News
WSJ | Greece Offers to Buy Back Debt
Greece's debt agency launched a multibillion euro offer to retire roughly half of the debt the country owes to private creditors, part of the latest effort to trim Greece's towering debt burden.
WSJ | Fiscal Cliff Talks at Stalemate
The White House and congressional Republicans remained at loggerheads—in both public and private—over how to design a deficit-reduction package, with just a few weeks remaining before the nation hits the fiscal cliff.
Blogs
AEI | Why Obama feels little pressure to cut spending
The Tax Policy Center is out with a new report making the case for tax reform that would increase revenue and make the tax code more efficient. Like many tax experts, authors Samuel Brown and William Gale love the idea of a value-added tax, and they advocate a 10% VAT raised revenue equal to 2% of GDP. No surprise there.
National Review | The White House’s Unbalanced Approach
The president “balanced” plan is $1.6 trillion in tax hikes over 10 years and the promise of $400 billion in spending cuts over the same period. As Knudsen calculates “the package consists of at least $4 of tax increases to $1 of spending cuts” — and that’s assuming that the spending cuts will materialize, which they haven’t in previous deals.
AEI | Math is hard: Why spending, not tax revenue, is the big problem
OK, so Team Obama is proposing $4 trillion in debt reduction. About $1.6 trillion would come immediately via tax hikes — both higher rates and lower deductions — from wealthier Americans. So based on that, this plan is roughly 60% spending cuts, 40% tax hikes. Balance?
