Obama mulls over immigration move
WASHINGTON – Even as they grapple with an immigration crisis at the border, White House officials are making plans to act before November’s mid-term elections to grant work permits to potentially millions of immigrants who are in this country illegally, allowing them to stay without threat of deportation, according to advocates and lawmakers in touch with the administration.
Such a large-scale move on immigration could scramble election-year politics and lead some conservative Republicans to push for impeachment proceedings against President Barack Obama, a prospect White House officials have openly discussed.
Yet there’s little sign the urgent humanitarian situation in South Texas, where unaccompanied minors have been showing up by the tens of thousands from Central America, has impeded Obama from making plans to address some portion of the 11.5 million immigrants now in this country illegally. Obama announced late last month that congressional efforts to remake the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system were dead, and he would proceed on his own authority to fix the system where he could.
Medicare’s finances looking much better
WASHINGTON – Medicare’s financial future is looking brighter despite a growing wave of baby boomers reaching retirement.
Getting relief from a slowdown in health-care spending, the program’s giant hospital trust fund won’t be exhausted until 2030, the government said Monday. That’s four years later than last year’s estimate.
As for Social Security, its massive retirement program is projected to go bankrupt 2034, although disability benefits are in more immediate danger. The disability trust fund now is projected to run dry in just two years. At that point, unless Congress acts, the program will collect only enough payroll taxes to pay 81 percent of benefits.
Associated Press
