President Obama’s budget proposes a sharp increase in entitlement spending and more outlays for domestic programs and interest on the national debt. Defense spending, meanwhile, takes a backseat to Obama’s other priorities. The long-term outlook: Obama would make defense the lowest budget priority among the major categories of spending in …
House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) is a man on a mission. He’s making the rounds on Capitol Hill to convince his colleagues, particularly those on the 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, that they should avoid cutting defense spending. McKeon has a point — and it’s one …
Providing for the defense of the United States is Congress’ constitutional obligation. Lawmakers should recognize defense is a necessity, if not the federal government’s most important responsibility. In recent years, however, defense spending has continued to decline as entitlement spending increased. Priorities are being misplaced as the gap between entitlement …
In February, we reported that in 2010, Social Security would start running deficits in 2010. Well, Social Security deficits have officially arrived, as analyst Michael Barone lays out in the Washington Examiner: Social Security tax receipts for the first half of 2010: $346.9 billion; Social Security benefits payments for the …
Government spending is increasing at an alarmingly quick rate. This is especially true when it comes to entitlement programs. In fact, entitlement spending will consume all tax revenue by 2052. But Congress is already spending at a breakneck pace accumulating unprecedented debt. Sen. George LeMieux noticed this and had a …
Remember how public anger over the federal debt reaching new sky-high levels last year drove lawmakers into a flurry of discussions about budget controls? Responding to public and international pressure to do something about permanently spiraling deficits, President Obama established a flawed commission to tackle the spending problem. Congress, doing …
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 …
