We thought tax reform meant lowering rates and broadening the base by eliminating or cutting back on various deductions, credits, and loopholes. That’s what the Bowles-Simpson commission proposed. That’s what Paul Ryan and David Camp are working on. And that’s the pro-growth model. (more)
Someone pass Budget Chairman Paul Ryan a tissue, because it appears President Barack Obama has broken his heart. (more)
Potential Republican presidential candidates attacked President Obama’s speech on Wednesday, calling it a poor substitute for what they say is necessary to deal with the country’s fiscal problems. (more)
The president’s budget deficit speech offered a vague framework for saving $2,000 billion and taxing an extra $1,000 billion by 2023, but also his blueprint for campaign-trail criticism of Republican candidates in the 2012 election. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in promised savings by the end of this budget year. (more)
Already privy to President Barack Obama’s plans to announce a tax increase as part of his long term deficit-reduction proposal, Republican leaders in both chambers said this week they would block any attempts by the White House to raise taxes. (more)
President Barack Obama’s deputies say he wants to tackle the budget deficit by raising taxes on wealthy people and oil companies, but there’s not much evidence that increased taxation can significantly reduce the annual flood of red-ink, now amounting to roughly $1,500 billion, or 40 percent of federal spending. (more)
The US budget deficit shot up 15.7 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2011, the Treasury Department said Wednesday as political knives were being sharpened for a new budget battle. (more)
In preparation for the looming debate to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, a top House Democrat joined President Obama by issuing his own own personal mea culpa for opposing a debt ceiling increase in years past. (more)
There is a secret entitlement program that the Obama administration does not want to talk about. This entitlement program does not help those on Medicare or Medicaid, and it is not part of the Social Security system. This entitlement program has one function: paying interest to foreign governments that bankroll our ever-growing $14 trillion national debt. (more)
John’s Assignment Desk: John Rosenberg suggests that some enterprising journalist or graduate student add up the cost of the federal government’s redundant affirmative action and civil rights bureaucracy. Good idea. I would think it’s quite expensive–don’t lots of government agencies have little non-essential offices dedicated to “equal employment opportunity”? Rosenberg suggests we let a mere two agencies–DOJ and EEOC –do the job. … (more)
The other day, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote a column in which he posed the question, “What if we’re not broke?” Dionne concluded that we’re not actually broke and that “a phony metaphor [the idea that we’re broke] is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.” (more)
“Hey, look over there! There are some really expensive programs over there!” Mike Kinsley criticizes one of the most annoying liberal arguments against cutting the fat in government–the Willie Sutton argument, or “Why bother to cut the fat in these agencies and programs when the really big budget busters are entitlements like Medicare and Social Security”: (more)
The political fortunes of Senate Democrats and President Obama are moving in opposite directions, complicating their efforts to win a titanic battle against Republicans over federal spending. (more)
In the wake of the US government projecting record budget deficits, Bill Gross, the man who runs the world’s biggest bond fund, has eliminated all government-related debt from his flagship fund, Bloomberg news reports. (more)
The federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February at $223 billion, according to preliminary numbers the Congressional Budget Office released Monday morning. (more)
The current union boss-sponsored story line in Wisconsin’s budget battle is that newly-elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker is exaggerating the state’s budget deficit – or creating the deficit himself through tax cuts – as a pretext to eliminate collective bargaining rights for the state’s public sector workers. But, that’s not the song labor unions were singing last year when Democrats were in charge of the state. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Budget Committee chairman says Republicans don’t want to see the government shut down in a fight with President Barack Obama over spending priorities. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Not since World War II has the federal budget deficit made up such a big chunk of the U.S. economy. And within two or three years, economists fear the result could be sharply higher interest rates that would slow economic growth. (more)
