Bit-Gamer Competition #3

Bit-Gamer Competition #3

Posted on 5th Jan 2011 at 11:48 by Joe Martin with 24 comments

As we return from our Christmas break, we?ve got another bunch of goodies to give away ? this time not on Twitter! This week three lucky readers will win a copy of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, a matching t-shirt made by Jinx and a copy of Chris Ryan?s Medal of Honor novella.

To stand a chance of winning all you need to do is pledge your allegiance by liking our new Bit-Gamer facebook page. If you want to increase your chances then you can post a message to us as well and tell us what games you are playing at the moment, but you don't have to.

We wouldn?t ask you to do anything we wouldn?t do, so rest assured that we?re already Bit-Gamer fans and we?ve tinkering with Princess Maker 2 lately. Make of that what you will.


The deadline for the competition is January 12th, but we?ll have a new competition lined up shortly after that. We also post regular ad-hoc competitions to the Bit-Gamer Twitter and Facebook accounts, so you can still grab some goodies even if you don?t win this time around.

Speaking of which, it?s time to reveal the winner of our Christmas competition! We asked you to tell us what game you are most looking forward to in a bid to win the lush Assassin?s Creed: Brotherhood Codex Edition. The winner was @Eugenypankov, who told us he was looking forward to The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings ? but worried that he?d have to upgrade heavily before then.

Let us know your thoughts in the forums!

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Poll Finds Wariness About Cutting Entitlements

Yet their preference for spending cuts, even in programs that benefit them, dissolves when they are presented with specific options related to Medicare and Social Security, the programs that directly touch the most people and also are the biggest drivers of the government?s projected long-term debt.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans choose higher payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security over reduced benefits in either program. And asked to choose among cuts to Medicare, Social Security or the nation?s third-largest spending program ? the military ? a majority by a large margin said cut the Pentagon.

While Americans are near-unanimous in calling deficits a problem ? a ?very serious? problem, say 7 out of 10 ? a majority believes it should not be necessary for them to pay higher taxes to bridge the shortfall between what the government spends and what it takes in. But given a choice of often-discussed revenue options, they preferred a national sales tax or a limit in the deduction for mortgage interest to a higher gasoline tax or taxing employer-provided health benefits.

Americans? sometimes contradictory impulses on spending and taxes suggest the political crosscurrents facing both parties as they gird for debate over how to address the fiscal woes of a nation with an aging population, a complex tax system and an accumulated debt that is starting to weigh on the economy.

On Thursday, a large group of House conservatives called for cutting $2.5 trillion in mostly unspecified spending over the next decade and House Republican leaders have vowed to make spending cuts a priority in coming months after winning a majority on that promise in November?s midterm elections. President Obama is expected to make fiscal responsibility a central theme of his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and of the budget he will send Congress next month for the 2012 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.

The antitax sentiment reflected in the poll is in line with Republicans? mantra that spending, not taxes, is the problem for the federal budget. Yet that assessment contradicts the conclusions of several bipartisan and academic panels that proposed debt-reduction plans over the past year.

Those groups ? including, in November, a bipartisan majority of Mr. Obama?s fiscal commission ? each concluded that the growth in the nation?s debt could not be reined in with spending cuts alone. They said the required reductions, including for Medicare and Social Security, would be deeper than anything the public would accept.

The poll of 1,036 adults nationwide, which has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points, was conducted Jan. 15 through 19 ? in the days after Mr. Obama gave a widely praised address at a Tucson memorial service for those killed in the shooting rampage that wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona. Nearly two-thirds of Americans approve of his response to the shooting, the poll showed; 11 percent disapprove.

National tragedies or crises often have a rallying-around effect that buoys a president?s public image. The poll, like others recently, shows Mr. Obama with a slightly improved approval rating. Nearly half of Americans, 49 percent, approve of his job performance, compared with 39 percent who do not.

The public also gives Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt as he and Republicans adjust to their new power-sharing relationship. After a productive lame-duck session of Congress late last year, in which Mr. Obama won a number of concessions from Republicans in return for extending the Bush-era tax cuts on high incomes, the poll showed that nearly eight out of 10 Americans believe Mr. Obama will try to work with Republicans to get things done ? including 77 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans. Less than half of all respondents ? 46 percent ? said Republicans will try to work with Mr. Obama.

The president holds no advantage over Republicans, however, on addressing the deficit and job creation. Americans split on whom they trust more to make the right decisions on both issues. The poll holds other warning signs for the president. With the unemployment rate remaining above 9 percent, majorities disapprove of his handling of the economy (52 percent), job creation (54 percent) and the deficit (56 percent).

Fewer people than ever think Mr. Obama has the same priorities for the country as they do: 52 percent say he does not share their priorities, down from 65 percent who said he did when Mr. Obama first took office.

Representative John A. Boehner, a Republican of Ohio who is the new House speaker, is relatively unknown to the national public; the roughly one-quarter who have an opinion of him are split between those with negative and positive views.

A far-better-known Republican, Sarah Palin, also is far more disliked. She is viewed unfavorably by 57 percent of the public, including a majority of independents ? her highest negative rating ever in Times/CBS polls.

In a week that saw House Republicans vote to repeal Mr. Obama?s signature domestic achievement, the law overhauling the health care system, nearly half of Americans said the law should stand. About four in 10 people support repeal, but many say they want to undo only parts of the law.

Asked what Congress should focus on, 43 percent of Americans say job creation; health care is a distant second, cited by 18 percent, followed by deficit reduction, war and illegal immigration.

If Medicare benefits have to be reduced, the most popular option is raising premiums on affluent beneficiaries. Similarly, if Social Security benefits must be changed to make the program more financially sound, a broad majority prefers the burden fall on the wealthy. Even most wealthy Americans agree.

As budget woes force a national debate over the country?s domestic priorities, preserving money for education ranks at the top for most Americans.

The poll showed that the Arizona shootings had not changed Americans? general opposition to banning handguns. However, more than six in 10 favor a nationwide ban on assault weapons and on the kind of high-capacity magazine used in Tucson.

Megan Thee-Brenan and Marjorie Connelly contributed reporting.

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Giffords Arrives at Rehabilitation Facility in Houston

The wounded lawmaker, whose against-the-odds fight for survival has inspired people across the country, received a warm farewell from her hometown. Well-wishers lined the streets of Tucson and waved at her ambulance as it went from the hospital to an airport. Some held signs, balloons and flowers. Television helicopters buzzed overhead.

?We want her to heal and come back to us,? said Marcia Paris, a retiree. ?I?m not a doctor, but she rode horses and rode motorcycles and was so vibrant that I just know she?ll be back.?

Inside the ambulance, Ms. Giffords grinned and her eyes welled up when she heard the applause from the crowds, said Dr. Randall S. Friese, a trauma surgeon who traveled with her. ?She smiled and then she began to tear a little bit,? he said. ?I think she understood the immense support from our city.?

Ms. Giffords was taken to Davis-Montham Air Force base, where medics lifted her into to a specially equipped private jet, owned by a family friend. The jet landed at William P. Hobby Airport here at about 1:30 p.m. and a helicopter ferried her to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

She was immediately placed in an intensive care unit, where six doctors assessed her condition. Dr. Dong H. Kim, a neurosurgeon, said Ms. Giffords was alert and interacted with her new doctors as they ran tests, at one point pushing a bright light away from her eyes. She also moved her lips as if to speak. ?There is no question she is aware of what?s happening,? Dr. Kim said.

Dr. Friese said the transfer ?went flawlessly.? Ms. Giffords spent most of the flight napping or interacting with her husband, Capt. Mark E. Kelly, an astronaut. Her vital signs remained stable.

A nurse on the flight, Tracy Culbert, said she gave the congresswoman one of her rings after she tried to touch it. ?She took it into her hand and she was looking at it, turning it to see all sides,? Ms. Culbert said.

Before leaving Tucson, the congresswoman had made remarkable progress, despite having a bullet pass through the upper left lobe of her brain, her doctors and her husband said. She was able to distinguish colors and shapes and to support her own weight.

Though she has yet to speak, she appears to understand much of what is said to her, and can follow simple commands, like taking hold of a pencil, Captain Kelly said.

Still, Ms. Giffords, who is 40, faces months of physical therapy to relearn skills lost when the bullet traversed her brain. It remains unclear whether the parts of the brain controlling language were damaged.

Dr. Kim said she could move her left side with ease, but the muscles on her right side are in various stages of paralysis and weakness. The damaged lobe controls the right side.

A gunman shot Ms. Giffords and 18 other people on Jan. 8 as she met with constituents outside a supermarket in Tucson. Six of the victims died, among them a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge.

She will remain in intensive care until she is well enough to be transferred to the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research at Memorial Hermann, which specializes in helping victims of spinal and brain injuries. But she will begin receiving some physical therapy right away in the intensive care unit, her doctors said.

Marc Lacey and Sam Dolnick contributed reporting from Tucson.

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Giffords Arrives at Rehabilitation Facility in Houston

The wounded lawmaker, whose against-the-odds fight for survival has inspired people across the country, received a warm farewell from her hometown. Well-wishers lined the streets of Tucson and waved at her ambulance as it went from the hospital to an airport. Some held signs, balloons and flowers. Television helicopters buzzed overhead.

?We want her to heal and come back to us,? said Marcia Paris, a retiree. ?I?m not a doctor, but she rode horses and rode motorcycles and was so vibrant that I just know she?ll be back.?

Inside the ambulance, Ms. Giffords grinned and her eyes welled up when she heard the applause from the crowds, said Dr. Randall S. Friese, a trauma surgeon who traveled with her. ?She smiled and then she began to tear a little bit,? he said. ?I think she understood the immense support from our city.?

Ms. Giffords was taken to Davis-Montham Air Force base, where medics lifted her into to a specially equipped private jet, owned by a family friend. The jet landed at William P. Hobby Airport here at about 1:30 p.m. and a helicopter ferried her to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

She was immediately placed in an intensive care unit, where six doctors assessed her condition. Dr. Dong H. Kim, a neurosurgeon, said Ms. Giffords was alert and interacted with her new doctors as they ran tests, at one point pushing a bright light away from her eyes. She also moved her lips as if to speak. ?There is no question she is aware of what?s happening,? Dr. Kim said.

Dr. Friese said the transfer ?went flawlessly.? Ms. Giffords spent most of the flight napping or interacting with her husband, Capt. Mark E. Kelly, an astronaut. Her vital signs remained stable.

A nurse on the flight, Tracy Culbert, said she gave the congresswoman one of her rings after she tried to touch it. ?She took it into her hand and she was looking at it, turning it to see all sides,? Ms. Culbert said.

Before leaving Tucson, the congresswoman had made remarkable progress, despite having a bullet pass through the upper left lobe of her brain, her doctors and her husband said. She was able to distinguish colors and shapes and to support her own weight.

Though she has yet to speak, she appears to understand much of what is said to her, and can follow simple commands, like taking hold of a pencil, Captain Kelly said.

Still, Ms. Giffords, who is 40, faces months of physical therapy to relearn skills lost when the bullet traversed her brain. It remains unclear whether the parts of the brain controlling language were damaged.

Dr. Kim said she could move her left side with ease, but the muscles on her right side are in various stages of paralysis and weakness. The damaged lobe controls the right side.

A gunman shot Ms. Giffords and 18 other people on Jan. 8 as she met with constituents outside a supermarket in Tucson. Six of the victims died, among them a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge.

She will remain in intensive care until she is well enough to be transferred to the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research at Memorial Hermann, which specializes in helping victims of spinal and brain injuries. But she will begin receiving some physical therapy right away in the intensive care unit, her doctors said.

Marc Lacey and Sam Dolnick contributed reporting from Tucson.

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Obama May Find Useless Regulations Are Scarcer Than Thought

WASHINGTON ? There is a federal regulation that dictates that place names on new highway signs must be spelled with just one capital letter ? like This, not THIS.

Federal rules say that beef from a state-regulated slaughterhouse cannot be sold in other states, but bison from the same slaughterhouse can.

And as President Obama told the nation on Tuesday, one federal agency until recently listed saccharin, an artificial sweetener, as a form of toxic waste.

It has become an article of faith in Washington that the government?s extensive rulebook is riddled with burdensome requirements that are unnecessary, contradictory or, to borrow a phrase from the president, ?just plain dumb.?

His administration, like its predecessors, has now promised a thorough weeding.

But specialists on both sides of the political aisle say that the president is wasting the government?s time. They say there are few rules so dumb, duplicative or outdated that everyone can agree they serve no purpose. Rather, most regulations reviled by some are cherished by others, meaning that any effort to reduce regulation is a political process, not a question of housekeeping.

?The history of these kinds of efforts is that they don?t matter very much,? said Peter Van Doren, editor of Regulation magazine, a publication of the libertarian Cato Institute, which generally advocates for less regulation.

Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit that generally advocates for more regulation, said the cost of the search was likely to outstrip the benefits.

?If saccharin is the most serious example the administration can come up with, then it does not justify doing these lookbacks,? he said.

It is clear that the government?s rulebook keeps getting longer. The amount of time businesses and individuals must spend answering questions from the government ? filing taxes, applying for permits, submitting reports ? has increased by more than 30 percent in the last decade, federal data show. The annual burden now amounts to more than one day per person.

The Obama administration has championed expansions of financial and health care regulation, and it has toughened a wide range of other rules.

The efforts are deeply controversial. House Republicans voted this week to repeal the health care law. Business groups have accused the administration of impeding job growth and dampening the economic recovery.

But those are not the rules the White House is pledging to prune. Instead, echoing a promise made by every president since Jimmy Carter, it is promising to find the regulations that are not controversial at all ? just plain dumb.

There is little reason to think this search will prove more fruitful than its predecessors.

Even the rules of the road signs have powerful friends. Advocates for senior citizens say that This is easier to read than THIS.

Those who complain about the prevalence of silly and outdated rules rarely cite specific examples. Several business groups asked to name specific candidates for the president?s project, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, never called back.

The Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives of nearly 200 large American companies, cited a proposed expansion of protected habitats for the spotted owl under the Endangered Species Act.

The government ?is restricting activity on lands that may be suitable habitat for the spotted owl, irrespective of whether the owl is present in that region,? the group said in an e-mail. ?This draft plan has the potential to shutter mills and destroy jobs as fiber supply from both federal and private lands is constrained.?

Of course, while spotted owl protections are opposed by the timber industry, they are supported by environmental groups.

There also are institutional obstacles to erasing regulations. When agencies are told to conduct reviews, they usually conclude that the current rules should be kept, according to a 2007 report by Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress.

Even when agencies find that the cost of a given regulation does exceed the benefit, political considerations often keep the rules on the books. In 2007, Congress passed a law, named in honor of a 2-year-old child crushed as his father backed down the driveway, that effectively required the installation of rear-view video cameras in cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, charged with writing the new rules, found that the technology would save lives but ? assuming a human life was worth about $6.1 million, a figure used by the agency for its calculations ? that the cost would exceed the benefits by more than $1 billion.

Nonetheless, the agency proposed the requirement, noting that it was responding to the will of Congress and that ?there is a special solicitude for protection of children.? Under the rule, automakers will be required to start installing cameras by 2014.

A federal law already requires agencies to review regulations that affect small businesses every 10 years. Congress also created an Office of Advocacy in the Small Business Administration as an ombudsman for the concerns of businesses. Since 2007, that office has asked businesses to nominate ?outdated and ineffective rules.? It then produces a Top 10 list of rules that it presses other agencies to rewrite.

So far, only one highlighted rule has been changed. After four years of lobbying, the government agreed to end a practice of withholding 10 percent of architects? and engineers? fees for work on federal projects until the job was done.

Other industries still are waiting. Dry-cleaning machines, which emit hazardous gases, must be tested for compliance with the Clean Air Act. The machines have changed considerably since the rules were written in the 1980s, making it difficult to conduct the tests. The industry has long petitioned the E.P.A. to update the rules, so far without success. An E.P.A. spokesman declined to comment.

?They say they?re working on it, but not with any great diligence,? said Bill Fisher, chief executive of the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute, the industry?s trade group.

Persuading the E.P.A. to lift saccharin from the list of toxins took seven years. The agency declared the sweetener a hazardous substance in 1980, after the Food and Drug Administration declared it a potential human carcinogen. Over time, science bent in the other direction, and in December 2000, President Clinton removed the requirement that saccharin-sweetened products carry a warning label.

In April 2003, the Calorie Control Council, an industry group representing makers and users of artificial sweeteners, petitioned the E.P.A. to remove saccharin from the list of hazardous substances. But not until April 2010 did the E.P.A. propose a revision. There were no objections and, in December, the change was made.

The result of this seven-year slog?

Lyn O?Brien Nabors, the president of the Calorie Control Council, said she did not think it would produce significant business savings or lower prices. ?Saccharin is a very inexpensive food ingredient,? she said. ?I don?t think it would have enough of an impact on the costs to make a difference.?

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G.O.P. Bloc Presses Leaders to Slash Even More

The proposal, from the Republican Study Committee, a conservative bloc that counts more than two-thirds of House Republicans as members, calls for immediate reductions of at least $100 billion, compared with cuts in the current fiscal year of up to $80 billion being sought by party leaders.

?We want more,? said Representative Mick Mulvaney, a freshman from South Carolina.

The $2.5 trillion in cuts would exclude the military, and would not touch the big entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security. As a result, its effect on the entire array of government programs, among them education, domestic security, transportation, law enforcement and medical research, would be nothing short of drastic.

Committee leaders said this was appropriate and necessary, given the government?s $14 trillion debt and annual deficits at their highest levels since the years just after World War II.

The cuts would require the agreement of the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House, which is highly unlikely.

The study committee proposed generally reducing agency budgets to their levels in 2006 ? the last time Congressional Republicans controlled the budget process ? and then freezing them, with no annual inflation adjustments. It also recommended slashing the federal workforce by 15 percent and canceling pay raises for five years, for a total of $2.29 trillion in savings.

It did not specify how each agency would carry out the reductions.

The study committee?s proposal includes an additional $330 billion in cuts to specific programs, including Amtrak, foreign aid and even the Washington subway system.

The proposal, while not specifically endorsed by the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, or other leaders, offers the clearest picture yet of the cuts envisioned by Republicans as they seek to rein in spending, which they view as a mandate given to them by voters in November.

?I have never seen the American people more receptive, more ready for the tough-love measures that need to be taken to help fix the country,? said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the study committee.

Some fiscal experts said the proposal was untenable, because it would cut much of the federal government nearly in half by 2020, including agencies like the Education Department. Some targets, like Amtrak, would potentially be put out of existence, they said.

The fight over federal spending levels is the highest priority for the new Republican majority other than repeal of the Democrats? health care overhaul.

And while party leaders said they welcomed all proposals for cuts, the pressure from the right ? including Tea Party-backed members and other new lawmakers elected on a platform of fiscal restraint ? threatened to complicate the battle with the Obama administration and to set unrealistic expectations among grass-roots conservatives eager to scale back government.

Even before the midterm elections, party leaders issued a ?Pledge to America,? promising, without providing details of which programs would be cut, to reduce nonsecurity discretionary spending to 2008 levels, a cut that Mr. Boehner had initially pegged at about $100 billion for this fiscal year.

But with a temporary spending measure in place until early March ? more than five months into the fiscal year ? Republican leaders, including the Budget Committee chairman, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, have said that a more realistic goal would be cuts to 2008 levels prorated for the remainder of the fiscal year, or about $60 billion to $80 billion.

Conservative lawmakers, however, said that was not enough.

?Speaking with many of my freshmen colleagues, for us, myself included, the pledge, the $100 billion, was simply a start; it was simply a floor,? Mr. Mulvaney, the South Carolina freshman, said at a news conference to unveil the study committee?s proposal. He added: ?Anybody who is up to speed on budget issues should be scared to death by what?s happening with the debt and the deficit in this country. If you?re not losing sleep over it, then you?re simply not paying attention.?

Some Republicans warned that the country was in danger.

?The greatest threat to the security and prosperity of the United States is our debt,? said Representative John Campbell of California, a member of the study committee. ?We are much closer to the Greece, Ireland, Spain precipice than I think any of us would like to believe.?

A spokesman for Mr. Boehner, Michael Steel, said that Republican leaders were focused on fulfilling the pledge first. ?Our immediate goal is to cut spending to pre-bailout, pre-stimulus levels,? Mr. Steel said. ?That?s what we pledged, and that?s what we?ll fight for. But that will be the beginning, not the end.?

Mr. Boehner was not alone in praising the study committee?s efforts without backing its plan.

?I applaud the Republican Study Committee,? the House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said in a statement. ?I look forward to the discussion on reducing spending that our country so desperately needs.?

Mr. Cantor said Republicans would also seek to end the system of financing presidential candidates and national party conventions with federal matching money. He said that the House would vote on the proposal next week and that it would save $520 million over 10 years if enacted.

The formal work on spending issues is scheduled to begin on the House floor next week when Republicans take up a resolution directing Mr. Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman, to set spending parameters at 2008 levels. The vote on that resolution is scheduled for Tuesday, just hours before Mr. Obama is due on Capitol Hill to give his State of the Union address and is intended to put Republicans squarely on offense in the spending fight.

Mr. Ryan has not put forward a specific plan for cuts. He is awaiting updated data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on current spending. He also did not endorse the study committee?s plan.

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who served with Mr. Ryan on Mr. Obama?s commission on lowering the national debt, said in an interview that the study committee?s plan was ill-conceived and unworkable because it focused only on cuts to discretionary spending and not on overhauling the tax code or addressing entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.

?The commission had about a trillion and a half of cuts, which I thought was at the edge of what could be done responsibly,? Mr. Conrad said in an interview. ?They obviously have chosen to go beyond the edge.?

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G.O.P. Bloc Presses Leaders to Slash Even More

The proposal, from the Republican Study Committee, a conservative bloc that counts more than two-thirds of House Republicans as members, calls for immediate reductions of at least $100 billion, compared with cuts in the current fiscal year of up to $80 billion being sought by party leaders.

?We want more,? said Representative Mick Mulvaney, a freshman from South Carolina.

The $2.5 trillion in cuts would exclude the military, and would not touch the big entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security. As a result, its effect on the entire array of government programs, among them education, domestic security, transportation, law enforcement and medical research, would be nothing short of drastic.

Committee leaders said this was appropriate and necessary, given the government?s $14 trillion debt and annual deficits at their highest levels since the years just after World War II.

The cuts would require the agreement of the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House, which is highly unlikely.

The study committee proposed generally reducing agency budgets to their levels in 2006 ? the last time Congressional Republicans controlled the budget process ? and then freezing them, with no annual inflation adjustments. It also recommended slashing the federal workforce by 15 percent and canceling pay raises for five years, for a total of $2.29 trillion in savings.

It did not specify how each agency would carry out the reductions.

The study committee?s proposal includes an additional $330 billion in cuts to specific programs, including Amtrak, foreign aid and even the Washington subway system.

The proposal, while not specifically endorsed by the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, or other leaders, offers the clearest picture yet of the cuts envisioned by Republicans as they seek to rein in spending, which they view as a mandate given to them by voters in November.

?I have never seen the American people more receptive, more ready for the tough-love measures that need to be taken to help fix the country,? said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the study committee.

Some fiscal experts said the proposal was untenable, because it would cut much of the federal government nearly in half by 2020, including agencies like the Education Department. Some targets, like Amtrak, would potentially be put out of existence, they said.

The fight over federal spending levels is the highest priority for the new Republican majority other than repeal of the Democrats? health care overhaul.

And while party leaders said they welcomed all proposals for cuts, the pressure from the right ? including Tea Party-backed members and other new lawmakers elected on a platform of fiscal restraint ? threatened to complicate the battle with the Obama administration and to set unrealistic expectations among grass-roots conservatives eager to scale back government.

Even before the midterm elections, party leaders issued a ?Pledge to America,? promising, without providing details of which programs would be cut, to reduce nonsecurity discretionary spending to 2008 levels, a cut that Mr. Boehner had initially pegged at about $100 billion for this fiscal year.

But with a temporary spending measure in place until early March ? more than five months into the fiscal year ? Republican leaders, including the Budget Committee chairman, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, have said that a more realistic goal would be cuts to 2008 levels prorated for the remainder of the fiscal year, or about $60 billion to $80 billion.

Conservative lawmakers, however, said that was not enough.

?Speaking with many of my freshmen colleagues, for us, myself included, the pledge, the $100 billion, was simply a start; it was simply a floor,? Mr. Mulvaney, the South Carolina freshman, said at a news conference to unveil the study committee?s proposal. He added: ?Anybody who is up to speed on budget issues should be scared to death by what?s happening with the debt and the deficit in this country. If you?re not losing sleep over it, then you?re simply not paying attention.?

Some Republicans warned that the country was in danger.

?The greatest threat to the security and prosperity of the United States is our debt,? said Representative John Campbell of California, a member of the study committee. ?We are much closer to the Greece, Ireland, Spain precipice than I think any of us would like to believe.?

A spokesman for Mr. Boehner, Michael Steel, said that Republican leaders were focused on fulfilling the pledge first. ?Our immediate goal is to cut spending to pre-bailout, pre-stimulus levels,? Mr. Steel said. ?That?s what we pledged, and that?s what we?ll fight for. But that will be the beginning, not the end.?

Mr. Boehner was not alone in praising the study committee?s efforts without backing its plan.

?I applaud the Republican Study Committee,? the House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said in a statement. ?I look forward to the discussion on reducing spending that our country so desperately needs.?

Mr. Cantor said Republicans would also seek to end the system of financing presidential candidates and national party conventions with federal matching money. He said that the House would vote on the proposal next week and that it would save $520 million over 10 years if enacted.

The formal work on spending issues is scheduled to begin on the House floor next week when Republicans take up a resolution directing Mr. Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman, to set spending parameters at 2008 levels. The vote on that resolution is scheduled for Tuesday, just hours before Mr. Obama is due on Capitol Hill to give his State of the Union address and is intended to put Republicans squarely on offense in the spending fight.

Mr. Ryan has not put forward a specific plan for cuts. He is awaiting updated data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on current spending. He also did not endorse the study committee?s plan.

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who served with Mr. Ryan on Mr. Obama?s commission on lowering the national debt, said in an interview that the study committee?s plan was ill-conceived and unworkable because it focused only on cuts to discretionary spending and not on overhauling the tax code or addressing entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.

?The commission had about a trillion and a half of cuts, which I thought was at the edge of what could be done responsibly,? Mr. Conrad said in an interview. ?They obviously have chosen to go beyond the edge.?

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Obama Picks G.E. Chief for Board as Focus Turns to Jobs

Mr. Immelt will be chairman of the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that Mr. Obama intends to create by executive order. In a statement issued shortly after midnight, Mr. Obama said he wanted the council to ?focus its work on finding new ways to encourage the private sector to hire and invest in American competitiveness.?

The council will be a reconfigured version of the board Mr. Volcker led, the President?s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. That body, created by Mr. Obama when he took office in the thick of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, is set to expire on Feb. 6.

Asked about his new role during a conference call on G.E.?s earnings, Mr. Immelt said the advisory position would give him a chance to contribute to issues in the broader economy, with a focus on competitiveness and jobs. ?I am honored to serve,? he said.

Mr. Immelt said that his commitment to G.E. would not change. ?This is my passion,? he said of G.E. ?I am committed. I am a hard worker. I am focused on the company.?

The changes in the panel signal what the White House describes as ?a new phase of our recovery,? a shift from crisis to job creation. They come as Mr. Obama has been working to repair his frayed relations with the business community. Mr. Immelt, who was a member of the original board, has often been by the president?s side in recent months, as Mr. Obama has sought to spotlight his efforts on behalf of American companies overseas.

He was with Mr. Obama when the president traveled to India in November. During a stop in Mumbai, the White House announced a string of business deals between India and American companies, including a $750 million order from India?s Reliance Power for steam turbines manufactured by General Electric.

And Mr. Immelt was with the president again this week during the visit of President Hu Jintao of China, taking part in a meeting Mr. Obama convened with business leaders and Mr. Hu and attending the state dinner in Mr. Hu?s honor on Wednesday.

?Jeff Immelt?s experience at G.E. and his understanding of the vital role the private sector plays in creating jobs and making America competitive makes him up to the challenge of leading this new council,? Mr. Obama said.

Schenectady, where the president will make the formal announcement of his appointment, is the birthplace of General Electric and remains home to G.E.?s largest energy division. The steam turbines bought by Reliance Power will be built there. The company reported early on Friday that it had earned $4.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010 and $11.6 billion for the full year, exceeding Wall Street analysts? expectations.

Mr. Immelt mentioned his impending appointment in an opinion article published in The Washington Post on Friday. ?The president and I are committed to a candid and full dialogue among business, labor and government to help ensure that the United States has the most competitive and innovative economy in the world,? he said in the article. ?My hope is that the council will be a sounding board for ideas and a catalyst for action on jobs and competitiveness. It will include small and large businesses, labor, economists and government.?

It was well known in Washington that Mr. Volcker, 83, had sometimes been frustrated in his role as an outside adviser to the president. In the statement, Mr. Obama thanked Mr. Volcker for his service and pledged to continue to call on the former Fed chairman for advice, saying, ?He will always be a member of my team.?

During Mr. Volcker?s time as head of the previous panel, the former Fed chairman met periodically with Mr. Obama and had something of a lukewarm relationship with the administration, which mostly obtained its economic guidance from Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, and Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council.

Mr. Volcker, however, became well known for crafting a measure that restricts the ability of banks whose deposits are federally insured from trading for their own proprietary accounts. Mr. Obama proposed what became known as the Volcker rule in January 2010 as part of a broader financial regulatory reform effort, though the measure has been fiercely opposed by some banks and Wall Street firms.

Mr. Obama?s statement called Mr. Volcker ?one of the wisest economic minds? in the country, and someone who has ?fought for policies that help American families and strengthen our economy.?

Mr. Immelt?s appointment comes as Mr. Obama has increasingly turned to people with close ties to the business sector for counsel in the wake of the setbacks of the midterm elections, something highlighted by the appointment of William M. Daley, the former Commerce secretary and senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, as the president?s chief of staff.

Christine Hauser contributed reporting from New York.

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G.O.P. Bloc Presses Leaders to Slash Even More

The proposal, from the Republican Study Committee, a conservative bloc that counts more than two-thirds of House Republicans as members, calls for immediate reductions of at least $100 billion, compared with cuts in the current fiscal year of up to $80 billion being sought by party leaders.

?We want more,? said Representative Mick Mulvaney, a freshman from South Carolina.

The $2.5 trillion in cuts would exclude the military, and would not touch the big entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security. As a result, its effect on the entire array of government programs, among them education, domestic security, transportation, law enforcement and medical research, would be nothing short of drastic.

Committee leaders said this was appropriate and necessary, given the government?s $14 trillion debt and annual deficits at their highest levels since the years just after World War II.

The cuts would require the agreement of the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House, which is highly unlikely.

The study committee proposed generally reducing agency budgets to their levels in 2006 ? the last time Congressional Republicans controlled the budget process ? and then freezing them, with no annual inflation adjustments. It also recommended slashing the federal workforce by 15 percent and canceling pay raises for five years, for a total of $2.29 trillion in savings.

It did not specify how each agency would carry out the reductions.

The study committee?s proposal includes an additional $330 billion in cuts to specific programs, including Amtrak, foreign aid and even the Washington subway system.

The proposal, while not specifically endorsed by the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, or other leaders, offers the clearest picture yet of the cuts envisioned by Republicans as they seek to rein in spending, which they view as a mandate given to them by voters in November.

?I have never seen the American people more receptive, more ready for the tough-love measures that need to be taken to help fix the country,? said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the study committee.

Some fiscal experts said the proposal was untenable, because it would cut much of the federal government nearly in half by 2020, including agencies like the Education Department. Some targets, like Amtrak, would potentially be put out of existence, they said.

The fight over federal spending levels is the highest priority for the new Republican majority other than repeal of the Democrats? health care overhaul.

And while party leaders said they welcomed all proposals for cuts, the pressure from the right ? including Tea Party-backed members and other new lawmakers elected on a platform of fiscal restraint ? threatened to complicate the battle with the Obama administration and to set unrealistic expectations among grass-roots conservatives eager to scale back government.

Even before the midterm elections, party leaders issued a ?Pledge to America,? promising, without providing details of which programs would be cut, to reduce nonsecurity discretionary spending to 2008 levels, a cut that Mr. Boehner had initially pegged at about $100 billion for this fiscal year.

But with a temporary spending measure in place until early March ? more than five months into the fiscal year ? Republican leaders, including the Budget Committee chairman, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, have said that a more realistic goal would be cuts to 2008 levels prorated for the remainder of the fiscal year, or about $60 billion to $80 billion.

Conservative lawmakers, however, said that was not enough.

?Speaking with many of my freshmen colleagues, for us, myself included, the pledge, the $100 billion, was simply a start; it was simply a floor,? Mr. Mulvaney, the South Carolina freshman, said at a news conference to unveil the study committee?s proposal. He added: ?Anybody who is up to speed on budget issues should be scared to death by what?s happening with the debt and the deficit in this country. If you?re not losing sleep over it, then you?re simply not paying attention.?

Some Republicans warned that the country was in danger.

?The greatest threat to the security and prosperity of the United States is our debt,? said Representative John Campbell of California, a member of the study committee. ?We are much closer to the Greece, Ireland, Spain precipice than I think any of us would like to believe.?

A spokesman for Mr. Boehner, Michael Steel, said that Republican leaders were focused on fulfilling the pledge first. ?Our immediate goal is to cut spending to pre-bailout, pre-stimulus levels,? Mr. Steel said. ?That?s what we pledged, and that?s what we?ll fight for. But that will be the beginning, not the end.?

Mr. Boehner was not alone in praising the study committee?s efforts without backing its plan.

?I applaud the Republican Study Committee,? the House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said in a statement. ?I look forward to the discussion on reducing spending that our country so desperately needs.?

Mr. Cantor said Republicans would also seek to end the system of financing presidential candidates and national party conventions with federal matching money. He said that the House would vote on the proposal next week and that it would save $520 million over 10 years if enacted.

The formal work on spending issues is scheduled to begin on the House floor next week when Republicans take up a resolution directing Mr. Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman, to set spending parameters at 2008 levels. The vote on that resolution is scheduled for Tuesday, just hours before Mr. Obama is due on Capitol Hill to give his State of the Union address and is intended to put Republicans squarely on offense in the spending fight.

Mr. Ryan has not put forward a specific plan for cuts. He is awaiting updated data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on current spending. He also did not endorse the study committee?s plan.

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who served with Mr. Ryan on Mr. Obama?s commission on lowering the national debt, said in an interview that the study committee?s plan was ill-conceived and unworkable because it focused only on cuts to discretionary spending and not on overhauling the tax code or addressing entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.

?The commission had about a trillion and a half of cuts, which I thought was at the edge of what could be done responsibly,? Mr. Conrad said in an interview. ?They obviously have chosen to go beyond the edge.?

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