Navigating Your Energy Risk

Editor's Note: This introduction begins our Business Impact report on the topic of Corporate Energy Strategy, unfolding here daily throughout January.

Businesses can be excused for feeling some confusion about what to do about their energy consumption. Though they've been told to expect an economy-wide price on carbon, the U.S. Congress failed to impose one last year, and the nations participating in the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 did not reach a binding agreement on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions. But despite the uncertainties about what national energy policy will bring, companies ranging from big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Costco to high-tech leaders like Google and Cisco to industrial behemoths like General Electric and IBM are embracing cleaner energy technologies that lower their carbon footprints and reduce their overall reliance on fossil fuels.

The overriding motivation has become one of simple economics. "Some of these things just pencil out well," says Greg Neichin, a managing director at the Cleantech Group, a market intelligence firm. Indeed, a new report from Environmental Leader, a publisher of energy news and research, found that the majority of nearly 400 companies now generating their own renewable energy are doing so in order to reduce operating costs or to hedge against the prospect of higher prices for fossil fuels (see chart on next page).

This is a marked shift from the reasons companies have previously turned to environmentally friendly policies, such as a way of enhancing branding while largely continuing with business as usual?a tactic that some critics deride as "greenwashing." In the past, companies typically pursued such efforts through corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs rather than core business units directed by senior management. According to a 2007 survey of 420 global businesses by public-relations firm Hill & Knowlton, 52 percent of companies cited "improved reputation" as the main reason for pursuing green policies and technologies.

This special report on corporate energy strategy will argue that the new corporate focus on the economic benefits of going green is being made possible not only by advances in technology but also by innovations in business models that help companies mitigate their energy risk. We'll hear from corporate leaders who are putting energy strategies into practice, and we'll cite research showing for the first time that a broad range of companies are actually receiving a return on their renewable-energy investments.

Over the course of this month, we'll explore how better, cheaper renewable-energy technologies are making a difference for companies. Some of these technologies are well established. For instance, wind power has achieved "grid parity" in many parts of the world, matching the price of power generated by fuels such as natural gas. New ways of financing solar power have been making it more attractive to business. All-electric vehicles are coming to market in significant volume for the first time, and companies such as UPS and Coca-Cola are adding them to their fleets alongside hybrid vehicles.

Other technologies are newer to the mainstream. Among these are fuel cells that can now power entire buildings or retail centers for about the same cost as grid electricity, and low-power LED lighting, which retailers including Starbucks are installing in their stores. Telepresence systems and low-cost videoconferencing can dramatically reduce the need to travel by car and air. Creative new ways to power data centers can minimize carbon emissions while offering more capacity in less space. Smart building technology is poised to work with the coming smart grid to save companies substantial sums of money.

As more companies adopt these technologies, the cumulative effect could be big. Business software giant SAP calculates that its customer base, which includes 40,000 companies in 120 countries, collectively accounts for one-sixth of the world's carbon emissions. By comparison, the entire European Union is responsible for about 14 percent.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=c4b7e6b3297b87f29eeeb167657085e5

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G.O.P. Sets Up Huge Target for Budget Ax

House Republican leaders are so far not specifying which programs would bear the brunt of budget cutting, only what would escape it: spending for the military, domestic security and veterans.

The reductions that would be required in the remaining federal programs, including education and transportation, would be so deep ? roughly 20 percent on average ? that Senate Republicans have not joined the $100 billion pledge that House Republicans, led by the incoming speaker, Representative John A. Boehner, made to voters before November?s midterm elections.

Even if adopted by the House, the Republicans? budget is unlikely to be enacted in anything like the scale they envision, since Democrats retain a majority in the Senate and President Obama could veto annual appropriations bills making the reductions.

But the effort is more than symbolic: in particular it could give House Republicans increased leverage in budget negotiations with the White House this winter and spring, when the administration must get Congress to raise the federal debt limit or risk a government financing crisis.

The budget-cutting exercise is perhaps the biggest test facing the House Republicans as they seek to remain united and to keep faith with Tea Party members, many of whom remain suspicious of the party?s willingness to vote for deep spending cuts.

But if Republicans vote for the size and range of required cuts in education, law enforcement, medical and scientific research, transportation and much more, it would give Democrats political ammunition to use against them in swing districts.

Such reductions are sure to draw protests from governors and local officials, including Republicans, who are counting on federal money to help balance their budgets. Many business and farm groups likewise would oppose cuts in their subsidies. And many economists would argue that immediate federal spending cuts of this size, especially on top of cuts and layoffs in the cities and states, would threaten the economy?s recovery and offset any stimulus from the tax cut deal Republicans and Mr. Obama reached just weeks ago.

Yet conservative analysts say even more spending cuts are desirable. Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, has outlined a plan for $343 billion in reductions, including cuts from corporate tax breaks and entitlement programs that are not in the portion of the federal budget that House Republicans are focusing on, the so-called nonsecurity discretionary spending.

?The difficulty for Republicans is that they?re concentrating their cuts in a small sliver of the budget,? Mr. Riedl said. ?They should also be addressing large entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, which are the main source of our budget problems. Cutting $100 billion from these other programs isn?t just a matter of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. It will involve real cuts in real programs.?

Other Republicans are skeptical, as well.

?I just don?t know how, when you get down to it, they?re going to get agreement on that,? said G. William Hoagland, who for many years was the Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee.

The promise to cut $100 billion this fiscal year ? in effect, taking government operations to 2008 levels ? would mean cuts of more than 20 percent across the board from the $477 billion that Congress allocated for such programs in the 2010 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Such across-the-board cuts ?would have very damaging implications for the long-term growth of the economy and the long-term future of our work force,? said Jacob J. Lew, Mr. Obama?s budget director. He is preparing the administration?s budget for the 2012 fiscal year, which would continue a three-year freeze of the same domestic spending at 2010 levels.

?If you look in areas like education, if it was applied across the board it would mean eight million students would have their Pell grants reduced by an average of $700,? Mr. Lew said. ?You obviously could make policy not to do that, but then you?d have to save a lot of money somewhere else.?

A 20-percent cut also would mean 40,000 fewer teachers and school aides, he said, and big reductions in basic research, law enforcement and small business programs, among many others.

If the Republicans apply their promise literally, some programs would have to be scaled back even more because the government is already well into its fiscal year, so the cuts would have to be concentrated in a shorter period. The reductions would be about 30.6 percent, said James R. Horney, a former Congressional budget analyst who is now at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

?That would require very large layoffs or furloughs of federal employees,? Mr. Horney said, ?as well as big reductions in grants to state and local governments and government purchases of goods and services ? all of which would offset a good portion of the stimulus achieved in the tax compromise and threaten the recovery.?

In new rules that the House is expected to adopt when it convenes on Wednesday, Republicans will empower the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to set limits for the various categories of domestic spending that are decided in the Appropriations Committee. That is more power than ever invested in a Budget Committee chief and a significant diminution in the appropriation panel?s traditional sway.

Initially, that would allow House Republicans to suggest what general areas the $100 billion would come from without identifying specific cuts.

?The reality of governing is different than the reality of campaigning, and it?s easier to throw out a number than it is to support it,? said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama?s senior strategist.

Looming over the budget fight is the battle over the debt limit. An increase in the debt limit is essential for the government to borrow to meet its obligations, but it is adamantly opposed by the Tea Party movement and other small-government conservatives.

While they complain that lifting the limit enables new spending, mostly it allows the government to cover existing commitments, including trillions of dollars run up when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House from 2001 to 2007.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=aff2ac51473f96da645e7e2b0e57d925

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Chrome OS Knows Your Every Move

In early December, Google sent out thousands of free laptops as part of a program to test Chrome OS, an operating system that relies on the Internet for all its software applications.

Computers running Chrome OS don't let users download data or install applications. Instead, everything happens in the cloud. So the laptop?called the CR-48?needs very little storage space, but it requires a constant Internet connection, and it has 3G wireless connectivity built in.

The design of Chrome OS changes such fundamental things as where a user's data resides and how it is managed. It also gives Google access to an unprecedented amount of user data. The company hasn't said how it will use this information, but some clues can be found in the company's previous products and in the rights it has reserved in the Chrome OS terms of service.

Google makes the vast majority of its billions of dollars of annual income by delivering advertising tailored to its users' behavior and interests as revealed by their searches, the contents of their e-mail messages, and their browsing history. Chrome OS could take this to the next level.

"With Chrome OS, Google can obtain deeper system information like specific user behaviors, if they wanted to," says Daniel Cawrey, an IT analyst and editor of thechromesource, a website that has been tracking the development of Chrome OS.

Google's terms of service give it the right to use the information it collects for advertising purposes if it chooses to head in that direction. The terms note that "some of [Google's] services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the services, queries made through the services, or other information." They go on to specify that Google can at any time modify or extend how and when advertising is delivered and that users must agree to let Google advertise in consideration for granting use of its services.

Google's Chrome Web browser?a closely related product that runs on other operating systems?also collects information from users, but it uses this to improve the software, rather than to target advertising. "Information that Google receives when you use Google Chrome is processed in order to operate and improve Google Chrome and other Google services," according to the Chrome browser's privacy policy. In future, however, advertising could conceivably be included under the umbrella of "other Google services." The Chrome browser does collect information that is of interest to advertisers, such as location data and browsing history.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=c5a97bd3a62c5ea5f7f1a32414f7a0c7

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RIM demonstrates BlackBerry Playbook browsing capabilities on video

RIM demonstrates BlackBerry Playbook browsing capabilities on video

There is no doubt that RIM will be hitting CES hard this year, showing consumers and the techies among us what the BlackBerry Playbook has to offer.

In anticipation of the event, RIM has uploaded a new video to its YouTube account demonstrating and documenting how well the Playbook supports different web technologies. In the video we get to see HTML5 video playback, Flash support for both video and games, delving into Facebook Chat and the different games that are available on the popular social network.

The tablet has been demonstrated a couple of times now, the first time showing us how quick it was compared to the iPad, the second in a lengthy overview video.

The video is only 3:18m long ? sit back, watch the video and tell us that the Playbook doesn?t excite you ever so slightly.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/01/04/rim-demonstrates-blackberry-playbook-browsing-capabilities-on-video/

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Why Bing "Likes" Facebook

A massive upgrade to Microsoft's Bing search engine?or "decision engine," as the company calls it?includes a number of new features, including two with the potential to take Internet search to the next level.

For many types of searches, Bing now behaves less like a traditional page-of-results search engine and more like an interactive app that lets you manipulate aspects of your search on the fly. Bing now also incorporates a "social search" feature that looks through recommendations made by your Facebook friends to deliver more refined, personalized results.

"It used to be that with search, we tried to create the equivalent of a library card catalog for the Web," says Stefan Weitz, Bing's director at Microsoft. "That was what we could do with the technology. Now, it's more like walking up to a librarian and saying, 'I'm thinking of taking a trip to the Bahamas in January. What resources should I use to plan it?'"

In fact, Bing now responds to travel-related searches by generating a Web-based application for finding and booking flights and lodging, rather than simply returning a list of relevant Web pages. Type "San Juan Puerto Rico" into Bing and it will present an in-page widget that lets you book a flight from what Bing deduces is the airport nearest you. Bing will also present the price of the lowest round-trip fare as a large, friendly link, and will warn you with an up arrow if "fares are rising." Other categories of search that produce a more interactive experience include those relating to music, clothes shopping, and consumer electronics.

Overall, Weitz says, the goal is to move away from what some search developers now derisively call "ten blue links" in order to help users reach their goal that began with a search?for instance, to book a flight without worrying about missing a better deal available somewhere on one of many travel sites.

What is probably Bing's bigger upgrade is the new social search feature, which uses data from your Facebook social circle to provide personalized search results. Thanks to a deal with Facebook, Bing automatically recognizes your Facebook account (assuming you've logged in recently) and searches through content that your Facebook friends have recommended by clicking the "Like" button found on many Web sites.

Microsoft's alliance with Facebook could give it a key advantage over Google in the race to provide a better search experience. Google has also sought to improve its results by tapping information from users' social sphere, but its own social networking services have not been adopted anywhere near as widely as Facebook, so the information to which Google has access is relatively limited. In contrast, Facebook provides Bing with an ever-growing data mine of friends' links. This is important because while Bing has rapidly grown to second place behind Google in the search market, the market analytics company Hitwise reports that Google's market share is holding fast at about 70 percent of Internet searches. Instead of stealing traffic from Google, Bing has pushed other search providers off the playing field. Hitwise's latest report claims that all other services now add up to less than five percent of the search market.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=08185a5e462e0468eb86fd6b5a8c4f70

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Opera previews browser for tablets

Opera has released a video demonstrating a new browser created specifically for tablet devices. The browser shown is running on an Android device, though Opera will likely release it for other platforms as well.

"This is the first preview of Opera for tablets," an Opera spokesperson says in the video. "The Opera experience brings smooth panning, and smooth zooming. This is only the first sneak peek." A browser designed specifically for larger touch screens could indeed make a difference. Currently, browsers with touch interfaces work pretty much the same on mobile phones as they do on tablets.

The timing is impeccable; the first public preview of Opera for tablets will be released at CES 2011 later this week. Large OEMs as well as small companies are planning on announcing a wide assortment of tablets of various shapes and sizes at the show. The tablet market is set to explode this year as Apple's domination of the market begins to deteriorate amongst the quickly growing competition. Opera has done well as a third party browser for mobile phones, and now it wants to do the same with tablets.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41807-opera-previews-browser-for-tablets.html

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Leaked: images and video of the Nintendo 3DS

A handful of pictures of the Nintendo 3DS have leaked over on TGBUS. They show that the company has slightly tweaked the final hardware by flattening the Start, Home, and Select buttons to be flush with the device. Other than that, the device seems unchanged from earlier models shown to the press.

Meanwhile, a leaked video reveals a 1,300 mAh battery (compared to the DSi XL's 1,050 mAh battery, the DSi's 840 mAh, the DS Lite's 1,000 mAh, and the DS' 850mAh) as well as 96MB of RAM (possibly a portion made available to developers from a 128MB chip). It also shows relative size differences between the 3DS, DSi, and the DS Lite.

Four months ago, Nintendo announced during a press event in Tokyo that the portable gaming device would arrive in Japan on February 26, 2011 and would cost 25,000 yen. A release date for the US and Europe was merely stated as sometime in March 2011, with exact pricing yet to be announced.

The new 3DS will feature a Virtual Console that will allow users to download Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games, a Tag Mode that enables Nintendo 3DS portables to find nearby handhelds to connect with and exchange data, a Mii Studio that can automatically make Mii avatars based on real photos, and Augmented Reality Games that will come preloaded on the system. Users will also be able to tweak the 3D effect for games and content through a slider on the right, take standard or 3D pictures with the device's multiple cameras, and connect to the Internet via 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41806-leaked-images-and-video-of-the-nintendo-3ds.html

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G.O.P. Sets Up Huge Target for Budget Ax

House Republican leaders are so far not specifying which programs would bear the brunt of budget cutting, only what would escape it: spending for the military, domestic security and veterans.

The reductions that would be required in the remaining federal programs, including education and transportation, would be so deep ? roughly 20 percent on average ? that Senate Republicans have not joined the $100 billion pledge that House Republicans, led by the incoming speaker, Representative John A. Boehner, made to voters before November?s midterm elections.

Even if adopted by the House, the Republicans? budget is unlikely to be enacted in anything like the scale they envision, since Democrats retain a majority in the Senate and President Obama could veto annual appropriations bills making the reductions.

But the effort is more than symbolic: in particular it could give House Republicans increased leverage in budget negotiations with the White House this winter and spring, when the administration must get Congress to raise the federal debt limit or risk a government financing crisis.

The budget-cutting exercise is perhaps the biggest test facing the House Republicans as they seek to remain united and to keep faith with Tea Party members, many of whom remain suspicious of the party?s willingness to vote for deep spending cuts.

But if Republicans vote for the size and range of required cuts in education, law enforcement, medical and scientific research, transportation and much more, it would give Democrats political ammunition to use against them in swing districts.

Such reductions are sure to draw protests from governors and local officials, including Republicans, who are counting on federal money to help balance their budgets. Many business and farm groups likewise would oppose cuts in their subsidies. And many economists would argue that immediate federal spending cuts of this size, especially on top of cuts and layoffs in the cities and states, would threaten the economy?s recovery and offset any stimulus from the tax cut deal Republicans and Mr. Obama reached just weeks ago.

Yet conservative analysts say even more spending cuts are desirable. Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, has outlined a plan for $343 billion in reductions, including cuts from corporate tax breaks and entitlement programs that are not in the portion of the federal budget that House Republicans are focusing on, the so-called nonsecurity discretionary spending.

?The difficulty for Republicans is that they?re concentrating their cuts in a small sliver of the budget,? Mr. Riedl said. ?They should also be addressing large entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, which are the main source of our budget problems. Cutting $100 billion from these other programs isn?t just a matter of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. It will involve real cuts in real programs.?

Other Republicans are skeptical, as well.

?I just don?t know how, when you get down to it, they?re going to get agreement on that,? said G. William Hoagland, who for many years was the Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee.

The promise to cut $100 billion this fiscal year ? in effect, taking government operations to 2008 levels ? would mean cuts of more than 20 percent across the board from the $477 billion that Congress allocated for such programs in the 2010 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Such across-the-board cuts ?would have very damaging implications for the long-term growth of the economy and the long-term future of our work force,? said Jacob J. Lew, Mr. Obama?s budget director. He is preparing the administration?s budget for the 2012 fiscal year, which would continue a three-year freeze of the same domestic spending at 2010 levels.

?If you look in areas like education, if it was applied across the board it would mean eight million students would have their Pell grants reduced by an average of $700,? Mr. Lew said. ?You obviously could make policy not to do that, but then you?d have to save a lot of money somewhere else.?

A 20-percent cut also would mean 40,000 fewer teachers and school aides, he said, and big reductions in basic research, law enforcement and small business programs, among many others.

If the Republicans apply their promise literally, some programs would have to be scaled back even more because the government is already well into its fiscal year, so the cuts would have to be concentrated in a shorter period. The reductions would be about 30.6 percent, said James R. Horney, a former Congressional budget analyst who is now at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

?That would require very large layoffs or furloughs of federal employees,? Mr. Horney said, ?as well as big reductions in grants to state and local governments and government purchases of goods and services ? all of which would offset a good portion of the stimulus achieved in the tax compromise and threaten the recovery.?

In new rules that the House is expected to adopt when it convenes on Wednesday, Republicans will empower the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to set limits for the various categories of domestic spending that are decided in the Appropriations Committee. That is more power than ever invested in a Budget Committee chief and a significant diminution in the appropriation panel?s traditional sway.

Initially, that would allow House Republicans to suggest what general areas the $100 billion would come from without identifying specific cuts.

?The reality of governing is different than the reality of campaigning, and it?s easier to throw out a number than it is to support it,? said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama?s senior strategist.

Looming over the budget fight is the battle over the debt limit. An increase in the debt limit is essential for the government to borrow to meet its obligations, but it is adamantly opposed by the Tea Party movement and other small-government conservatives.

While they complain that lifting the limit enables new spending, mostly it allows the government to cover existing commitments, including trillions of dollars run up when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House from 2001 to 2007.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=aff2ac51473f96da645e7e2b0e57d925

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How to easily view a Twitter conversation on a single page

How to easily view a Twitter conversation on a single page

One of the fun parts of Twitter is watching conversations happen and picking up pieces of them as they go by. Sometimes, though, you need more context than what is readily available on Twitter.com or via any third-party application. Here?s a super-simple tool that will show you an entire Twitter conversation with just a couple of clicks:

First, you?ll need the ID of a Tweet in the conversation. To find that, just click on the time that a Tweet was sent, then copy the string of numbers at the end:

Once you have that, you?ll want to head over to Aaron?s Twitter Viewer, then paste that number into the box:

What you?ll find, after pasting the number then pressing Go is a page of conversation, neatly displayed before you:

Our thanks to @ChuckReynods and @nacin for being our examples. Give it a shot and let us know what you think. Want to track all of the conversations between two users? There?s another great tool called Bettween that will allow you to do just that:

About the Author

Brad is a music and tech junkie who calls Nashville home. While he writes across many channels on The Next Web, he has a particular interest in startups located in the Southern US. Find him on Twitter @BradTNW.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2011/01/04/how-to-easily-view-a-twitter-conversation-on-a-single-page/

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G.O.P. Sets Up Huge Target for Budget Ax

House Republican leaders are so far not specifying which programs would bear the brunt of budget cutting, only what would escape it: spending for the military, domestic security and veterans.

The reductions that would be required in the remaining federal programs, including education and transportation, would be so deep ? roughly 20 percent on average ? that Senate Republicans have not joined the $100 billion pledge that House Republicans, led by the incoming speaker, Representative John A. Boehner, made to voters before November?s midterm elections.

Even if adopted by the House, the Republicans? budget is unlikely to be enacted in anything like the scale they envision, since Democrats retain a majority in the Senate and President Obama could veto annual appropriations bills making the reductions.

But the effort is more than symbolic: in particular it could give House Republicans increased leverage in budget negotiations with the White House this winter and spring, when the administration must get Congress to raise the federal debt limit or risk a government financing crisis.

The budget-cutting exercise is perhaps the biggest test facing the House Republicans as they seek to remain united and to keep faith with Tea Party members, many of whom remain suspicious of the party?s willingness to vote for deep spending cuts.

But if Republicans vote for the size and range of required cuts in education, law enforcement, medical and scientific research, transportation and much more, it would give Democrats political ammunition to use against them in swing districts.

Such reductions are sure to draw protests from governors and local officials, including Republicans, who are counting on federal money to help balance their budgets. Many business and farm groups likewise would oppose cuts in their subsidies. And many economists would argue that immediate federal spending cuts of this size, especially on top of cuts and layoffs in the cities and states, would threaten the economy?s recovery and offset any stimulus from the tax cut deal Republicans and Mr. Obama reached just weeks ago.

Yet conservative analysts say even more spending cuts are desirable. Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, has outlined a plan for $343 billion in reductions, including cuts from corporate tax breaks and entitlement programs that are not in the portion of the federal budget that House Republicans are focusing on, the so-called nonsecurity discretionary spending.

?The difficulty for Republicans is that they?re concentrating their cuts in a small sliver of the budget,? Mr. Riedl said. ?They should also be addressing large entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, which are the main source of our budget problems. Cutting $100 billion from these other programs isn?t just a matter of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. It will involve real cuts in real programs.?

Other Republicans are skeptical, as well.

?I just don?t know how, when you get down to it, they?re going to get agreement on that,? said G. William Hoagland, who for many years was the Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee.

The promise to cut $100 billion this fiscal year ? in effect, taking government operations to 2008 levels ? would mean cuts of more than 20 percent across the board from the $477 billion that Congress allocated for such programs in the 2010 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Such across-the-board cuts ?would have very damaging implications for the long-term growth of the economy and the long-term future of our work force,? said Jacob J. Lew, Mr. Obama?s budget director. He is preparing the administration?s budget for the 2012 fiscal year, which would continue a three-year freeze of the same domestic spending at 2010 levels.

?If you look in areas like education, if it was applied across the board it would mean eight million students would have their Pell grants reduced by an average of $700,? Mr. Lew said. ?You obviously could make policy not to do that, but then you?d have to save a lot of money somewhere else.?

A 20-percent cut also would mean 40,000 fewer teachers and school aides, he said, and big reductions in basic research, law enforcement and small business programs, among many others.

If the Republicans apply their promise literally, some programs would have to be scaled back even more because the government is already well into its fiscal year, so the cuts would have to be concentrated in a shorter period. The reductions would be about 30.6 percent, said James R. Horney, a former Congressional budget analyst who is now at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

?That would require very large layoffs or furloughs of federal employees,? Mr. Horney said, ?as well as big reductions in grants to state and local governments and government purchases of goods and services ? all of which would offset a good portion of the stimulus achieved in the tax compromise and threaten the recovery.?

In new rules that the House is expected to adopt when it convenes on Wednesday, Republicans will empower the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to set limits for the various categories of domestic spending that are decided in the Appropriations Committee. That is more power than ever invested in a Budget Committee chief and a significant diminution in the appropriation panel?s traditional sway.

Initially, that would allow House Republicans to suggest what general areas the $100 billion would come from without identifying specific cuts.

?The reality of governing is different than the reality of campaigning, and it?s easier to throw out a number than it is to support it,? said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama?s senior strategist.

Looming over the budget fight is the battle over the debt limit. An increase in the debt limit is essential for the government to borrow to meet its obligations, but it is adamantly opposed by the Tea Party movement and other small-government conservatives.

While they complain that lifting the limit enables new spending, mostly it allows the government to cover existing commitments, including trillions of dollars run up when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House from 2001 to 2007.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=aff2ac51473f96da645e7e2b0e57d925

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