News
Roll Call | 15 Things You Need to Know About the Sequester
Nearly two years in the making, the first $85 billion of automatic budget cuts known as the sequester are about to hit starting Friday, but on Monday, there were no real talks under way to prevent it.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | The sky won’t fall
There is very little agreement in Washington on how to avoid the across-the-board spending reductions scheduled for Friday. Republicans are less than thrilled to see half the sequestration hitting defense, and Democrats are in a meltdown over the prospects of their welfare-state handouts getting a nip and tuck.
WSJ | China Has Its Own Debt Bomb
Six years ago, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao cautioned that China's economy is "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable." China has since doubled down on the economic model that prompted his concern.
Investors | Obama's Sequester Cuts Are A Mere 1% Of Budget
President Obama is almost breathless predicting "devastating" consequences if the sequester trigger is pulled. He warns the cuts "will hurt our economy ... add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. ... The unemployment rate might tick up again."
CBO | Testimony on the Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023
Economic growth will remain slow this year, CBO anticipates, as gradual improvement in many of the forces that drive the economy is offset by the effects of budgetary changes that are scheduled to occur under current law. After this year, economic growth will speed up, CBO projects, causing the unemployment rate to decline and inflation and interest rates to eventually rise from their current low levels.
CATO | America in Denial as Fiscal Tsunami Approaches
It’s hard to hear yourself think over all the caterwauling on Capitol Hill about the looming sequestration “crisis.” For opponents of the spending cuts — at $85 billion, 2.3 percent of the $3.6 trillion federal budget — the rallying cry is half Lord Keynes, half St. Augustine: “Grant me chastity and continence — but not yet.”
Blogs
CATO | Sequestration Cuts in Perspective
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the $85 billion in sequestration spending cuts translates into $44 billion reduction in actual federal outlays for 2013.
Economist | On predicting fiscal doomsday
It sure seems like high public debt levels ought to represent a looming economic problem. Why, then, is it so difficult to demonstrate, conclusively, that they are? It could be due to the econometric challenges posed by any macroeconomic issue: sample sizes are small and the possibility of any number of statistical biases throwing things off is large. Or it could be that debt levels simply aren't, in many cases, as bad as everyone seems to think.
