Deficit spending does not foster economic recovery. The U.S. and the world need to recognize the stagnation and inter-generational inequality caused by such spending, and for reference, they need not look further than Japan’s recent history of deficits. In addition to its two lost decades, Japan’s heavy borrowing means the …
This week, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) have been trading secret offers on the fiscal cliff. Last night, they met for nearly an hour, and emerged with zipped lips about what progress—if any—they made on averting tax hikes across the board and automatic, deep budget cuts that …
President Obama made his first offer to congressional Republicans yesterday in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff”—an economic catastrophe of tax hikes just a few weeks away. The White House’s proposal? $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $50 billion in new stimulus spending, and a change that would make it easier to …
The fiscal cliff debate has centered on talk of raising taxes on high-income Americans. The silence on spending cuts has been deafening. On Monday, as if on cue, came investor Warren Buffett’s rehashed—albeit flat-out wrong—proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy. Even though the Obama Administration has said both sides …
According to research by Politico, interest in the impending automatic defense cuts took a dive leading up to the election. But as the post-election polling and punditry subside, American citizens are returning their focus to pressing matters such as the so-called fiscal cliff and sequestration. Yet on Capitol Hill—where these …
On Friday, Representative Pete Sessions (R–TX) and House Speaker John Boehner (R–OH) ran afoul of Glenn Kessler’s “Fact Checker” blog regarding a study of President Obama’s proposed tax increase. Before deciding on a tax change, policymakers are wise to look at the economic impacts of the change. Two Studies In …
Followers of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have long joked that the fund’s acronym stands for “It’s Mostly Fiscal.” For a long time it has helped bail out basket-case economies with severe fiscal deficiencies, such as Greece, Russia, and Argentina. But a recent report shows that the IMF is now …
