1.) FCIC dissenters defend bailing out Wall Street — Two reports will come out of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission today. The one written by the panel’s liberal majority will blame lax regulation and the banking industry for the collapse of the housing industry. The other, written by commissioners Bill Thomas, a former Republican congressman from California, Keith Hennessey, former chairman of the White House National Economic Council under President George W. Bush, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, spreads the blame more broadly among “investors, creditors, regulators, homebuyers, and politicians,” all of whom must take “personal responsibility.” The dissenters also defended bailing out Wall Street: “For a policymaker, the calculus is simple: if you bail out AIG and you’re wrong, you will have wasted taxpayer money and provoked public outrage,” the paper reads. “If you don’t bail out AIG and you’re wrong, the global financial system collapses. It should be easy to see why policymakers favored action–there was a chance of being wrong either way, and the costs of being wrong without action were far greater than the costs of being wrong with action.” Thank goodness we didn’t destabilize the global financial system, which might have led to really scary stuff, like high unemployment. (more)
A group of three conservatives on President Obama’s financial crisis inquiry commission called the final report of the panel “unbalanced” and “incorrect,” in a 27-page dissent from the more than 500-page document endorsed by a majority of members. (more)
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Tuesday came out against the tax deal reached between President Obama and congressional Republicans, saying the temporary nature of the tax rate extension would limit the positive economic impact and correspondingly make the deficit worse. (more)
When the Simpson-Bowles Obama Commission “chairman’s mark” came out last week, there were far too many conservatives who were too quick to say nice things about it. Blinded by lower marginal tax rates and some entitlement reforms, they chose to ignore the fact that the plan is a ten-year tax hike of over $1 trillion, and would saddle taxpayers with a taxes-to-GDP ratio of 21 percent, the highest in American history. A week later, the Rivlin-Domenici commission released their report with a $500 billion tax hike. Americans for Tax Reform actually produced our own (balanced) budget plan that cuts spending and cuts taxes in a reasonable way. But it’s worth reflecting on what too many on the Right said about the “higher taxes” plans for almost-balanced budgets. (more)
Irresponsible Billy Jones is once again spending more than his allowance. He is running up huge bills on the credit card his parents gave him. His parents cut his allowance nine and then again seven years ago and now Billy’s sister Suzy is debating some family friends whether a scheduled automatic increase in Billy’s allowance should be allowed to take effect January 1. (more)
One of the heated debates taking place in Washington D.C. is whether the federal government should give states $10 billion to save teacher jobs as part of an additional stimulus package. In fact, last Thursday night the issue proved to be contentious enough to delay the passage of the war-time supplemental spending bill – the bill the teacher spending is attached to. Eleven Democrats (and Senator Lieberman) joined the Republicans in sending the House-passed bill back to the House, refusing to pass the measure unless the additional funding is removed. Debate on the issue is expected to continue this week. (more)
Last Friday while speaking at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas about the economy, President Obama said: (more)
With everybody focused on Obamacare and its new entitlement spending and taxing, the administration has tried to sneak in yet another bailout for housing. Yet again, Team Obama is rewarding reckless behavior, punishing the 90 percent of responsible homeowners who are making good on their mortgages, and setting up a greater moral hazard that will surely lead to an expansion of bailout nation. (more)
President Obama’s attempt to press ahead with a comprehensive health-care bill on Monday prompted one reaction in Washington more than any other: confusion. (more)
