Peter Gosselin and Joel Havemann of the LA Times do a good job today picking through the bits and pieces of the White House’s policy proposals regarding health care, and putting them together: WASHINGTON – President Bush wants to bring to healthcare the same “ownership society” approach that gained him little political traction during last […]

Kash does not think we need another commission to understand the Social Security solvency issue. Had anyone listened to Tim Russert on the Today Show, they might have another view. Russert claimed that the fact that the number of folks on retirement may double in the next several years means we have to either double […]

There was something familiar to me about this part of Bush’s SOTU address last night: [T]onight I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This commission should include members of Congress of both parties and offer bipartisan solutions. […]

In its last meeting with Alan Greenspan at the helm, the FOMC decided today to raise interest rates (i.e. the Federal Funds rate) yet again. See Mark Thoma for analysis of the accompanying statement. Despite David Altig‘s response to my worry that the Fed might overshoot (I think David and I differ more in our […]

Keeping with my New Year’s resolution, let me say BRAVO to Ramesh Ponnuru for this: But conservatives are almost certainly overestimating how much good “earmark reform” can do … Critics of Alaska’s “bridges to nowhere” have pointed out that it makes no sense for the Congress to fund such dubious projects at the expense of, […]

As a follow up to my last post about administrative costs in the US health care system, let me take a moment to address the following hypothetical question: what could we really expect if the US moved from its current system to a single-payer system? Theoretically, there’s no clear answer to this question. On the […]

Why are health care costs so high in the US? Some possible explanations include medical malpractice insurance, improving (but also more expensive) medical technology, the desire by people to simply spend more of their income on health care services as their income rises, and large and increasing administrative costs. If he addresses the question of […]

From December 29, 2005: Snow urges Congress to raise debt limit U.S. Treasury Secretary “The administration now projects that the statutory debt limit, currently $8.184 trillion, will be reached in mid-February 2006,” Snow said in a letter to 21 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate released by Treasury after financial markets had […]

President Bush, January 20, 2004: [W]e can cut the deficit in half over the next five years. President Bush, February 8, 2005: [My budget] keeps us on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009. President Bush, January 6, 2006: [W]e are still on track to cut the federal deficit in half by 2009. […]

I wonder if Greenspan thought to himself this morning: “Darn. Did I do it again?” Kash