On January 1, Congress approved a tax and spending bill to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that would have created deflationary pressure on the United States (though Yglesias questioned the conventional wisdom of whether it would necessarily cause a recession). Let’s take a look at the deal in […]

 by Linda Beale There are no “per se” tax or spending caps: lame duck negotiations no place for Medicare/Medicaid cuts When George W. Bush got reelected with a minority of the popular vote and contested state counts, the GOP claimed a mandate to keep going with the fiscally irresponsible program of high military spending combined […]

In a previous post Fiscal cliff and the frenzy  I pointed to the rush of reporting the day after the election. Some of these articles should be in the op-ed section instead of reporting. Lori Montgomery “Avoiding hard decisions could have grave consequences, analysts say…”         …  Few expect Washington to replicate the […]

This summer’s widespread drought has been extremely hard on Midwestern and plains-states crop farmers, and many of them are chafing at the thought of having to take responsibility for their own lives if the Farm Bill doesn’t make it through Congress before the upcoming recess. They had panicked earlier in the summer when Congress was […]

(Dan here…Lifted from Robert’s thoughts) Robert writes: Omigod Sept 4 2012 really is opposites day.  Ezra Klein made an incorrect claim of fact about health care financing.  He wrote: But I’m not going to make that argument. I’m on-record saying that trust-fund accounting is by and large a ridiculous way to look at the federal […]

by Run 75411 The Elephants are Still Thirsty In my earlier post on Carrying Water for Elephants I explained how the $716 billion in planned reductions to Medicare was calculated, who it impacted, and from where it originated. The $716 billion is far larger than the initial $449 billion first reported. In 2010, the CBO arrived […]

In poker a “tell” is the physical giveaway or tic that lets you know someone is lying about his or her hand. In politics it’s the mode of evasion a politician chooses to sidestep a truth he or she doesn’t want to admit or to avoid saying something against self-interest. In his debut interview with Fox […]

A new Romney ad tells older voters to think of it this way: “The money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.” — Gail Collins, Middle-Age Blues, New York Times, this evening What?  If current Medicare recipients, and those who will begin receiving it within the […]

Ann Romney said in an interview airing Wednesday that her husband has no plans to release additional tax returns, saying “it’ll just give them more ammunition” and insisting that “there’s nothing we’re hiding.” “We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us. But the more we release, the more we get attacked, the more […]

by Linda Beale Essential Health Benefits and cost benefit analysis: can we maintain doctors’ incomes and provide decent care for all?  So we thought we had finally created a national system of health insurance that would permit near-universal coverage for essential health benefits to every American. But the Obama administration says it is not going […]