News
Fox News | McConnell Proposal Sets Stage as Debt Meetings Continue
Congressional leaders will again meet with the president at the White House on Wednesday, marking the fourth meeting in the last four days in which they try to hammer out a large-scale deal to cut the federal budget and raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
Econ Comments
WSJ | Budget Shell Games Are Contrary to Law
Congressional rules require public proposals and specific numbers that can be openly debated.
Washington Times | BROUN: Lowering the debt ceiling
Ending higher spending means doing the unthinkable.
AEI: The American | The Government’s Four-Decade Financial Experiment
Although agencies are not ‘officially government debt,’ they undoubtedly increase the required interest rates on Treasury securities, and thus increase the federal deficit.
Bloomberg | Reinhart, Rogoff: Economy Can’t Grow With Debt
As public debt in advanced countries reaches levels not seen since the end of World War II, there is considerable debate about the urgency of taming deficits with the aim of stabilizing and ultimately reducing debt as a percentage of gross domestic product.
AEI: The American | Yes, You Really Can Cut Your Way to Prosperity
The literature is clear: spending cuts, not tax increases, are more likely to succeed in reducing deficits and debt and are more friendly to economic growth.
RCM | The Virtues Of a Balanced Budget Amendment
Moody's threatened to downgrade American debt on Wednesday, as Congress appears unable to decide on a package of spending cuts and tax reform in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. In Europe, Italy and Spain are on the cusp of joining Greece as beggars for bailouts.
Blogs
Cato@Liberty | New Study from Swedish Economists Allows Us to Quantify the Cost of the Bush-Obama Spending Binge
The United States has been on a decade-long spending binge. Thanks to the profligate policies of both Bush and Obama, the burden of federal spending has climbed to about 25 percent of economic output, up from 18.2 percent of GDP when Bill Clinton left office.
Greg Mankiw's Blog | Why there is no budget deal
Keith Hennessey says that the reason Republicans are rejecting the President's budget proposal is that it is distinctly to the left of the one recommended by the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission.
NRO: The Corner | The President Needs to Stop Scaring Seniors
For a while now, President Obama has been suggesting that if Treasury were to prioritize payments in order to not default on the debt, it might do so on the backs of seniors by not paying their Social Security checks. I find this particularly bothersome.
