Talk:2012 United States federal budget/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Hurricanehink (talk · contribs) 16:12, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this. I'll try and remain neutral.


 * "The 2012 United States federal budget is the United States federal budget to fund the United States federal government's operations for the fiscal year 2012, which is October 2011–September 2012." - can you try and avoid the redundancies a bit? Do you need the second "United States federal budget"? It's just a bit wordy for the first sentence of the article.
 * In the second sentence, "while" is an inappropriate word choice, since that implies that it happened at the same time. I think a semicolon however (however) would work well, since it's something that's against the first sentence.
 * "in April 2011 announced a competing plan, The Path to Prosperity." - I think the ordering would work better if it went "...announced in April 2011..." or "announced a competing plan in April 2011 known as the...". "April 2011" coming after that description doesn't work that well.
 * "appropriations" in the 2nd paragraph of the lede should be linked. Also, remove the 2nd usage of that word later in that sentence.
 * "part of two bill" - grammar? should that be "two bills" or something else?

That's just the lede. I'll get started on the rest later. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 16:12, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * All fixed. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you link to appropriations? ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

--♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 03:51, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Early proposals
 * " formed a bipartisan commission, called the Bowles–Simpson Commission" - can you avoid "commission" twice?
 * Nowhere in ref 3 does it say it was called the "Bowles-Simpson Commission" in those exact words. Also, I usually heard it as "Simpson-Bowles" on TV and whatnot. Why the reversal? Also, was this for FY2011 or FY2012? Or just in general?
 * Neither order is actually the official name, and the article on the commission lists both orders. "Bowles-Simpson" gets 3,500,000 hits on Google while "Simpson-Bowles" gets 402,000.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting, thanks! In that sentence though, do you need the comma after "Bowles-Simpson Cmmission"? ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed the comma. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "The Obama administration proposed his 2012 budget on February 14, 2011." - just a nitpick, but the administration should not have the pronoun "his". Either Obama, his; or administration, its.
 * "which are expected to make up much of the increase in the deficit in future years" - grammatical qualm, but since that is in the past tense, shouldn't it be "which were expected"? That would maintain tense consistency.
 * "A motion to proceed on President Obama's 2012 budget proposal was defeated in the Senate by a margin of 0-97 votes on May 25, 2011, the same day that the Ryan budget was also defeated." - I think the bit about the Ryan budget should be removed and mentioned later, since until that point it had not been mentioned.
 * I think the 3rd paragraph should mention Ryan's status. He's not merely a congressman, rather the chairman of the House Budget Committee. For someone who doesn't know about anything that happened, there should be a bit more context.
 * "This plan would reportedly cut $5.8 trillion" - reportedly is a weasel word, and it sounds like you're doubting whether it would indeed do that. Something like "plan was reported to cut" or something.
 * "This plan was criticized" - by whom?


 * All fixed. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Rest of "History"
 * "Two rival plans were then prepared by the Senate Democrats and House Republicans." - this makes it read like the plans were prepared after the House one failed in the Senate. Is that what happened?
 * Yes, the section is in chronological order. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "On July 31, 2011, it was announced that President Obama and the leadership of both legislative chambers had reached a deal on the debt limit legislation" - who first announced it?
 * Fixed. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Why was it thought that FEMA would have run out of money, and why did that change?
 * I think it was just a matter that Hurricane Irene hit near the end of the fiscal year, and FEMA officials figured that they didn't have enough money yet to do what they needed to. I'd have to find another source to get more details. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yea, did you find out why FEMA thought it would but then it wouldn't? That's probably one of the bigger instances where the federal budget most publicly affected millions of people, and, given my user name, I'm also curious. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I did a bit more research and added some more details. As far I can tell, it wasn't anything more exciting than the FEMA bean counters deciding whether there was enough money left in the fund based on the unexpectedly large impact of the storm.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The first time you mention the Federal Emergency Management Agency, you should put (FEMA) in parenthesis, since you never clarify the acronym is linked to that agency.
 * Fixed. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * When and why was the surtax on millionaires dropped? Ditto the XL pipeline? Those were the two most public points of contention between the two parties, IMO.
 * The sources don't give a specific reason. It's likely that the reasons are not publicly known, since these negotiations tend to take place behind closed doors.  Perhaps when the involved Congressional leaders publish their memoirs a decade from now, we will know for sure.  :-)  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Hah, good point. That's the beauty of Wiki - things change. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "The cut had been from 6.2% to 4.2%" - that could be explained a bit more of what it actually meant, since that was another popular public point of the discussion.
 * I've clarified this. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * In the last paragraph of "History", it speaks of a tax cut, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the taxes didn't go down, so it wasn't a tax cut, right? I know it was scheduled to go up, and they prevented that, but is that the same as a tax cut?
 * Taxes tend to be cut on a temporary basis. So if the tax was going to increase after February 2012, but new legislation is passed to maintain the same rate until that December, it counts as a tax cut for those ten months.  This is especially because, from a budgetary perspective, the chunk of money from the higher tax rate is expected to exist, and it disappears from the official projections only when a new law is enacted.  Regardless, I've revised that last paragraph to make it clear that it was an extension of a tax cut rather than a "new" tax cut.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that makes sense. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Major initiatives
 * " However, funding for 26 short-distance routes eliminated in the House version was restored in the enacted bill." - wait, the first sentence said "No new funding for intercity and high-speed rail was included in the budget." So what exactly was restored?
 * Intercity and high-speed routes are long-distance. I'll make that more clear in the text. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Is there info on how the funding was decreased for Iraq and Afghanistan? A breakdown by country would be great, and perhaps some context, considering the US involvement was diminishing at the time in Iraq but not yet in Afghanistan.
 * The source gives the combined figure; I'd have to find another source for the breakdown. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not a huge deal. I'd bet that most Americans still lump the two wars together in their mind (and there probably are lots of shared costs). ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * How do you define major initiatives? You include a section on Race to the Top, but that's only $500 million, or .01% of the total budget. Or, I should say, why did you include that bit when not other information on other billion dollar expenditures?
 * These are nearly all pulled from the press releases from the Democratic and Republican caucuses of the House Budget Committee; I figured that the items that the parties themselves wished to feature was a good indication of what was "major", and I used my discretion as to what I thought had been reported in the media. So these are "major" in terms of attention rather than size.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe you should emphasize that? That you're including ones from those press releases? ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's clear from the references which ones are coming from press releases. Also, some of them come from other sources, and I don't want to exclude other editors from adding items from other sources that they feel belong in the section. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Other
 * What are "outlays"?
 * Outlays refer to money actually spent. There's a subtle difference between outlays and budget authority, so it's important to use the right term, but I don't think this is the place to go into a big long explanation of all the nuances.  I added a parenthetical definition just in case this is an unfamiliar word to a reader.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Those are the biggest things that currently stand out to me, but that's only based on prose and content. When that's done I'll look into other aspects of the article that are required for GA passage. --♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 01:22, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the thorough review! I am at Wikimania right now and so I'll need until the middle of next week to attend to these changes.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 02:29, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No prob, enjoy your time down there! --♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 02:34, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Alright, it's almost there. Sorry it took a while for me to get back to you, but only a few very minor things left. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem, I've cleaned up the last couple of items above. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)