Federal debt and deficit
February 28, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Apparently E.J. Dionne is not content with all the love we’ve sent his way here the last couple of days, and so today’s he’s descended to primal scream liberalism. In today’s column Dionne stamps his feet and demands, “This has to stop.” What has to stop? The permanent budget crisis, that’s what. But to repeat something said yesterday: I thought liberals liked crisis, because, pace the Crisis and Leviathan thesis,
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February 27, 2013 — Steven Hayward
From the apparent horror of the White House, you’d think March 1 was threatening castration rather than sequestration. And they might be right in a sense; as we’ve argued here before, Obama and the Democrats seem much more terrified of sequestration than Republicans for the simple reason that more of their key client groups depend on the discretionary programs that will be pinched in sequestration. Fiscal castration indeed. Will the
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February 26, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The idea that the sequester cuts, which actually amount to more like $44 billion than the $85 billion that is often bandied about, are somehow draconian, is ridiculous. Out of a $3.55 trillion federal budget–well, no, the federal government doesn’t have a budget, that is just an estimate of FY 2013 spending–$44 billion is a pittance. So it is time to bring back my Big Mac analogy. In March 2011,
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February 26, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I know it’s a little early for a week in pictures feature, but it’s a fast-moving news week, what with Hagel going to the Lew before being sequestered with the rest of the jury in a hotel room while . . . what’s that? Mixed-up metaphors? Okay, but still, there’s this: And now for a few general public service announcements:
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February 24, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Hysteria is rampant inside the Beltway, as politicians and their media fanboys contemplate the unheard-of possibility that federal spending may not rise very much this year. The horror! I’m guessing that outside the confines of America’s last boom town, the idea of cutting federal spending sounds pretty good. Most voters are probably skeptical that it will really happen, given the federal government’s iron grip on our wallets, and they may
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February 24, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The big news in the upcoming Italian election is the rise of former comedian Beppe Grillo, whose party may finish as high as second in the voting. There is a lot about Grillo at The Corner. He sounds like a pretty typical bad-government populist; normally you would think it would be a disaster if he took power, but this is Italy, so things may or may not get worse. What
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February 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Much is being made of a Pew poll in which 49 percent say they will blame congressional Republicans if the sequester occurs, compared to only 31 percent who say they will blame President Obama. 11 percent say they will blame both sides, while 8 percent don’t know which side they will blame. I suspect that if the sequester occurs the percentage that blames both sides will increase (in a sense,
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February 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I have it on excellent authority that, with the sequester looming, House Republicans will pass a bill to provide the various federal departments and agencies with the power to prioritize where cuts go in each organization. The total amount of cuts within a department or agency would be the same, but the cuts could be made on a more rational basis. I’ve been advocating this sort of legislation for some
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February 13, 2013 — John Hinderaker
President Obama has nominated Jack Lew, his Chief of Staff, to succeed Tim Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury. Obama has made so many bad nominations that it is hard to keep track of them all, but Lew stands out in a bad crop. The Senate should reject his nomination. Today the Senate Finance Committee held its first, and probably only, day of hearings on Lew’s nomination. News accounts suggest
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February 12, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I speculated that President Obama will use his state of the union speech primarily to prepare the battle field for upcoming fights pertaining to the budget. With the sequester looming and a debt-ceiling deadline not far behind, Obama will want to re-introduce tax increases into the debt reduction debate (it had occupied the prime spot in that debate until the end of 2012). In that way, he can shed
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February 10, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Critics of sequestration complain that it is a blunderbuss approach to cutting spending. They argue that “targeted cuts” — which operate line-by-line, program-by-program — are the smart way to rein in the budget without doing harm. But, as the Washington Post demonstrates, in practice “targeted cuts” frequently prove to be no cuts at all. Instead, they are a method through which legislators can claim to be slashing the budget while
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February 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Central banks all over the world are flooding the zone with money hot off the press, all in the name of stimulus. Even a country such as Switzerland, with a traditionally stable currency and low inflation rates, finds itself caught in the dance. How can it afford to let the Swiss franc appreciate against the currencies of its commercial rivals? The powers-that-be in Switzerland have concluded that they can’t, and
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February 5, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Throughout the “fiscal cliff” drama, I argued that once the middle class tax increase was called off (as seemed almost inevitable), Republicans would have the upper hand because President Obama fears sequestration more than Republicans do (or should). The key, then, was to keep sequestration on the table or, as I put it, “to go over half of the fiscal cliff.” Now that we are about to take that plunge,
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January 31, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal has a good editorial (“As contractions go,” — behind its subscription paywall but available via Google News) on yesterday’s announced fourth quarter contraction in the economy. Does anyone think that more of the same monetary policy will deliver us from Obama’s slow growth/no-growth economy? The Journal comments: “Bad economy=more Fed cowbell=higher stock prices. Risk on, baby.” The Journal concludes the editorial with comments on the Fed’s
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January 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
On Meet the Press this morning, Chuck Schumer promised that this year, Democrats will finally adopt a budget: The third-ranking Senate Democrat says Democrats will pass a budget proposal this year that includes new taxes and “our Republican colleagues had better get used to that fact.” Word is that the Republicans will agree to raise the debt ceiling for 90 days if the Democrats will agree, in return, to pass
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January 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I want to draw your attention to Judy Shelton’s article “Money in bad faith,” in the new issue of the Weekly Standard out this morning. The Fed’s QE-Infinity project cannot end well. In my opinion, it should remain near the top of the reasonable man’s list of worries. Shelton writes: If we want to preserve the morality of a free-market system, we cannot permit our central bank to carry out
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January 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
At the top of chapter 1 of The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, Steve Hayward observes: “The year 1964 was the Year of Lyndon.” In one of his great philosophical statements of 1964, LBJ gave us the liberal credo: “And I just want to tell you this: we’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” It’s the liberal counterpart to
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