With regard to tonight’s House vote to raise the federal debt limit, let’s see if I understand this correctly. House Republicans oppose a “clean” debt limit increase – that is, legislation that would do only one thing: raise the limit on allowable federal debt. They insist that Congress must accompany any debt limit increase with …
Continue reading “Struggling to Understand the GOP Debt Limit Vote”
The fiscal debate in Washington will soon focus more squarely on key safety net programs for the poor, such as Medicaid and SNAP (formerly called food stamps). Here’s why: The debate of recent months has become a game of whack-a-mole. Private-sector budget hawks try to focus attention on the big steps needed to reduce the …
Continue reading “Whack-a-Mole Politics: Safety-Net Programs in View”
The future of federal fiscal policy may lie not in the negotiations that Vice President Joe Biden is holding with bipartisan congressional leaders, or in the meetings of what’s now the Senate “Gang of Five,” or in deliberations at the Senate Budget Committee to produce a fiscal 2012 budget resolution. Instead, it may lie in …
Continue reading “New York Special Election a Litmus Test for GOP”
President Obama’s call for the United States to assist the Middle East and North Africa’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy reflects a longstanding U.S. foreign policy goal. His reluctance to spend much to achieve it was something different, however. It shows how U.S. fiscal troubles will continue to limit Washington’s ability to achieve its goals …
Continue reading “Democracy Abroad: Costly and Further Out of Reach”
The debate over raising the federal debt limit – which the government reached today, according to Secretary Timothy Geithner – has morphed into a question of “compared to what.” In the Wall Street Journal’s “Weekend Interview,” Wall Street legend Stanley Druckenmiller argued that what he called a “technical default” – a delay of several days …
Continue reading “Can We Afford a ‘Technical Default’ on the Debt?”
Question: Why is House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, making so little sense these days on fiscal policy? Answer: He’s leading a House Republican caucus that is badly split on such matters, and he’s trying to satisfy everyone at the same time. Consider the events of recent weeks, culminating in the confusion of the past few …
Continue reading “A Confused Boehner Pin Balls on Fiscal Policy”
States face a combined $112 billion in projected budget shortfalls for their coming fiscal year (2012), according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, showing that states continue to suffer from the shrunken revenues caused by the recent recession. So you might wonder why, as Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its current edition, states continue …
Continue reading “Business Tax Breaks: State Budget Busters”