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, resulting in a delay of the passage of the war-time supplemental spending bill- the bill teacher spending is attached to (more)
The budget deficit in 2010 is expected to set a record at $1.471 trillion – or 10 percent of GDP. In 2011, the administration projects the deficit will again top $1.4 trillion. From 2010 to 2020, the Obama budget plan would run up a cumulative deficit of nearly $10 trillion (more)
In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, David Axelrod, the president’s chief political advisor, touted patent reform as a potential spur to innovation and job creation. But it’s not clear that the patent backed by the White House nearly enough to tackle our out-of-control patent system. There’s a patent war going on in the cell phone industry, and virtually all of the major manufacturers are involved (more)
Last December, China refused to sign on to the non-binding Copenhagen greenhouse gas reduction goals and in March 2010 was only willing to agree to reduce its “carbon intensity.” Were China a leader in green energy investment and employment, one would expect its government to exploit this competitive advantage by championing a global climate accord. (more)
The Administration has made clear that it intends to address housing finance reform as soon as financial regulatory reform is concluded. To many, this means the Administration will release its long-awaited plan for the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two housing government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) whose combined losses could result in a $1 trillion bailout (more)
America is substantially wealthier than many European countries. For instance, America’s per capita income was over $45,000 in 2007, while Germany’s weighed in at just over $34,000. If Germany were an American state, its per capital level would sit in between South Carolina and Oklahoma (more)
The economy clearly failed to respond in the manner predicted by Obama’s advisors. But why? There are two popular explanations. The first is that the stimulus spending simply did not work. The other explanation is that the stimulus actually did work and that without it, unemployment would be even higher than it is today. This is the argument being made by President Obama (more)
On Wednesday, June 30, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) updated its long-term budget outlook. Contained within it were updated projections for America’s largest domestic program, Social Security. The updates are not pretty. (more)
Recently there has been a great deal of media discussion concerning the independence of the Federal Reserve in its role as the designer and implementer of monetary policy. In this outpouring of words there has, however, been little if any explicit discussion of the rationale for central bank independence (more)
After months of emphasizing the need to coordinate a global regulatory response to the global financial crisis, the Administration has done an about-face. Instead of working in concert with international partners, the Administration now wants to enact reform unilaterally so as to “set the global agenda” (more)
For mayors across the country a single budget item threatens their cities’ capacity to maintain parks, keep the streets safe, pick up the trash and educate children—all the important things a city government does. That single cost is pension and health care payments to retired city employees (more)
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released its Quarterly Banking Profile (QBP) for year-end 2009. Things have never been worse for the banking system: bad loans (loans that are 90 days or more past due) account for 5.37% of all loans and leases, an all-time record; net charge-offs (NCOs) – losses taken on bad loans – totaled $53.0 billion, or 2.89% (annualized), in the fourth quarter which is also the highest rate ever recorded in (more)
Last week, President Obama celebrated the one-year anniversary of the signing of the stimulus bill with a ceremony in the Executive Office Building. He acknowledged that implementation of the stimulus had not been “perfect” but took particular pride in the efficiency of the stimulus spending given “the scope, the magnitude of this thing” (more)
The debate surrounding the massive health care system overhaul that has been raging in Washington leaves one thing clear: Redesigning roughly one-seventh of the economy is no simple task. The massive 2,000 page health care reform bills recently passed by both houses of Congress—currently languishing in Scott Brown limbo—represent an ambitious effort to reorder the [...] (more)
If a country like Greece is allowed to default, how could a similar fate be avoided in Spain, Portugal, or even Ireland given their budget deficits and debt-to-GDP ratios (more)
Over the past few months, the Obama White House has taken a beating over its proposed policies, with its ideas on health care reform and the federal budget deficit arousing the most intense opposition. As public understanding of the Administration’s economic plans has grown, support for these plans has declined (more)
