Cornyn says Obama budget makes only 'modest progress' toward entitlement reform

Published April 14, 2013

FoxNews.com

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A top Senate Republican expressed only guarded optimism Sunday about a potential grand bargain with Democrats based on the budget President Obama submitted that includes entitlement reform but additional tax increases.  

“I give the president credit that he did put (a budget) on the table,” Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn told “Fox News Sunday."

The Texas senator, in charge of wrangling Republican votes in the Democrat-controlled chamber, called Obama’s plan to chain Social Security increased to the Consumer Price Index only “modest progress” toward entitlement reform.

However, the president’s 2014 budget also suggests raising taxes another trillion dollars and is not balanced, he said.

His comments are similar to those made last week by House Speaker John Boehner after Obama released the budget.

The Ohio Republican said Obama wants to hold hostage “modest reforms” for another round of tax increases, referring to increases his party agreed to in December 2012 as part of a deal with Democrats to keep the country from going off the so-called fiscal cliff.

Later on Fox, Sen. Dick Durbin, who counts votes for Democrats in the chamber, said Boehner simply dismissed the plan because the word “tax” was included.

He said Republicans “have to put everything on the table” if they are indeed serious about dealing with the budget deficit.

“For goodness sakes,” Durbin said, acknowledging he has supported the chained CPI concept and that it could be part of the Social Security reform plan if it gives the program long-term solvency.

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Curiosity sleeps as solar eruption barrels toward Mars

LOS ANGELES –  Curiosity hunkered down after the sun unleashed a blast that raced toward Mars.

While the hardy rover was designed to withstand punishing space weather, its handlers decided to power it down as a precaution since it suffered a recent computer problem.

"We're being more careful," project manager Richard Cook of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Wednesday.

While Curiosity slept, the Opportunity rover and two NASA spacecraft circling overhead carried on with normal activities.

On Tuesday, scientists noticed a huge flare erupting from the sun that hurled a stream of radiation in Mars' direction. The solar burst also spawned a cloud of superheated gas that barreled toward the red planet at 2 million mph.

'We'll be watching and seeing what happens.'

- Roger Gibbs, JPL deputy manager for the Mars exploration program

The eruption did not appear severe or extreme, but "middle of the road, all things considered" said space weather chief Bob Rutledge at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The solar tempest was not expected to have an impact on Earth. In the past, such outbursts have triggered solar storms with the ability to disrupt utility grids, airline flights, satellite networks and GPS services. They're also known to produce shimmering auroras in places farther from the poles.

Since Mars lacks a planet-wide magnetic field, it does not experience geomagnetic storms. Rather, the planet sees a spike in radiation, Rutledge said.

Powerful solar blasts can cause trouble to Mars spacecraft. In 2003, an intense solar flare knocked out the radiation detector on the Odyssey orbiter.

NASA does not expect similar drama from the latest solar activity.

In the worst-case scenario, one or more of the working Mars spacecraft may enter "safe mode" in which science activities are halted but they remain in contact with Earth.

"We'll be watching and seeing what happens," said Roger Gibbs, JPL deputy manager for the Mars exploration program.

The unsettled space weather comes as Curiosity is recovering from a memory hiccup that put its science experiments on hold. It was the first major problem to hit the car-size rover since it landed last year in an ancient crater near the Martian equator to hunt for the chemical building blocks of life.

Engineers were in the middle of troubleshooting when they decided to wait for the weather to pass. The delay means it'll take longer for Curiosity to return to analyzing the pinch of rock powder it collected from a recent drilling.

Since its instruments are turned off, it can't use its radiation sensor to track the solar particles.

"It's just bad timing," Cook said.

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