Moving to protect the military from a crippling wave of budget cuts next year, a key House committee voted Monday to cut instead food aid, health care and social services like Meals on Wheels.

The measure would require federal employees to contribute more to their pensions, saving taxpayers more than $80 billion over the coming decade, while illegal immigrants would be denied tax refunds from the $1,000 per-child tax credit.

Occupy Wall Street protesters have staged rallies across the US as they called for a nationwide general strike to mark International Workers' Day.

Thousands gathered to protest peacefully in Union Square in New York City. That rally came hours after arrests and a confrontation with police on the city's Fifth Avenue. In Oakland, California protesters clashed with police as flash-bang grenades and tear gas were used.

Two leading conservative political organizations say they are stepping up coordinated efforts to repeal state-level renewable energy targets.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a “stealth business lobbyist” that works with corporate interests to help them write and implement “model” legislation — says it may soon start crafting laws designed to kill or weaken state targets for renewable electricity, heating and fuels.

MALCOLM Turnbull has sharply criticised the corrupting power of money in the US and described America as looking ''like a country that is barely governed''.

He attacks the Republican idea that the budgetary situation can be improved by cutting the taxes of the wealthy as ''just bizarre'', and describes the right-wing Tea Party as extreme, reactionary and radical.

Author Robert Manne writes: ''He thinks that American voluntary voting encourages Republican extremism and the search for 'hot-button issues', like abortion or guns or gay marriage or Obama as a secret Muslim.