Kevin Drum is hoping Senator Roberts does the right thing: Apparently Roberts now feels not only that his committee should be briefed, but that the program itself should be overseen by the FISA court. If Roberts follows up on this, then good for him. On both scores, I have my doubts. CNN is still suggesting […]

Byron York comments on Dick Cheney’s interview with Brit Hume where the question was clearly whether the Vice President had the authority to declassify information. Did Cheney lie when he claimed there was an Executive Order giving him declassification authority? Mr. York points to Executive Order 13292, issued by President Bush on March 25, 2003. […]

Hat tip tp Charles Patton for pointing out the MarketWatch account of how the Treasury Secretary has dodged the Federal debt ceiling again: WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The U.S. Treasury acted Thursday to avoid hitting the national debt limit and said it’s “imperative” Congress raise the debt ceiling by the middle of March. Treasury is suspending […]

Check out the Valentine Day report from Adweek: DALLAS – The Bush administration spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising agencies over the past two-and-a-half years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released by House Democrats Monday. With spending on public relations and other media included, federal agencies spent $1.6 […]

Jonah Goldberg over at The Corner opens with: Warrantless searches, Katrina fingerpointing, $7.8 trillion budget, Abramoff spin: these were the stories buffetting the White House last week. Table 3.2 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports the Federal spending for 2005 was less than $2.55 trillion. Does Jonah expect this Republican government to triple Federal […]

Bruce Bartlett jumps on the dynamic analysis bandwagon, applauding the creation of the “Division on Dynamic Analysis” at the Treasury Department. Menzie Chinn and PGL have covered the prinicpal problems with this political exercise disguised as economic analysis, so let me just add two small points to what they’ve said. First, Bartlett is quite wrong […]

The American consumer has not yet showed any sign of slowing down, despite higher interest rates and slower house price appreciation. Today’s release of January retail sales by Census reported the following: The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January, adjusted for seasonal variation and […]

Maybe we should be relieved that Dick Cheney did not serve in Vietnam – especially as we see what Josh Marshall has learned: Things can get chaotic and excited when a bunch of birds (I’ll just try, as a blanket matter, not to use the jargon) come into range or rise up. But if you […]

The New Economist provides links to a piece by Michael Mandel noting his usual argument that the national income account definitions understate savings as well as a reply from Brad Setser and the Michael’s reply to Brad. As you will notice in a moment, I’m a bit biased to what Brad said so let me […]

This Knight-Ridder piece about Bush’s Health Savings Accounts raises an interesting question: do people have too many financial choices in their life already? WASHINGTON – President Bush’s proposed expansion of Health Savings Accounts depends on a premise that research shows is questionable: that Americans want more financial choices in their lives. Experts point to a […]