Members of Congress have been working frantically to bring the cost of the health care bill below $1 trillion, make it “deficit-neutral,” per the President’s instructions, and meet Blue Dogs’ expectations that it be “paid for.” As the Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, so far they’ve had no such luck. But the bigger problem is that in focusing on $1 trillion, Congress is missing the forest for the trees. All the estimates they evaluate are 10-year figures, yet nationalized health insurance, if it passes, will likely be around much longer than that. Longer-term …
After making news earlier this week for promising to make Social Security and Medicare reform a “central part” of his plan to curtail federal spending, President-elect Obama has pledged to hold a “fiscal responsibility” summit focusing on entitlement reform. Although the devil is in the details, facing up to the long-term mess early is a good start. Obama certainly outlined the current situation well: What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position …
Has the Blue Dog Coalition given up on their version of fiscal responsibility? Jim Cooper (D-TN), leader of the Blue Dogs – the self-described fiscally-conservative group of congressional Democrats – was quoted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing, “I’m not sure the old rules are relevant anymore… It would be unfair to the new President to put him in a budget straitjacket.” This effectively kills any plans for PAYGO budgeting in the 111th Congress. Apparently budgetary trade-offs no longer apply when liberals occupy the oval office. Interestingly enough it …
Yesterday the White House updated its budget estimates by releasing the annual “Midsession Review.” Media reports have focused on the projected budget deficits of $389 billion this year and $482 billion in 2009. As always, larger truths have been left out: Reports calling next year’s projected budget deficit of $482 billion a “record high” are not credible because they fail to adjust for inflation and for the size of the economy. In fact, at 3.3 percent of GDP, the 2009 budget deficit would which be only the 12th largest since …
In a process familiar to any troubled sub prime borrower, the current federal highway reauthorization bill spends more money than it takes in. Historically, any excess spending is paid through the Federal Highway Trust Fund and has always been exclusively funded through the gas tax. However, in an unprecedented action, the House overwhelmingly passed HR 6532, a bill that would transfer over $8 billion in general revenue to the highway trust fund, adding directly to the federal deficit. The Senate is set to take up the proposal as part of …
A Daily Kos diarist has stumbled upon our Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts and approvingly links writing: Under democratic leadership, spending went down while still installing programs to help those in need. … Republicans on the other hand have actually spent more money not just on defense spending, but also on social programs. … I have no idea why the heritage foundation promotes these graphs, they just prove that conservatives and Republicans are ineffective and just plane [sic] wrong about money. The diarist does not link to any …
Today, an authoritative and diverse group of scholars warned the American people: “If present trends continue, the nation’s deficit will reach unmanageable proportions, other vital public needs will be further squeezed, and/or taxes will have to rise continuously to levels that could restrict economic growth.” No, these scholars were not talking about defense spending. Instead the 16 federal budget experts from seven think tanks (including: American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, Concord Coalition, Heritage Foundation, New America Foundation, Progressive Policy Institute, and Urban Institute) issued a paper concluding that automatic escalating …
