(CNSNews.com) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday that a deal to raise the legal debt limit, which he expects to be completed in the next few weeks, will be only a short-term “down payment” on solving the nation’s debt problem, and that it would be "irresponsible" to reduce the massive federal deficit anticipated over the next ten years with spending cuts alone.

What is needed, he said, is a longer-term deal on a “balanced framework” that includes “revenue increases through tax reform”...

The Planned Parenthood of Indiana abortion business has laid off two staff members now that the uptick in donations it received from pro-abortion supporters has run out following the news that the state had revoked its taxpayer funding.

A rash of donations had been sufficient to replace the state and federal taxpayer funding the state had directed to the abortion business via Medicaid, but it was only enough to cover a few weeks. Now, Betty Cockrum, the president of the abortion business, has cut two staff members and is closing each of its centers one day a week in order to meet the budget shortfall it will experience if a federal court doesn’t issue an injunction against the law and restore the taxpayer revenue stream.

Cockrum told WFPL she hopes a ruling could be handed down as early as next week that would side with Planned Parenthood and force the state to turn on the funding spigot while the lawsuit it filed against the de-funding law continues....

WASHINGTON -- ACORN, the controversial and defunct community activist group accused of a variety of criminal activities, will not get a chance to air its grievances about losing federal funding before the Supreme Court, the justices announced Monday.

The group was trying to appeal a unanimous lower court ruling affirming the federal government's right to strip millions of dollars in funds from the group and its associated affiliates. The justices, as often happens, announced their decision without comment.

ACORN's activities received little attention before 2009 when it became the focus of outrage for mostly-Republican lawmakers who objected to the group's politics and shady dealings...

A doctor and author says a controversial ad that depicts a look-alike of Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) pushing an elderly woman off a cliff is meant to do more than demonize Republicans for the new Medicare plan -- it's a diversion of the real issue, she says.

Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) says the real issue is the initial Ponzi scheme structure of Medicare and the fact that it is simply unsustainable.

"It's an intergenerational transfer of wealth, where the benefits for the current generation are paid for from the younger generation, which is putting money into something thinking that they're building up funds for their own retirement," Orient explains...

An author and expert on health policy says the real problem with Medicare is not that the program is going to go bankrupt, but that Medicare is going to bankrupt the U.S.

According to a recent report from Social Security and Medicare trustees, Medicare's insurance trust fund is expected to be insolvent by 2024 -- five years earlier than previously estimated.

In an interview this week on American Family Radio's Nothing But Truth program, Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, called that claim "nonsense"...

Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who cut major weapons programs during 4½ years at the Pentagon, is warning against “hollowing out” the U.S. military through unwise spending cuts planned by the Obama administration.

“I am determined that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, where budget targets were met mostly by taking a percentage off the top,” Mr. Gates said in a speech to a conservative think tank Tuesday.

“That kind of salami-slicing approach preserves overhead and maintains force structure on paper, but results in a hollowing out of the force from a lack of proper training, maintenance and equipment - and manpower”...

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government has already borrowed an additional $803.73 per each household in the United States since the Republican House majority elected last November enacted its first law governing federal spending.

On March 1, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives enacted a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded past March 4, when a CR passed in December by the Democrat-controlled House would expire.

Only 6 House Republicans — led by Representatives Steve King (Iowa) and Michele Bachmann (Minn.) — voted against the March 1 CR...

Republicans had a message Wednesday for President Obama as he prepared to outline his deficit-reduction plan, with at least a partial emphasis on taxes: Don't go there.

GOP leaders reiterated their argument that Washington has a "spending problem," not a revenue problem, and that new taxes on the wealthy -- who Republicans describe as the job creators and small business owners who will drive the economic recovery -- are a bad idea.

"I hope we don't have a re-do and a do-over of the tax agreement," House Republican Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said, referring to the bipartisan deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years. "This was an issue that was litigated in the election last fall"...

WASHINGTON -- Higher taxes have been missing from the fierce budget battle that nearly shut down the federal government. But President Obama is about to put them on the table -- at least a modest version that he had pushed before and then rested on the shelf.

Most economists and budget analysts say a comprehensive mix of spending cuts and tax increases is essential to any viable deficit-reduction plan. Yet few players in the negotiations have gone there.

It comes in the scramble to heed what is widely viewed as a loud clamor from voters to slam the brakes on runaway government spending. There has been no corresponding public demand for raising taxes. That's not surprising, but the top-bracket U.S. tax rate now is the lowest it's been in decades, and it's far lower than those in many other industrialized countries, especially in western Europe...

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) says there's "no question" that government spending cuts are necessary and "long overdue," but he laments that the $38.5-billion in spending cuts agreed to late Friday were achieved in exchange for continued funding of the Democrats' health care law.

House Speaker John Boehner agreed that the deal reached late Friday was “imperfect,” but he sees it as a “first step toward getting spending under control.” Writing in USA Today on Monday, Boehner noted that House Republicans “dragged a reluctant Senate and White House” – both controlled by Democrats – into bigger spending cuts than they wanted to make.

But not all Republicans are happy...