months ago, they were told they'd have to wait until next year for the stimulus money because of that oversight.
Not anymore.
"It's great news," Sam Vilardo said Monday. "We've already spent the money, so we might as well get the check."
Vilardo blamed procrastination for failing to get his wife's name change registered.
"After you get married you have all those paper changes," said Vilardo, a mechanical machine designer at a steel company. "You just drop the ball."
The problem with the checks affected mostly those who filed tax returns on paper rather than electronically, said Jackie Perlman, senior tax researcher for H&R Block's Tax Institute in Kansas City.
"If you e-file and have a name discrepancy you will get an immediate rejection," and thus be aware of the need to fix it, Perlman said.
The system works differently for paper returns, Perlman said. If the name and Social Security number don't match, the paper return is stamped "invalid," but is accepted. And the taxpayer isn't informed.
Perlman said the Social Security Administration and the IRS both stress through community outreach efforts the need to file name changes. Even with the checks on the way, she encouraged any married couple who has not filed for a name change to do so to avoid future headaches.
Affected couples may want to act sooner than later. A second stimulus package is being considered in Washington, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has not ruled out proposing another round of rebates.
___
On the Net:
IRS economic stimulus payment Q-and-A: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id181997,00.html
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