Politico reported what many have feared about the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction in a story titled “Supercommittee operating in secret.” Members of this committee are not disclosing details of negotiations on legislation to the press or the American public. The supercommittee has become supersecret about most of what …
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (also known as the “super committee”) met for the first time today. This bipartisan, bicameral committee was created in the law increasing the debt limit and is tasked to find between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion in savings over the next 10 years. Membership …
Most of the doomsday budget-cutting talk has focused on the Pentagon—and rightly so, as cuts being bandied about will unquestioningly turn the United States into a second-class military power. The worst news, however, is that the cuts could have an even more disastrous impact on homeland security, in particular the …
Consider it a warning from the highest levels of the U.S. government. Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta held a joint press event in Washington in which they cautioned that U.S. debt is jeopardizing America’s ability to ensure national security and preserve its interests abroad. Under the Budget …
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on Tuesday outlined what he believes are the major problems with the congressional “Super Committee” that will devise a deal to cut the federal budget in the coming months. Gingrich, speaking at the Heritage Foundation, broke the problems down into three categories: constitutional, …
Congressional leaders led a national debate in July 2011 about the problems of federal overspending and overborrowing. Unfortunately, at the end of the debate, Congress enacted a so-called Budget Control Act that did little to control overspending and vastly increased borrowing. Congress then scooted out of town for the month of …
President Barack Obama made two fundamental mistakes today in his press conference which was intended to calm the markets. First, he did not lead off with a moment of reflection on the loss of American military lives in Afghanistan over the weekend. Second, he completely missed the boat on why Standard …
There is considerable misunderstanding about what the new debt ceiling law does to the area of defense. Many people are describing the required defense cuts in terms of dollar-figure reductions. A recent article appearing in The Cable, for example, referred to a $350 billion reduction for defense. These descriptions are …
