In the context of Dan’s post below, I just want to repeat what Bruce Bartlett said so accurately yesterday: [H]ere’s what I would be doing if I were organizing opposition to the Republican budgetary disinformation campaign. First of all, I would be holding hearings five days a week in the Senate Appropriations Committee and every […]

The Continuing Resolution (H.R. 1) was introduced Friday night. Information about the bill (copy of the legislation, bill summary, list of program cuts, and the subcommittee savings tables) is linked here: Appropriations Committee Introduces CR Containing Largest Spending Cuts in History February 11, 2011 CR Spending Cuts to Go Deep February 9, 2011 Rogers Announces […]

FY 2012 Federal Budget The following links are to federal government sources for the federal budget, OMB The Budget Summary Tables Terminations, Reductions and Savings TESTIMONY OF JACOB J. LEW DIRECTOR OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET February 15, 2011

by Mike Kimel Canada too! Part twoCross posted at the Presimetrics blog. In response to my post commenting on Frances Woolley’s post, Frances Woolley left the following comment: On WCI, one of the commentators suggested that the Liberal/Conservative growth differential is partly due to differences in military spending. In Canada where we don’t have a […]

Prof. Barkley Rosser at Econospeak makes a few observations on the changes in the Middle East as they relate to oil producers. (Dan here…An oil shock in prices of crude oil would be problematic for the economic recovery we all hope for.)

Gordon Adams via Capital Gains and Games takes a look at the military side of the budget that is being sidestepped by most in the deficit spending whirlwind of claims and political negotiations happening on Capitol hill.

Re-posted from New Deal 2.0 with permission from the author Liberal Fallacies: Protecting Social Security from its ‘Friends’by L. Randall Wray Liberal attacks on Social Security are the unkindest cut of all. The Center for American Progress’s Matt Miller has argued that liberals can learn a valuable lesson from NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget. […]

by Linda Beale David Cay Johnston on Stiffing the Working Poorcrossposted with Ataxingmatter David Cay Johnston, former New York Times tax reporter and now a columnist at Tax Analyst’s Tax Notes, writes this week about  the way both the Obama White House and the Republican party conspire to provide every-increasing benefits through the tax system […]

Key European CDS are starting to turn in the more northern direction again, as the German-French ‘pact for competitiveness’ faces near-unanimous pushback across Europe. Credit default swaps (CDS) are a market security used by investors to buy 5-yr protection (in this case) against default (or the like). As the spread rises the implied probability of […]