The Era of Big Government, Continued In the NYT today: Broad Bills Stuffed With Lawmakers’ Pet Items. Some highlights: “A provision benefiting a specific hospital in Tennessee was added to the Medicare bill at the last minute in an effort to get the vote of Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat of Tennessee … Mr. […]

In Case You Haven’t Seen It Yet … … I offer you this exchange for your Thanksgiving amusement (warning: not suitable for children): [Neil Bush’s] ex-wife’s attorney sounded skeptical. “Mr. [Neil] Bush, you have to admit it’s a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it […]

Medicare Drug Benefit The Washington Post has an impressively informative piece on the new Medicare drug benefit–they numbers are detailed and useful. In fact, I hereby nominate the authors, Edward Walsh and Bill Brubaker, for the Bush Budget Beat through at least the 2004 elections. Had work like this been common throughout 1999 and 2000, […]

Why are Bond Yields Still so Low? One of the fundamental conclusions of basic macroeconomics is that when the economy booms, interest rates should rise. That’s because when the economy is doing well, people and businesses borrow more money to finance their spending and investment. When the demand for borrowed money rises, we know that […]

Reflections on Medicare and the Democratic Party Take a look at this bit of fascinating analysis of the Medicare fight by the Washington Post: For Democrats, A Wake-Up Call Democrats have owned the Medicare issue for nearly 40 years. But this week, the Republicans climbed into the driver’s seat and mashed the gas pedal. In […]

Medicare and The House Rake I like Slacktivist’s take, here. AB

Corporate Responsibility Nice move by Boeing: Michael Sears, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Boeing Co., had the required pedigree and background to become the next chairman and chief executive of the Chicago-based company. But on Monday, Sears, 56, a resident of Lake Forest, was fired from his $1.2 million-per-year job. His wife […]

Era of Big Government, Continued While the energy bill is down, Pork remains at an all time high. Via Calpundit, see the “Grand Old Porkers: Special Favor ‘Earmarks’ contained in Annual Labor-HHS-Education Appropriation Bills” report by the minority staff of the House Appropriations Committee. (Needless to say, Pork is up since Republicans took over. Way […]

Nice Job Except for you, Tom Ethanol Daschle: Washington — The White House and Republican leaders Monday abandoned a vigorous effort to try to revive a sweeping energy bill this year after a liability waiver for the makers of a gasoline additive stalled the measure last week. AB

Why does Kurtz Have a Job? Here’s Kurtz on Gephardt’s criticism of Dean’s willingness as governor to cut spending, including spending on social services, to balance Vermont’s budget: Does Gephardt really want to argue that balancing the budget (which states, by the way, are constitutionally required to do) is bad? In case it’s unclear, the […]