News
CNN Money | U.S. to make $15 billion profit on AIG bailout
The U.S. government will make a $15.1 billion profit from the bailout of insurer AIG, according to a congressional watchdog panel's report.
National Journal | Sequester-Replacement Bill Clears House Budget Panel on Party-Line Vote
The House Budget Committee on Monday approved a bill that boosts defense spending by making additional cuts to domestic programs, further aggravating what has become a divisive election-year fight over spending priorities.
Market Watch | U.S. to run first surplus since 2008: CBO
The U.S. government recorded a budget surplus of $58 billion in April, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Monday, breaking a streak of deficits that began in 2008.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | Austerity is blamed
Denial is leading to collective economic suicide in Europe and the United States. The French on Sunday elected a socialist president who wants to raise taxes on those elusive rich and keep spending as if there is no tomorrow.
CBO | Federal Budget Deficit Totaled $721 Billion for the First Seven Months of 2012, CBO Estimates
The federal government incurred a budget deficit of $721 billion in the first seven months of fiscal year 2012, CBO estimates in its latest Monthly Budget Review—$149 billion less than the shortfall reported during the same period last year.
Heritage Foundation | Why Budget “Reconciliation” Matters
The spending reduction plan in the U.S. House of Representatives takes an important step toward fixing two huge budget and policy dilemmas facing Congress: the crude, across-the-board spending cuts mandated by last year’s debt ceiling agreement, and the unsustainable growth of entitlement spending, which threatens to overwhelm the budget and suffocate the economy.
Blogs
National Review | Show Me the ‘Savage’ Spending Cuts in Europe, Please
Austerity is destroying Europe, we are told. In fact, this “anti-austerity” slogan was a big reason for the victory of newly elected socialist François Hollande to the presidency of France.
The American | ‘Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all, that fatal madness’
Ruin, in Greek mythology, is the spirit of delusion, of rash impulse, of folly. As voters did in France, Greeks voted against the undeniable and unavoidable consequences of their own actions. Ruin brought them to crisis, and Ruin continues to pushes them during this crisis.
