Federal debt and deficit
January 2, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Michael Ramirez nails it as usual:
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January 2, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Everyone is adding up the balance sheet of the tax deal, and any assessment that uses standard GAAP methods will find that it is a textbook compromise—that is, it had something for everyone to like and hate. (By the way, “GAAP” in this context does not mean “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.” Heck, if the U.S. government used real GAAP, it would have been placed in receivership on about Day Two
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January 1, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The House has passed the Biden-McConnell fiscal cliff compromise bill by a vote of 257-167. Only 16 Democrats voted no. On the Republican side, it was 85 for and 151 against. We’ve said all we have to say, I think, about the issues and the politics presented by this particular vote. The focus now turns to the sequester, the debt-ceiling, and the continuing resolution. Will the Republicans be able to
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January 1, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Here are some glass-half-full observations on last night’s McConnell-Biden fiscal deal from an inveterate optimist. Raising taxes on those who are already paying roughly double their fair share, while leaving everyone else’s taxes the same, is lousy public policy. But from the Republicans’ point of view, it may be good politics. For the last four years, the Obama administration has run up unprecedented deficits, adding more than $4 trillion to
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January 1, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The agreement on taxes and spending that was announced last night must have been reduced to legislation, since the Senate has voted on it. Have you read it? I haven’t; nor have I yet seen the text published anywhere. John Boehner says he will delay a House vote for a few days so that members and the public can study the bill and figure out what it says. That is
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December 28, 2012 — John Hinderaker
If there is one thing we know for sure about the federal government, it is that it spends way too much money–around $3.54 trillion in FY 2012, with a $1.1 trillion deficit. You would think that the man who presides over this mess, Barack Obama, would have the decency to be embarrassed. He has, after all, run up more than $4 trillion in debt in a mere four years. But
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December 26, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We definitely don’t want our children to be murdered in school shootings, as the post-Newtown furor has demonstrated. That is a sentiment with which I heartily concur. I also don’t want my children to be struck by lightning, which is considerably more likely than being shot in school, or to be killed in a bicycle accident, which is around ten times as likely as being murdered in school. But while
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December 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
I don’t think it’s possible to go over only half of a cliff, any more than one can kill half of a dog. But the “fiscal cliff” isn’t really a cliff; it’s a metaphor. The metaphor refers to two very different phenomena. The first is a tax hike for everyone who pays federal incomes taxes. The second half is a rather large cut in federal spending. I don’t know of
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December 22, 2012 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal’s reconstruction of Obama’s fiscal-cliff negotiations is accessible online, but is behind the Journal’s subscription paywall. Quotable quote: Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were
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December 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker
I held off on posting today just in case the world might end, but since it looks like we will all be here tomorrow, here are some thoughts on the House’s failure to pass Speaker Boehner’s Plan B last night, and why I think that failure was a setback, if not a disaster, for the GOP. Let’s start with a dose of reality. Over the next few years, taxes are
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December 17, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Over the weekend Paul Mirengoff spotlighted the views of two well-informed commentators on the Fed’s long-running experiment in epic monetary easing, now in its fourth iteration. Paul is admirably open-minded, while admittedly suspicious, of the program. I frankly hate it. It robs savers of the value of their savings. It viciously complicates retirement planning and life for those in retirement. If a Republican were president, we’d be hearing about it
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December 14, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Peter Schweizer proposes a tax increase that will raise $124.4 billion over the next ten years. He wants to eliminate the tax-exempt interest on municipal bonds for upper income Americans and, with respect to newly issued municipal bonds, eliminate it for all Americans regardless of income. According to Schweitzer, this move would produce $124.4 billion over the next ten years. Not surprisingly, President Obama has already proposed limiting or ending
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December 12, 2012 — John Hinderaker
When I talk to conservatives and even not-so-conservative independents about the nation’s current fiscal crisis, I find a great deal of sympathy with the idea that Congressional Republicans should stop negotiating secret deals. Experience tells us that 11th-hour back room agreements never end well for Republicans, and that they also blur accountability, as both parties wind up taking joint responsibility for all aspects of the deal. So the Republicans’ best
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December 12, 2012 — Steven Hayward
A few days ago in “Flanking Maneuvers” I discussed how the states might be where the resistance to Obama might be most dramatic and effective, and pointed to imminent events in Michigan as an example. The reaction of the Left and their union goons (but I repeat myself) shows how serious they take this challenge to their power. They’ve reacted with their usual grace and calm reason. Not. (Over at
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December 9, 2012 — John Hinderaker
There was a time when people assumed that if America’s future was under attack, it must come from a foreign source–like, say, Japan at Pearl Harbor. Those days are long gone. Now, our decline is no one’s fault but our own. We elect leaders who are ignorant of America’s history and contemptuous of its values. The currency in which this ignorance and contempt is expressed is government spending. I am
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December 7, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Over at NRO, Stanley Kurtz deduces the emerging Democratic agenda from a New York Times op-ed column by Kenneth Baer and Jeffrey Liebman. Kurtz summarizes the column and comments on it: With Obama safely re-elected…we’re now beginning to hear the Democratic take on the coming demographic challenge. Today’s Baer-Liebman Op-Ed highlights the “baby boom bump,” but takes the polar opposite of a conservative approach to it. For Baer and Liebman,
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December 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker
That’s how the serpent tempts the elephant, in Michael Ramirez’s vision. Don’t worry, it’s only the rich!
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