The Obama Administration is piggybacking on claims made by MarketWatch’s Rex Nutting that Obama has not gone on the spending spree everyone thinks he has since taking office. As White House press secretary Jay Carney puts it, President Obama has exercised “significant fiscal restraint” and “acted with great fiscal responsibility.” Nutting writes: “Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.” So Nutting gives Obama a free pass for …
What do $16 billion and $68.4 billion have in common, other than the fact that each of these figures dwarfs JPMorgan Chase’s recent loss? The former is how deep in the red the California state budget sits currently. The latter is the latest in a series of roller-coasting cost estimates for the state’s controversial high-speed rail (HSR) project, which is funded in part by the federal government. Governor Jerry Brown (D) has been hard pressed to come up with a prescription to close California’s sizeable budget deficit. While pension reform …
JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion trading loss is top news nationwide. But over at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), such losses are business as usual. USPS reported a typical (for it) $3.2 billion loss for the most recent quarter. Try that comparison on for size. JPMorgan Chase incurred a “whale” of a loss because, as explained by the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon to his investors, this is an example of a “flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed and poorly monitored” betting strategy. Despite the loss, it by no means spells doom …
House Speaker John Boehner (R–OH) announced yesterday that the House is gearing up to vote prior to the November election on extending all of the tax provisions scheduled to expire at the end of the year. This is welcome news, given the necessity of swiftly steering this tax policy train in the right direction. Otherwise, Congress assuredly would face an even bigger train wreck—scores of laws expiring during a politically charged, whirlwind lame duck session of Congress. The whopper Boehner is referring to? Taxmageddon: a list of expiring tax policies …
The Medicare trustees report, released this week, reinforced the urgent need to reform the federal health insurance program for seniors. Medicare is on an unsustainable path, and sticking with the status quo guarantees a Medicare crisis in the not-so-distant future. As The Heritage Foundation’s Bob Moffit and Rea Hederman explain, the dramatic growth in Medicare spending and the accumulation of massive debt are the central fiscal challenges facing Medicare. The Heritage Foundation’s newly released Federal Budget in Pictures 2012 edition (previously called the Budget Chart Book) shows Medicare’s dire fiscal …
The General Services Administration’s (GSA) scandalous spending at a 2010 conference has gotten plenty of attention. Rightly so, because the GSA officials’ misconduct resulted in a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars. But there is much more than egregious abuses of public resources by federal employees and managers. One of the underlying drivers of such irresponsible spending is a big, bloated government that has a penchant for waste and an accompanying lack of oversight. Taxpayers deserve a better return on their money, a truth that Congress should put into practice by …
House Democrats described the budget they released yesterday as a “clear contrast” to the one introduced by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI). It is a clear contrast—but that’s not a compliment. The proposal, offered by Representative Chris Van Hollen (D–MD), ranking member of the Budget Committee, merely calls for the same tax-and-spend vision for the country that President Obama proposed in February with his budget. Here is how this budget proposal measures up against key criteria: Entitlement Reform. Van Hollen rightly says that “health care and retirement programs …
Yesterday, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D–MT) released a modified chairman’s mark on the Highway Investment, Job Creation and Economic Growth Act of 2012 (S. 1813). When combined with the other section of the bill, this draft transportation reauthorization bill would authorize the program for two years after the latest temporary extension, which expires in March. This bill does contain needed reforms, including ending earmarks and letting states decide how to spend “enhancement” dedicated dollars. However, it makes the mistake of not capturing these savings to drive spending down, …
At the close of business, the federal government’s debt limit will increase by another $1.2 trillion, the final installment in a series of hikes that started last summer. This last increase, from $15.194 trillion to $16.394 trillion, was essentially granted in the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, passed August 2 at the culmination of the debt limit debate. Last week, the House rejected the debt limit increase in a resolution of disapproval, but the Senate blocked that legislation. The BCA states that unless both legislative bodies agree to reject …
President Obama will release his annual budget proposal late yet again. Choosing the date is not merely a convention. By law, the President must release the budget by the first Monday in February, which falls on February 6 this year. Yet yesterday the Administration announced it will release its fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget a week late, marking the third such delay in four years. Right now, when the economy is struggling, annual deficits consistently exceed $1 trillion, and Americans are demanding that Washington govern responsibly, this delay is beyond …
