Business Tax Breaks: State Budget Busters

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 …

Irresponsible Budgeting: Here We Go Again

Facing a choice between doing something hard and something easy, lawmakers invariably choose the latter, which explains why the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing Wednesday morning on how to change the budget process in hopes of reducing deficits and debt. On deficit cutting, the hard stuff is evaluating particular tax and spending provisions, making …

Budget Deficit: GOP May Have to Bend on Taxes

To reduce looming budget deficits, congressional Republicans may have to choose between two of their party‟s traditionally biggest priorities – keeping taxes low or protecting defense spending. They would be wise to compromise on taxes, for two reasons. First, tax increases on those in the middle and at the top would reduce deficits far more …

Obama’s Disconnect With the Middle Class

I was simultaneously pleased and distressed by President Obama’s fiscal speech yesterday due to the way he portrayed the link between Americans and their government. First, to his great credit, Obama leveled with Americans about what the federal government actually does. For too long, elected officials have nourished the conventional wisdom that we can address …