News
Washington Times | EU summit over, eurozone ills are not
European Union leaders concluded their latest summit early Thursday with few ways to cure the continent’s festering financial crisis, even as the potential for a messy Greek exit from the euro appears to be rising. Some leaders stressed the importance of planning for just such an event but offered no measures that might help Greece avoid it.
Bloomberg | China Banks May Miss Loan Target for 2012, Officials Say
China’s biggest banks may fall short of loan targets for the first time in at least seven years as an economic slowdown crimps demand for credit, three bank officials with knowledge of the matter said.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | Deus ex Eurobonds
European stock markets have been tumbling all week over fears of the damage a Greek exit from the euro zone could do to the single currency and even the European Union. Yet through it all, Germany's borrowing costs keep going down—so much so that on Wednesday Berlin sold two-year bonds that pay no interest.
Washington Times | Obama’s big deficit lie
President Obama claims federal budget deficits have not soared out of control during his administration. He has officially jumped the shark.
Four Percent Growth | The False Promise of Deficit Spending
“Austerity is out, growth is in.” This line — from a May 8 editorial in The San Francisco Chronicle — captures the change in economic vocabulary following the May elections in France and Greece. The new turn to the left in Europe is premised on a simple declaration: We are tired of austerity and we want to grow. That’s it.
CBO | Status of Discretionary Appropriations: FY 2013 Senate
Estimates of discretionary budget authority and outlays for fiscal year 2013.
Blogs
Heritage Foundationh | Setting Obama’s “Great Fiscal Restraint Record” Straight
The Obama Administration is piggybacking on claims made by MarketWatch’s Rex Nutting that Obama has not gone on the spending spree everyone thinks he has since taking office. As White House press secretary Jay Carney puts it, President Obama has exercised “significant fiscal restraint” and “acted with great fiscal responsibility.”
CATO | Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which President Is the Biggest Spender of All?
A financial columnist named Rex Nutting recently triggered a firestorm of controversy by claiming that Barack Obama is not a big spender.
National Review | Public-Sector Austerity vs. Private-Sector Austerity
For a few weeks I have been saying that pro-growth austerity imposes austerity on the public sector. That means reduction in government spending, reform of entitlements, reduction in the the rolls and salaries of government employees, and reduction of the government footprint in the private sector. Unfortunately, in most cases, governments would rather address their debt problems through an anti-growth version of austerity, meaning more taxes and more government intervention in our lives.
