I have two New Year’s resolutions: (1) try even harder to find ways to elicit bipartisan support for fiscal responsibility; and (2) Brad Setser’s blog more often. For those grown-up Republicans who wish to support (1), read this from Brad: Take out social security, which takes in more revenue than it spends, and the budget […]
Josh Marshall on SSRI: … The United States has a bit over $7 trillion in accumulated national debt … After 1980 we started borrowing money big-time to finance our deficits — in large part because of tax cuts on high-income earners. However you want to slice it, we started spending substantially more than we were […]
Senator Says Lifetime Terror Detentions ‘Bad Idea’: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A reported U.S. plan to keep some suspected terrorists imprisoned for a lifetime even if the government lacks evidence to charge them in courts was swiftly condemned on Sunday as a “bad idea” by a leading Republican senator. The Pentagon and the CIA have asked […]
At first, the White House thought $15 million was all we could do. Next, they reacted to terms like stingy or miserly as if Bush was running for reelection – but at least the $15 million became $35 million. But the number of dead already is 40 times that of 9/11 and the number of […]
New to the blogroll: The Dead Parrot Society, a group blog written by assorted professionals. Looks like some smart stuff, even if one of the writers takes exception to the points in my Social Security post. (By way of a quick rebuttal, Dead Parrot Victor writes Keep in mind that average workers who retire in […]
George Bush should consider Edward Prescott as Greg Mankiw’s replacement at CEA. Prescott has been defending Bush’s tax cuts even without Karl Rove standing over his shoulder and now this via Will Willkinson: Readers of this page will recall that I have made this proposal in a previous essay, but readers may also recall a […]
Much of the Social Security ground has already been covered. For example, one well-established fact is that there is no Social Security crisis (the Daily Howler has also been very good on this point.) If nothing is changed and economic growth turns out to be in the fair to middling range then the trust fund […]
Josh Marshall has been offering updates on the Democrat’s Fainthearted Faction including this suggestion that Harold Ford has become the Dean (his 12/23 post). These Democrats seem to be reviewing a Social Security deform proposal by James DeMint (R-South Carolina) since President Bush refuses to tell us what his plan would be. In many ways, […]
Right? Bruce Bartlett gives his annual overview of assorted and sundry blogs, including this one: Another lefty web site that I read regularly is someone known only as “Angry Bear.” I don’t know who he is, but he offers sophisticated commentary by an economist with a left wing perspective. He is very good at poking […]
The clown show at the National Review would have you believe that national savings has not been harmed by the fiscal recklessness of the Bush Administration. Its most recent offering is from guest contributor John Tammy who writes: The Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel wrote last week that “American people, businesses and government don’t save […]