Federal debt and deficit

Biden’s DOA Budget

Featured image Joe Biden unveiled his 2025 budget proposal earlier today. In general, presidents’ budgets are hardly worth discussing. They project revenue and spending over the next ten years, and if you go back and look at them a few years later, they usually bear no relation to reality. And, in this instance, there is zero chance that Congress will pass anything resembling Biden’s budget, which can best be seen as a »

Power Line’s Biggest Failure

Featured image In 2011, I think it was, we were alarmed about the metastasizing national debt. We had a great idea: let’s sponsor a competition to induce the creation of art works–videos, songs, paintings, plays, and more–that call attention to the dangers of the national debt. Thus was born the Power Line Prize competition. I made some phone calls and raised, as I recall, $125,000 in prize money. Those were the days! »

Americans At Least Pretend to Want Less Government

Featured image As government at all levels continues to grow, as our federal debt spirals out of control, and as the constitutional ideal of limited government fades into history, it is good to know that most Americans at least claim to believe in smaller government. Rasmussen reports: By a 14-point margin, most voters still prefer a limited-government agenda. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 52% of Likely »

Biden In Twilight

Featured image That Joe Biden is long gone in senility is obvious to everyone. True, not everyone will admit it: in the longer version of the CNN interview that Lloyd Billingsley wrote about earlier, Hillary Clinton fulsomely praised Biden’s extraordinary record of accomplishment. I suppose she thought the CNN audience might buy it. It is not necessary to trace Biden’s decline on a daily basis, but today’s episode is worth noting. Biden »

Budget Showdown Ahead

Featured image I yearn for the days when people cared about the national debt, and when spending and taxes were the principal issues that divided Left from Right. Those issues haven’t receded because our fiscal situation has grown less dire; on the contrary. Currently, the federal government is forecasting $2 trillion a year deficits. With the fiscal year ending on September 30, a budget showdown is in the offing. The Epoch Times »

Drowning In Debt

Featured image Back in 2010, we sponsored the Power Line Prize competition. Its purpose was to draw attention to the peril posed by our rapidly growing national debt, by stimulating the production of artistic endeavors–videos, songs, poems, paintings, games, you name it–that would bring the issue to a wide audience. We offered a $100,000 grand prize to the winner of the contest. We recruited an all-star panel of judges to select the »

About the Debt Ceiling Deal

Featured image We don’t have many of the fine details of the debt ceiling deal Kevin McCarthy has struck with (P)resident Joe Biden yet, but my first proposition is that the exact details don’t matter, and my conclusion is that the outcome is a modest but potentially significant win for Republicans. I think McCarthy played a weak hand—the political equivalent of a pair of deuces—extremely well. The political outcome of this deal »

Pay No Attention to “Default” Hype

Featured image Today the Wall Street Journal editorial board makes a point that I also have made repeatedly on this site: there is zero chance of a default on sovereign debt arising out of the current budget impasse in Washington. The press hysteria, which we have seen before, arises out of a deliberate misuse of the word “default.” The editorial board writes: The debt talks are stalled and President Biden is again »

Voters Are With McCarthy On the Debt Limit

Featured image Tomorrow, Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with Kevin McCarthy and other Congressional leaders to discuss the debt ceiling plan that has passed the House of Representatives. On the eve of that meeting, Rasmussen polled public sentiment on the debt ceiling. These are the key questions that Rasmussen asked: 2* Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed a plan that would raise the debt ceiling and also limit government »

This Year’s Default Drama

Featured image We go through this periodically: the In party wants to raise the federal debt limit so it can disburse even more money than the trillions we are already spending, while the Out party tries to use its leverage to trade support for more debt for something it wants. The whole thing is a game of chicken, as everyone knows the limit will ultimately be raised, and more debt will be »

The Ticking Debt Time Bomb

Featured image Growth of the national debt has accelerated to proportions that would have been unthinkable not many years ago. And yet, liberals keep telling us not to worry, and that raising the debt limit is the only “responsible” course. Debt apologists like Barry Eichengreen. A very smart friend takes Mr. Eichengreen to task. What follows is by him, I have left it in plain rather than italic type for the sake »

Do Americans Hate Deficits?

Featured image I believe that polling has long shown broad support for a balanced budget and for a balanced budget amendment at the federal level. (Most states already have such a requirement.) Rasmussen’s findings on Congress’s latest debtravangza are consistent with that history: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 76% of Likely U.S. Voters are concerned about the size of the U.S. national debt – now more »

A deficit of honesty

Featured image With his economic advisers hanging like drapery in the background this past Friday morning, President Biden gave Remarks on Historic Deficit Reduction. To have no shame can be a real advantage in politics. It has served Biden well so far. However, this performance is a doozy. Brian Riedl calls it “a remarkable feat of gaslighting” in a New York Post column full of useful background. I’ll go with “remarkable,” but »

Biden Will Still Respect You in the Morning

Featured image Everyone is familiar with the two great lies of modern times: the check is in the mail, and “Of course I’ll still respect you in the morning.” To which should be added a third: “wealth taxes” will only affect the very rich—the middle class has nothing to fear. When you hear Democrats say this, reach for your wallet. This needs to be kept in mind with thinking about President Biden’s »

Biden Looks for a Bouncy House

Featured image [P]resident Biden is likely looking to import one of those Canadian trucker bouncy houses for his poll numbers (and the economy), because his approval ratings are not getting any air. From the latest Wall Street Journal poll out today: Biden, Democrats Lose Ground on Key Issues, WSJ Poll Finds WASHINGTON—President Biden and his fellow Democrats have lost ground to Republicans on several of the issues most important to voters, a »

The next build back better

Featured image When the latest inflation numbers came out this week, Joe Manchin used the occasion to again denounce appropriating trillions and trillions of dollars in new spending. This comment, of course, was a shot at the Democrats’ build back better proposal. I suggested that this boondoggle was on life support. But now, after all these months, the White House seems finally to be listening to Manchin’s concerns over inflation and the »

The House Does Not Have Many Manchins

Featured image Scott has noted that Sen. Joe Manchin has “named his price point” on the spendapalooza bill: $1.5 trillion. Scott is right that this is still very bad, but it requires the progressives to shrink their wish list by more than half—by a full $2 trillion. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the House Democratic caucus meetings and sub-meetings right now, because if there is no honor »