News
WSJ | Budget Ducks Big Benefit Cuts
President Barack Obama's budget proposal Monday will offer several measures to trim the federal deficit in the next 10 years. But it would leave largely unchanged the biggest drivers of future government spending: the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs that are expanding rapidly as the baby boom turns into a senior boom.
Market Watch | Greek coalition party won't back austerity
The leader of Greece's nationalist LAOS party, a junior member of the country's coalition government, said Friday the party won't back new austerity measures demanded by the euro zone in return for a second bailout package
CNN Money | Broken budget process hurts Wall Street reform
President Obama is likely to propose a substantial funding increase for Wall Street regulators in his forthcoming budget. But there won't be any cheering in the boardrooms and hallways of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | Obama’s predictable budget
President Obama will deliver his budget to Capitol Hill Monday, one week past the statutory deadline. This will be his fourth, and possibly final, proposal for how Americans’ hard-earned money should be spent.
Heritage Foundation | President Obama’s Budget: What to Watch For
No one expects President Obama to transform into a conservative. But he cannot ignore the fundamental problems of runaway spending and debt, and he can no longer turn these problems over to fiscal commissions or super committees
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | Morning Bell: Budget? Why Follow A Budget?
Families and businesses have budgets, yet Washington doesn’t — and it hasn’t for the last three years. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) doesn’t think this major omission is that big of a deal, and the White House has no opinion on the matter.
National Review | FY 2012 Spending Blows Through Debt Ceiling Cap
As you may remember, the debt-ceiling deal was supposed to set caps on spending. These caps were supposed to control spending, but the Heritage Foundation’s Patrick Knudsen calculates that Congress already has exceeded the caps by some $156 billion.
The American | The key assumption of Obama’s budget
Over the past few years, interest rates on federal debt have fallen to historically low levels thanks to manipulation by the Fed and risk aversion by markets. An unintended consequence of these low interest rates is that the federal debt has been financed very cheaply.
National Review | Obama’s Budget: Just More of the Same
Based on the rhetoric at campaign stops and the president’s State of the Union speech, we already know what we can expect to see on Monday: more of the same policies that make the tax code so inefficient and unfair.
