World/Nation Briefs November 9, 2011
Union-restricting law defeated in blow to GOP
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state's new collective bargaining law was defeated Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment.
In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers. With more than a quarter of the votes counted late Tuesday, 63 percent of votes were to reject the law.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, among the many union leaders who hailed the outcome, said victory was achieved among Democrats and Republicans in urban and rural counties.
"Ohio sent a message to every politician out there: Go in and make war on your employees rather than make jobs with your employees, and you do so at your own peril," he said.
Kasich congratulated his opponents and said he would spend time contemplating how best to take the state forward.
Debt crisis forces Berlusconi to promise to resign
ROME - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi conceded Tuesday he no longer had the support to govern and announced he would resign like his Greek counterpart, becoming the biggest political casualty yet of the European debt crisis.
Berlusconi promised to leave office after Parliament passes economic reforms demanded by the European Union to keep Italy from sinking into Europe's debt mess. He came to the decision hours after a vote on a routine piece of legislation made it clear he no longer commanded a majority in the lower Chamber of Deputies.
A vote on the reform measures is planned for next week, giving Berlusconi a few more days before his turbulent 17 years in public life - and a political era in Italy - draw to a close. Over the years, Italy's political establishment watched as the media mogul survived sex scandals and corruption charges while branding his opponents communists, traitors and terrorists.
Both Italy and Greece are under heavy pressure to reassure financial markets that the 17-country eurozone is moving quickly to reduce crippling government debts before they break apart the monetary union and plunge the world into a new recession.
In Greece, a government official said a new Greek interim government will be announced this afternoon, after critical power-sharing talks between the country's two main parties dragged into a third day despite intense European pressure.
'Supercommittee' GOP faction has new taxes offer
WASHINGTON - With a Thanksgiving deadline fast approaching, the GOP members of a deficit-reduction supercommittee are pressing a plan to cut the deficit by about $1.5 trillion over the coming decade, showing flexibility on tax revenue increases for the first time while pressing curbs on Medicare spending and a less generous cost-of-living increase for Social Security beneficiaries.
The plan floated by Republicans, including tea party favorite Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, would place sharp limits on the total amount of tax deductions and credits that a person could claim, in exchange for significantly lower income tax rates. At the same time, Republicans are willing to accept a net increase in individual income tax revenues of about $300 billion over the coming decade.
The proposal also would cut spending by about $700 billion, mixing a less generous cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security beneficiaries with further cuts to agency operating budgets and curbs to the booming growth of Medicare and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled. Other revenues would come from proposals such as auctioning broadcast spectrum, raising Medicare premiums and increasing aviation security fees.
- The Associated Press