News
Yahoo | Pentagon warns on big defense cuts
The United States may have to scrap some military missions and trim troop levels if President Barack Obama sticks with his goal of saving $400 billion on security spending over a 10-year period, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
CNN: Money | Deficit hawks: Not too bad, Mr. President
He may have taken his time to join the brewing debate about how to reduce long-term U.S. debt. But President Obama got some kudos from deficit hawks for the broad debt reduction framework he laid out on Wednesday.
Econ Comments
NYT | In Budget’s Fine Print, Real and Illusory Cuts
Few financial problems have generated more public attention in the last few years than mortgage fraud, one of the triggers for the nation's housing collapse. But even government officials seeking to combat a front burner issue like that one are feeling the sting of the budget deal struck last Friday to aver a federal shutdown.
WSJ | The Presidential Divider
Obama's toxic speech and even worse plan for deficits and debt.
Washington Times | MURDOCK: How the GOP can keep its $100 billion promise
Seize tens of billions in forgotten funds and add them to $38.5 billion deal
Who Will Speak for National Security? | Obama Guts Defense
Who Will Speak for National Security?
NRO | Paul Ryan vs. the Mythmakers
The CBO's actual projections for the Ryan plan show a debt level in 2021 that is $4.7 trillion lower than its projections for Obama's budgets.
NRO | Strike One
We initially supported the deal House Speaker John Boehner cut with the White House to cut $38.5 billion from the rest of the fiscal year 2011 budget. I t was only a pittance in the context of all of Washington's red ink but it seemed an acceptable start, even if we assumed it would be imperfect in its details.
RCM | The U.S. Faces a Growing Tax and Debt Bomb
Sometime in mid to late May, the debt ceiling to allow the government to borrow more money is going to run out. The Treasury can move money inside government accounts to forestall a debt breakdown for another couple of months.
Fox Business | $38 Billion in Cuts? Not Even
Today's Wall Street Journal says that the $38 billion in cuts that were agreed upon last week to keep the government from shutting down were actually more like $ 20 billion…once you account for some accounting scams.
Washington Times | BACON: Policy of hope trumps budgetary change
Obama’s plan delivers imaginary solutions and tax increases.
Blogs
The Economist: Free Exchange | Obama's counter-punch
President Obama's strategy on the long-term deficit has been, for the most part, to talk tough but waffle on the specifics in the hope that a better economic and political backdrop will present itself.
Café Hayek | Not even a deck chair on the Titanic
A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the fiscal 2011 spending deal that Congress will vote on Thursday concludes that it would cut spending this year by less than one-one hundredth of what both Republicans or Democrats have claimed.
Cato@Liberty | Budget Agreement: Overall Spending Increases
Based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, total federal outlays will still rise by approximately $177 billion.
The Economist: Free Exchange | Do nothing, sure, but how?
A government is basically a means through which powerful interests protect themselves from unpleasant change. If it turns out that protecting these powerful interests from unpleasant change is unsustainably costly, then one must either make the interests less powerful or the change less unpleasant.
