Thursday, 4.4.13 PRESS D Obama To Return 5 Percent Of...
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BY JOSH LEDERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON — Sharing a bit of budget pain, President Barack Obama will return 5 percent of his salary each month to the Treasury in a show of solidarity with federal workers smarting from government-wide spending cuts. Obama’s decision grew out of a desire to share in the sacrifice that government employees are making, a White House official said Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be forced to take unpaid leave — known as furloughs — if Con- gress does not reach an agree- ment soon to undo the cuts. The president is demonstrat- ing that he will be paying a price, too, as the White House warns of dire economic consequences from the $85 billion in cuts that started to hit federal programs last month after Congress failed to stop them. In the weeks since, the administration has faced re- peated questions about how the White House itself will be af- fected. The cancellation of White House tours in particular has drawn mixed reactions. A 5 percent cut from the presi- dent’s salary of $400,000 per year amounts to $1,667 per month. The move will be retroactive to March 1 — the day the cuts started to kick in — and will re- main in effect for the rest of fiscal 2013, said the White House offi- cial, who was not authorized to discuss the decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The president and first lady Michelle Obama reported almost $790,000 in adjusted gross in- come in 2011, the most recent year for which their tax returns have been made public. That fig- ure was down from the $1.7 mil- lion they brought in the year before and the $5.5 million they reported in 2009. About half of the family’s income in 2011 came from Obama’s salary, with the rest coming from book sales. The Obamas reported more than $172,000 in charitable donations. Wednesday’s notice followed a similar move a day earlier by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who committed to taking a salary cut equal to 14 days’ pay — the same level of cut that other De- fense Department civilians are being forced to take. As many as 700,000 civilians will have to take one unpaid day off each week for up to 14 weeks in the coming months. Obama isn’t the first president to give up part of his paycheck. Herbert Hoover put his salary in a separate account, then divvied it up, giving part to charity and part to employees he felt were underpaid, according to an inter- view he gave in 1937. John F. Kennedy donated his presiden- tial salary to various charities, according to Stacey Chandler, an archivist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. George Washington refused pay during the latter part of his military career, according to re- searchers at Mount Vernon. He tried to refuse a presidential salary, but Congress required that the position pay $25,000. Among lawmakers, Sen. Mark Begich, an Alaska Democrat, said Wednesday that he, too, would return part of his income to the Treasury, although he did not specify how much of his $174,000 salary he would give up. Begich said his office started furloughing staffers in mid-March and more than half of his staff will have their pay cut this year. “This won’t solve our spend- ing problem on its own, but I hope it is a reminder to Alaskans that I am willing to make the tough cuts, wherever they may be, to get our spending under control,” Begich said. A number of lawmakers have from time to time taken steps to show they’re not immune as the federal government looks to tighten its belt. An aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mc- Connell, R-Ky., said McConnell re- turns a substantial part of his salary to the Treasury every year. The Senate this month adopted by voice vote a sym- bolic amendment permitting — but not requiring — senators to give 20 percent of their salaries to the Treasury as part of the De- mocrats’ budget resolution. Also in March, as the spending cuts started bearing down, the GOP- controlled House imposed an 8.2 percent reduction on lawmakers’ personal office budgets. The White House, after declin- ing for weeks to provide specifics for how the president’s own staff had been affected, said Monday that 480 workers on the budget staff had been notified they may have to take days off without pay. Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, wouldn’t say whether no- tices have gone out to Obama aides outside the Office of Man- agement and Budget, including senior staff in the West Wing. But he said pay cuts remained a pos- sibility for additional White House employees if a budget deal to undo the cuts isn’t reached. “Everybody at the White House and the broader (execu- tive office) is dealing with the consequences — both, in many cases, in their own personal lives, but in how we work here at the White House,” Carney said. He added that the White House also has been trying to cut costs by slowing down hiring, scaling back supply purchases, curtail- ing staff travel, reducing the use of air cards for mobile Internet access and reviewing contracts to look for savings. Like lawmakers’ pay, Obama’s salary is set by law, so he must accept the funds and then write a check to the Treasury for the portion he plans to relinquish. Obama’s decision, first reported by The New York Times, won’t af- fect the other perquisites af- forded the president, from a mansion staffed with servants to the limousines, helicopters and Boeing 747 jumbo jet at every U.S. president’s beck and call. The White House did not say whether Vice President Joe Biden would make a similar gesture. The 5 percent that Obama will hand back mirrors the 5 percent cut that domestic agencies took when the reductions went into ef- fect. The Pentagon’s budget took an 8 percent hit. Every federal agency is grappling with spend- ing cuts, which the White House has warned could affect every- thing from commercial airline flights to classrooms and meat inspections. The cuts were written into a 2011 deficit-reduction measure as a trigger to force future action. The idea was that lawmakers, eager to avert the consequences of bluntly slashing $1 trillion over a decade, would have no choice but to come together to find smarter ways to reduce federal spending. But the two parties were at odds over whether more tax rev- enues were needed as part of the solution, and an intense cam- paign by Obama and his Cabinet to illustrate how the cuts could affect critical programs failed to spur an agreement by the March 1 deadline. As the cuts started taking effect, lawmakers turned to other issues, including an in- crease in the national debt ceil- ing, and there are no signs that a deal to undo the cuts retroac- tively will come anytime soon. Thursday , April18 , 2013 AdvanceTickets: Only $ 20 Available at Hy-Vee and the Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan until April 14 Riverfront Event Center, Historic Downtown Yankton Doors Open 4:30pm Dinner Served 5:00-7:00pm Booths Open 4:30-7:00pm Speaker 7:30pm at Dakota Theatre presented by... $1.00 OFF Admission with a non-perishable food item. Donations will be given to the Food Pantry. Lewis & Clark Home Builders Association 2013 Home Show 8 th Annual Kiwanis 4-H Ice Center 709 Whiting Drive • Yankton, SD Admission: $3.00/person • Children 12 & Under Free Get Inspired... The Lewis & Clark Home Builders Association Home Show is designed for home owners in all stages of building, remodeling, landscaping and decorating their homes. Thank You To Our 2013 Sponsors: April 6 th & 7 th , 2013 Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. • Sunday Noon – 4:00 p.m. VENDOR LIST: Yankton Storm Restoration (Gold Sponsor) Naturscaping Designs (Gold Sponsor) South Dakota Housing Development Authority (Silver Sponsor) Mead Lumber, Yankton & Vermillion Morton Buildings, Inc. Tri State Turf and Irrigation Anderson Realty Karls TV Hardscape Outlet-Concrete Materials Larry’s Heating and Cooling Homestead Homes, Wayne, NE First National Bank SD Custom Curbing Weather Guard Urethane LLC. Culligan Water Conditioning Kaiser Heating and Cooling Screenbuilders Huber Home Improvement / Fence & Deck Hartington Tree Better Business Bureau Eco-Water (Lindsay) Four Seasons Sanspa Monster Block/Midwest Concrete Better Flo (Ireton, IA) Kisch Construction Best Basement Technologies Superior Painting South Central Safety Concrete Revival, LLC. Pinkelman Sales Enercept Services Center Federal Credit Union ABC Seamless of Sioux Falls SD Attorney General Office Siouxland Gutter Helmet Rhonda Wesseln State Farm Insurance Kopetsky Ace Hardware Merkel Insulation and Siding Radon Mitigation Systems Granite Transformations Floor to Ceiling Bob’s Hobby Supply Miche Purses Back to the Best 2 MORNING COFFEE WEEKDAYS MONDAY-FRIDAY Thursday, April 4 7:40 am Yankton Chamber (Carmen Schramm) 8:20 am Yankton Conv/Vis (Lisa Scheve) Friday, April 5 7:40 am YAPG (Mike Dellinger) 8:20 am YAA (Jackie Quinn) Thursday, 4.4.13 ON THE WEB: www.yankton.net NEWS DEPARTMENT: [email protected] 14 14 PRESS DAKOTAN the world Formal Charge Against NY Woman In Shooting ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A New York woman has been indicted on a charge she lied on a form while buying two guns authorities say a neighbor used two years later to ambush and kill firefighters. Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley says a grand jury indicted Dawn Nguyen on Wednesday on one count of falsify- ing business records. Nguyen initially was arrested in December and faces similar fed- eral charges. She previously pleaded not guilty. Defense lawyer Matthew Parrinello says Wednesday’s action was expected and Nguyen will remain free pending arraignment. Authorities say Nguyen bought a rifle and a shotgun for felon William Spengler in 2010 but said they were for her. Spengler killed two firefighters and wounded two others as they responded to his burning Webster home Christmas Eve. He then killed himself. Obama To Return 5 Percent Of Salary P&D CLASSIFIEDS WORK FOR YOU! (605) 665-7811 Connecticut Expected To Approve Sweeping Gun Restrictions HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Con- necticut lawmakers were expected to approve sweeping new restric- tions on weapons and large-capac- ity magazines Wednesday, a response to the Newtown school shooting that will give the state some of the country’s tightest gun- control laws. The December massacre of 26 people inside Sandy Hook Elemen- tary School, which reignited a na- tional debate on gun control, set the stage for changes here that may have been impossible elsewhere: The governor, who personally in- formed parents that their children had been killed that day, champi- oned the cause, and legislative leaders, keenly aware of the atten- tion on the state, struck a biparti- san agreement they want to serve as a national model. The legislation adds more than 100 firearms to the state’s assault weapons ban and creates what offi- cials have called the nation’s first dangerous weapon offender reg- istry as well as eligibility rules for buying ammunition. Some parts of the bill will take effect immediately, including background checks for all firearms sales Connecticut will join states in- cluding California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts in having the country’s strongest gun-control laws, said Brian Malte, director of mobilization for the Brady Cam- paign to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington.
Transcript of Thursday, 4.4.13 PRESS D Obama To Return 5 Percent Of...
BY JOSH LEDERMANAssociated Press
WASHINGTON — Sharing a bitof budget pain, President BarackObama will return 5 percent ofhis salary each month to theTreasury in a show of solidaritywith federal workers smartingfrom government-wide spendingcuts.
Obama’s decision grew out ofa desire to share in the sacrificethat government employees aremaking, a White House officialsaid Wednesday. Hundreds ofthousands of workers could beforced to take unpaid leave —known as furloughs — if Con-gress does not reach an agree-ment soon to undo the cuts.
The president is demonstrat-ing that he will be paying a price,too, as the White House warns ofdire economic consequencesfrom the $85 billion in cuts thatstarted to hit federal programslast month after Congress failedto stop them. In the weeks since,the administration has faced re-peated questions about how theWhite House itself will be af-fected. The cancellation of WhiteHouse tours in particular hasdrawn mixed reactions.
A 5 percent cut from the presi-dent’s salary of $400,000 per yearamounts to $1,667 per month.
The move will be retroactiveto March 1 — the day the cutsstarted to kick in — and will re-main in effect for the rest of fiscal2013, said the White House offi-cial, who was not authorized todiscuss the decision publicly andspoke on condition of anonymity.
The president and first ladyMichelle Obama reported almost$790,000 in adjusted gross in-come in 2011, the most recentyear for which their tax returnshave been made public. That fig-ure was down from the $1.7 mil-lion they brought in the yearbefore and the $5.5 million theyreported in 2009. About half ofthe family’s income in 2011 camefrom Obama’s salary, with therest coming from book sales. TheObamas reported more than$172,000 in charitable donations.
Wednesday’s notice followeda similar move a day earlier byDefense Secretary Chuck Hagel,who committed to taking a salarycut equal to 14 days’ pay — thesame level of cut that other De-fense Department civilians arebeing forced to take. As many as700,000 civilians will have to takeone unpaid day off each week forup to 14 weeks in the comingmonths.
Obama isn’t the first presidentto give up part of his paycheck.Herbert Hoover put his salary ina separate account, then divviedit up, giving part to charity andpart to employees he felt wereunderpaid, according to an inter-view he gave in 1937. John F.Kennedy donated his presiden-tial salary to various charities,according to Stacey Chandler, anarchivist at the John F. KennedyPresidential Library.
George Washington refusedpay during the latter part of hismilitary career, according to re-searchers at Mount Vernon. Hetried to refuse a presidentialsalary, but Congress requiredthat the position pay $25,000.
Among lawmakers, Sen. MarkBegich, an Alaska Democrat, saidWednesday that he, too, wouldreturn part of his income to theTreasury, although he did notspecify how much of his $174,000salary he would give up. Begichsaid his office started furloughingstaffers in mid-March and morethan half of his staff will havetheir pay cut this year.
“This won’t solve our spend-ing problem on its own, but Ihope it is a reminder to Alaskansthat I am willing to make thetough cuts, wherever they maybe, to get our spending undercontrol,” Begich said.
A number of lawmakers havefrom time to time taken steps toshow they’re not immune as thefederal government looks totighten its belt. An aide to SenateMinority Leader Mitch Mc-Connell, R-Ky., said McConnell re-turns a substantial part of hissalary to the Treasury everyyear. The Senate this monthadopted by voice vote a sym-bolic amendment permitting —but not requiring — senators togive 20 percent of their salariesto the Treasury as part of the De-mocrats’ budget resolution. Alsoin March, as the spending cutsstarted bearing down, the GOP-controlled House imposed an 8.2percent reduction on lawmakers’personal office budgets.
The White House, after declin-ing for weeks to provide specificsfor how the president’s own staffhad been affected, said Mondaythat 480 workers on the budgetstaff had been notified they mayhave to take days off without pay.
Obama’s press secretary, JayCarney, wouldn’t say whether no-tices have gone out to Obamaaides outside the Office of Man-agement and Budget, includingsenior staff in the West Wing. But
he said pay cuts remained a pos-sibility for additional WhiteHouse employees if a budget dealto undo the cuts isn’t reached.
“Everybody at the WhiteHouse and the broader (execu-tive office) is dealing with theconsequences — both, in manycases, in their own personallives, but in how we work here atthe White House,” Carney said.He added that the White Housealso has been trying to cut costsby slowing down hiring, scalingback supply purchases, curtail-ing staff travel, reducing the useof air cards for mobile Internetaccess and reviewing contractsto look for savings.
Like lawmakers’ pay, Obama’ssalary is set by law, so he mustaccept the funds and then write acheck to the Treasury for theportion he plans to relinquish.Obama’s decision, first reportedby The New York Times, won’t af-fect the other perquisites af-forded the president, from amansion staffed with servants tothe limousines, helicopters andBoeing 747 jumbo jet at everyU.S. president’s beck and call.The White House did not saywhether Vice President Joe Bidenwould make a similar gesture.
The 5 percent that Obama willhand back mirrors the 5 percentcut that domestic agencies tookwhen the reductions went into ef-fect. The Pentagon’s budget tookan 8 percent hit. Every federalagency is grappling with spend-ing cuts, which the White Househas warned could affect every-thing from commercial airlineflights to classrooms and meatinspections.
The cuts were written into a2011 deficit-reduction measure asa trigger to force future action.The idea was that lawmakers,eager to avert the consequencesof bluntly slashing $1 trillion overa decade, would have no choicebut to come together to findsmarter ways to reduce federalspending.
But the two parties were atodds over whether more tax rev-enues were needed as part of thesolution, and an intense cam-paign by Obama and his Cabinetto illustrate how the cuts couldaffect critical programs failed tospur an agreement by the March1 deadline. As the cuts startedtaking effect, lawmakers turnedto other issues, including an in-crease in the national debt ceil-ing, and there are no signs that adeal to undo the cuts retroac-tively will come anytime soon.
Thursday , April 18 , 2013
Advance Tickets: Only $ 20 Available at Hy-Vee and the
Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan until April 14
Riverfront Event Center, Historic Downtown Yankton Doors Open 4:30pm Dinner Served 5:00-7:00pm Booths Open 4:30-7:00pm Speaker 7:30pm at Dakota Theatre
presented by...
$1.00 OFF Admission with a non-perishable food item. Donations will be given to the Food Pantry.
Lewis & Clark Home Builders Association
2013
Home Show
8 th Annual
Kiwanis 4-H Ice Center 709 Whiting Drive • Yankton, SD
Admission: $3.00/person • Children 12 & Under Free
Get Inspired... The Lewis & Clark Home Builders Association Home Show is designed for home owners in all stages of building, remodeling, landscaping and decorating their homes.
Thank You To Our 2013 Sponsors:
April 6 th & 7 th , 2013 Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. • Sunday Noon – 4:00 p.m.
VENDOR LIST: Yankton Storm Restoration (Gold Sponsor)
Naturscaping Designs (Gold Sponsor) South Dakota Housing
Development Authority (Silver Sponsor) Mead Lumber, Yankton & Vermillion
Morton Buildings, Inc. Tri State Turf and Irrigation
Anderson Realty Karls TV
Hardscape Outlet-Concrete Materials Larry’s Heating and Cooling
Homestead Homes, Wayne, NE First National Bank SD
Custom Curbing Weather Guard Urethane LLC. Culligan Water Conditioning Kaiser Heating and Cooling
Screenbuilders Huber Home Improvement / Fence & Deck
Hartington Tree Better Business Bureau
Eco-Water (Lindsay) Four Seasons Sanspa
Monster Block/Midwest Concrete Better Flo (Ireton, IA) Kisch Construction
Best Basement Technologies Superior Painting
South Central Safety Concrete Revival, LLC.
Pinkelman Sales Enercept
Services Center Federal Credit Union ABC Seamless of Sioux Falls SD Attorney General Office
Siouxland Gutter Helmet Rhonda Wesseln State Farm Insurance
Kopetsky Ace Hardware Merkel Insulation and Siding
Radon Mitigation Systems Granite Transformations
Floor to Ceiling Bob’s Hobby Supply
Miche Purses Back to the Best 2
MORNING COFFE E WEEKDAYS MONDAY-FRIDAY
Thursday, April 4 7:40 am Yankton Chamber
(Carmen Schramm) 8:20 am Yankton Conv/Vis
(Lisa Scheve) Friday, April 5 7:40 am YAPG (Mike Dellinger) 8:20 am YAA (Jackie Quinn)
Thursday, 4.4.13ON THE WEB: www.yankton.net
NEWS DEPARTMENT: [email protected] 1414 PRESS DAKOTANthe worldFormal Charge Against NY Woman In Shooting
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A New York woman has been indictedon a charge she lied on a form while buying two guns authoritiessay a neighbor used two years later to ambush and kill firefighters.
Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley says a grandjury indicted Dawn Nguyen on Wednesday on one count of falsify-ing business records.
Nguyen initially was arrested in December and faces similar fed-eral charges. She previously pleaded not guilty.
Defense lawyer Matthew Parrinello says Wednesday’s actionwas expected and Nguyen will remain free pending arraignment.
Authorities say Nguyen bought a rifle and a shotgun for felonWilliam Spengler in 2010 but said they were for her.
Spengler killed two firefighters and wounded two others as theyresponded to his burning Webster home Christmas Eve. He thenkilled himself.
Obama To Return 5 Percent Of Salary
P&D CLASSIFIEDSWORK FOR YOU!(605) 665-7811
Connecticut ExpectedTo Approve Sweeping
Gun RestrictionsHARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Con-
necticut lawmakers were expectedto approve sweeping new restric-tions on weapons and large-capac-ity magazines Wednesday, aresponse to the Newtown schoolshooting that will give the statesome of the country’s tightest gun-control laws.
The December massacre of 26people inside Sandy Hook Elemen-tary School, which reignited a na-tional debate on gun control, setthe stage for changes here that mayhave been impossible elsewhere:The governor, who personally in-formed parents that their childrenhad been killed that day, champi-oned the cause, and legislativeleaders, keenly aware of the atten-tion on the state, struck a biparti-san agreement they want to serveas a national model.
The legislation adds more than100 firearms to the state’s assaultweapons ban and creates what offi-cials have called the nation’s firstdangerous weapon offender reg-istry as well as eligibility rules forbuying ammunition. Some parts ofthe bill will take effect immediately,including background checks for allfirearms sales
Connecticut will join states in-cluding California, New York, NewJersey and Massachusetts in havingthe country’s strongest gun-controllaws, said Brian Malte, director ofmobilization for the Brady Cam-paign to Prevent Gun Violence inWashington.
