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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Budget

News                                                                                                                             
CNN Money | Debt ceiling impasse imperils states' credit ratings
Moody's Investors Services placed five states on review for possible downgrade if the United States fails to resolve its debt ceiling impasse and has its own stellar credit rating downgraded.
NY Times | Debt Anxiety Raises Cost of Borrowing for Spain
Spain sold one-year bills on Tuesday at the highest yield since 2008, underlining broader concerns about the ailing euro zone economies amid tense negotiations over another rescue package for Greece.
WSJ | Obama Backs Latest Bargain
President Barack Obama, in a last-ditch bid for a bipartisan "grand bargain" on the budget, threw his weight Tuesday behind a $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction plan unveiled by six Republican and Democratic senators.

Econ Comments                                                                                                             
Washington Times | LAMBRO: Taming the deficit monster
None of the current plans likely to do the job.
Daily Caller | Kick the can or kick the habit?
President Obama’s dire alarms over the approach of the federal debt ceiling, and subsequent calls for $4 trillion in debt reductions over 10 years, are starkly lacking key ingredients: substance and coherence as to what such a fiscal package should contain.
Cato Institute | There Is No Alternative
With the clock ticking down toward what the administration calls "fiscal Armageddon," the president still has not put an actual plan for increasing the debt ceiling on the table.
Washington Times | MILLER: Gang of squish
The latest debt-ceiling offer is even worse than Obama’s tax-and-spend bid.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Heirtage Foundation | McConnell-Reid “Just Borrow More” Plan Fails to Cut Spending and Degrades America’s Creditworthiness
ny Senator foolish enough to think the McConnell-Reid “Just Borrow More” Plan solves the debt ceiling problem should look again at what the Moody’s debt rating service said.
Reason Foundation | The Facts About the Debt Ceiling
Separating economic myths from economic truths.
Cato@Liberty | The Gang of Six Is Back from the Dead: Contemplating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Their Budget Plan
The entire package is based on dishonest Washington budget math. Spending increases under the plan, but the politicians claim to be cutting spending because the budget didn’t grow even faster.
Atlantic: McArdle | Slouching Toward Default, on Both Sides of the Atlantic
...the credit ratings agencies have announced that they will view any voluntary restructuring as a default--as they should, because voluntary or not, Greece would still be arranging to pay less than they owe.
Marginal Revolution | The Benefits of Fiscal Illusion
...if the Republican base reads it as a tax cut and the Democrat base reads it as a tax increase, we just might get a deal.

Reports                                                                                                                         
AEI | Is Obama's New Deal Better Than the Old One?
The New Deal failed to reduce unemployment, and the policies of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress since the financial crisis look to be a repeat performance.