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  • Entitlements, Taxes & Spending

    Replace the culture of entitlement with the culture of mutual responsibility.

    Morning Bell: Obamacare Is An Economy Killer

    Yesterday, the independent scorekeeper for Congressional spending proposals, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), dropped a bombshell on Obamacare. The core of President Obama’s case for his health care plan has been his claim that it will “bend the curve” on rising health costs, thereby eventually lowering our nation’s exploding deficits. … More

    Health Care Reform Should be Scored Over the Long-Term

    President Obama has repeatedly signaled he would not support a health care reform bill unless it includes long-term cost savings. He recently promised to “take on key causes of rising [health care] costs – saving billions while providing better care to the American people.” But will the current health care … More

    ObamaCare Only Makes Deficits Worse

    Last month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest Long-Term Budget Outlook. The Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson reports: For the past half-century, federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of GDP, federal taxes about 18 percent of GDP and the budget deficit 2 percent of GDP. The CBO’s projection … More

    News Flash: National Health Care Will Be Expensive!

    The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently warned that entitlement-driven growth is unsustainable and would debilitate the economy over the long-term. In their best-case scenario, the national debt would become three times the size of the entire economy in the next 75 years. (In 2008, debt was about two-fifths of … More

    California: The National Petri Dish

    Supposedly, trends start in California and then spread to the rest of the country, a notion that seems to be confirmed by the latest economic news. In May, California’s unemployment rate hit 11.5 percent—the highest it has been since 1941. This morning, we learn that unemployment for the entire country … More

    Obama’s Public Health Plan: The Elephant in the Room

    Under the government-proposed public health plan, “people will involuntarily lose their coverage and will be bled into the new plan,” said Heritage’s senior policy analyst for health care Nina Owcharenko at yesterday’s Blogger Briefing. “They expect they would have their private insurance plans competing with the public plan but at the end … More

    Obama’s Battle of the Bulging Deficit

    “We’ll Need To Raise Taxes Soon” opines Roger Altman, a former Deputy Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, in a Wall Street Journal editorial today. Of course, he comes to this conclusion because deficits are high, excessive entitlement spending continues to darken the budget outlook, and, well, that’s the solution he … More

    CBO: Do Not Delay, Reform Entitlements Now

    Yesterday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest Long-Term Budget Outlook and the news is grim. The preface opens, Under current laws and policies, rapidly rising health care costs and an aging population will sharply increase federal spending for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Unless increases in revenues … More

    Will Washington Follow in Sacramento’s Footsteps?

    The federal government’s bailout parade wasn’t enough to save California this week. In a move that drew praise from some conservative quarters, President Obama refused to send federal aid to the Golden State. California had asked the Treasury Department to help with its $24 billion deficit. But rather than open … More

    President Obama’s Unprecedented Debt

    The national debt is skyrocketing. In 2009 publicly held debt is projected to jump to 54.8 percent of GDP, up from 40.8 percent in 2008. A year-to-year increase of this size hasn’t occurred since World War II. While the main causes of this massive increase – $787 billion economic “stimulus” … More