Maintaining and modernizing our armed forces doesn’t just protect America, it fulfills the Constitution’s mandate to “provide for the common defense.” Yet the defense budget appears to be one place where President Barack Obama and Congress are looking to offset massive new spending elsewhere – “stimulating” or otherwise. “The Pentagon …
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 …
Responding to the sticker shock of the Congressional Budget Office’s projected record $1.2 trillion budget deficit, President-elect Barack Obama said: We will — we are working currently on our budget plans. We are beginning consultations with members of Congress around how we expect to approach the deficit. We expect that …
Most people are skeptical about statistics, claiming that mathematically-minded people just bend numbers to their will. But when it comes to long term budget projections, economists from the left, right, and center all agree we on an unsustainable course, and that the entitlements—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—are the main driver …
The bailout parade is continuing unabated in Washington this week. On the heels of a $25 billion bailout for the automotive industry, the Bush Administration agreed yesterday to a $4.3 billion bailout of Massachusetts’ out of control health care spending. Apparently when numbers like $700 billion are being thrown around, …
Former Comptroller General of the United States and Fiscal Wake-Up Tour star David Walker outlines how our impending entitlement crisis parallels the current subprime mortgage mess in the Financial Times: … a lack of transparency facilitated the crisis. Banks and other financial institutions created off-the-books entities so that regulators would …
When it comes to retirement and pension benefits, federal, state, and local government officials have all been humming the same mantra: never pay for something today if you can put off paying for it until tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow is here. The federal government is on the hook for $41 trillion …
