Now that Congress is back in session, the first item on the agenda is to avoid another recession by softening the ramifications of looming tax increases and spending cuts. The second order of business is the unsustainable long-run debt trajectory. Whenever the debt trajectory is discussed, various versions of the same grand bargain are always brought up. Though even if [...]
We have arrived at crunch time. In 100 hours (give or take), the United States will no longer have money to pay the bills. Will the gas get shut off? Will we get harassing phone calls from China, Brazil, and Japan? No one quite knows. In an attempt to not find out, politicians in Washington, D.C., have been frantically negotiating, [...]
Many families can attest to the fact that balancing the family budget can be a struggle. It requires buying less or earning more, which is hard, but it eventually has to happen. And as muchpeople wouldn’t like to believe, just cutting out trips to the vending machine probably won’t solve the problem. The same principle is at work in our [...]
United States policymakers have been talking non-stop about cuts since the 2010 midterm elections. The conversation has moved beyond whether or not to cut; we are now debating how many trillions of dollars the final package of cuts will be. The first round was earlier this year when lawmakers were negotiating a package of [...]
Vice President Joe Biden has been negotiating with leading congressional Republicans for weeks in an attempt to reach a deal on deficit reduction so that Congress will vote to raise the debt ceiling. The discussions have been taking place behind closed doors, so I had been holding out hope that these talks were going somewhere—anywhere. And I thought they were: [...]
In the past, opposing agricultural subsidies was anathema to any candidate seeking electoral success in the Midwest, and especially in Iowa, the home of the first caucus in the process that chooses each party’s presidential nomination. Back in 2008, Iowans were overwhelmingly in favor of ethanol and the economic benefits it brings. Accordingly, the candidates supported it, too, and the [...]
Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan dropped the gauntlet on Monday when he released the House Budget Committee‘s fiscal year 2012 Budget Resolution. The Republican Ryan, who chairs the committee, calls his alternative to the Obama budget the “Path to Prosperity,” arguing that its acute focus on spending cuts and deficit reduction will create an opportunity for economic growth, increasing the standard [...]
A few weeks ago, a federal judge declared that the recently passed health care legislation was unconstitutional because its mandate requiring individuals to purchase insurance is akin to compelling citizens to buy broccoli. In other words, Judge Vinson said that the “novel” step to regulate “inactivity” is beyond Congressional authority. Judge Vinson’s ruling was reminiscent of a similar ruling last [...]
The national debt is now at $13.7 trillion and rising – if our government doesn’t soon start pursuing serious deficit-reduction efforts, we will suffer the consequences. And they may be dire. A fun New York Times puzzle highlights the difficulty of the budgetary challenge, and the President’s bipartisan deficit reduction committee offers some possible solutions.
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