Category Archives: Government spending

The GOP’s Gift To Henry Waxman — Part II

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Cold War era Congressman Chet Holifield wanted the federal government to finance a network of underground bomb shelters. His successor, Henry Waxman, wanted the federal government to take over health care. Holifield failed; Waxman is still doing just fine. [Credit: NY Times]

Cold War era Con­gress­man Chet Holifield want­ed the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to finance a net­work of under­ground bomb shel­ters. His suc­ces­sor, Hen­ry Wax­man, want­ed the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to take over health care. Holifield failed; Wax­man did just fine. [Cred­it: NY Times]

Chet Holifield was obsessed with The Bomb.

Dur­ing a 32-year tenure that flow­ered dur­ing the Cold War, the Los Ange­les Con­gress­man sought fed­er­al mon­ey to help Amer­i­cans sur­vive a nuclear war.  He called for “a nation­wide sys­tem of under­ground shel­ters” in which to hud­dle, safe from irra­di­at­ed debris.

Though Holifield achieved suc­cess in oth­er areas – he was known as “Mr. Atom­ic Ener­gy” for his pro­mo­tion of nuclear pow­er — he left Con­gress in 1974 with­out ful­fill­ing his sub­ter­ranean vision. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

How Cutting Jobless Benefits Cut Joblessness

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During his December 2013 Hawaiian vacation, President Obama phoned lawmakers, asking them to extend unemployment benefits. They did not. Which is a good thing, according to a new study published by NBER. [Credit: Fox News]

Dur­ing his Decem­ber 2013 Hawai­ian vaca­tion, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma phoned law­mak­ers, ask­ing them to extend unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits. They did not. Which is a good thing, accord­ing to a new study pub­lished by NBER. [Cred­it: Fox News]

A lit­tle more than a year ago, the Pres­i­dent was dis­tressed.  It was a few days after Christ­mas 2013, and extend­ed unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits for 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple were about to expire.  In a typ­i­cal­ly per­func­to­ry lob­by­ing effort, he called two Sen­a­tors to urge them to move a bill to pre­serve the benefits.

To recov­er from his exer­tions, he and his fam­i­ly then “ven­tured to the white-sand beach at Bel­lows Air Force Sta­tion, which is on the wind­ward side of the island of Oahu and fea­tures turquoise water and a stun­ning view of the Moku­lua Islands,” the Wash­ing­ton Post reported.

That tran­quil scene augured the best year for U.S. employ­ment growth since 1999.   Accord­ing to the Labor Depart­ment, the econ­o­my added more than 3.1 mil­lion jobs in 2014.  The topline unem­ploy­ment rate was 5.6% in Decem­ber, down from 6.7% the pri­or Decem­ber and the low­est rate since June 2008.

And here is the sur­pris­ing major rea­son for the resur­gence in employ­ment: Con­gress spurned the President’s entreaties and let extend­ed unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits expire. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Inequality: Has The Income Gap Narrowed?

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Two icons of the Left -- economist Thomas Piketty and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) -- talking about rising inequality last June. But by some measures, inequality is shrinking. [Credit: National Review]

Two icons of the Left — econ­o­mist Thomas Piket­ty and Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren (D‑MA) — dis­cussing ris­ing inequal­i­ty dur­ing an event last June. But by some mea­sures, inequal­i­ty is shrink­ing, not ris­ing. [Cred­it: Nation­al Review]

“The game right now in Amer­i­ca is rigged. It is rigged so that those at the top keep doing bet­ter and bet­ter, and every­one else is under increas­ing pres­sure, is under increas­ing eco­nom­ic strain…And that is the pro­found dan­ger that we see from great inequal­i­ty.” Eliz­a­beth War­ren (D‑MA)

Democ­rats are still sting­ing from last month’s epic defeat at the polls.  Some of them attribute that unhap­py out­come to ide­o­log­i­cal tem­per­ance.  The par­ty would do bet­ter, some argue, if their can­di­dates took a more stri­dent tone, denounc­ing the rich, preach­ing that Wash­ing­ton gov­erns in the ser­vice of Wall Street, and call­ing for more aggres­sive redis­tri­b­u­tion of income and wealth to damp­en ris­ing inequality.

But a new study pub­lished in the South­ern Eco­nom­ic Jour­nal pulls at a crit­i­cal thread of that nar­ra­tive.  It found that, at least accord­ing to one mea­sure of income, the gap between rich and poor actu­al­ly nar­rowed between 1989 and 2007. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Tales From The House al Qaeda Built

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Turmoil at the Department of Homeland Security, an agency established in response to the 9/11 attacks, continued last night when Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned under fire. [Credit: cbc.ca]

Tur­moil at the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, an agency estab­lished in response to the 9/11 attacks, con­tin­ued last night when Secret Ser­vice Direc­tor Julia Pier­son resigned under fire. [Cred­it: cbc.ca]

The house al Qae­da built — a sprawl­ing new head­quar­ters for the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, an agency cre­at­ed in response to the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks — was sup­posed to open next year.

It’s just a bit behind sched­ule.  Its open­ing is now slat­ed for 2026, 21 years after plan­ning began. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

When Dead Men Rule

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G.K. Chesterton worried that our predecessors would have too little influence on our politics. But Gene Steuerle says that they have too much. [Credit: christiancompletely blog]

G.K. Chester­ton wor­ried that our ances­tors would have too lit­tle influ­ence on our soci­ety. But a new book by the Urban Insti­tute’s Gene Steuer­le says that they exert too much con­trol over our pol­i­tics. [Cred­it: chris­tian­com­plete­ly blog]

“Tra­di­tion means giv­ing votes to the most obscure of all class­es, our ances­tors.  It is the democ­ra­cy of the dead.” – G.K. Chester­ton

Chester­ton fret­ted that mod­ern democ­ra­cies might show too lit­tle def­er­ence to past gen­er­a­tions.  But accord­ing to the Urban Institute’s Gene Steuer­le, the very oppo­site is true: in Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy, dead men rule. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Elizabeth Warren’s Anti-Progressivism

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Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) preaches progressivism but is her student loan proposal anti-progressive? [Credit: NPR]

Eliz­a­beth War­ren (D‑MA) preach­es pro­gres­sivism but is her stu­dent loan pro­pos­al anti-pro­gres­sive? [Cred­it: NPR]

“This coun­try should not be run for the biggest cor­po­ra­tions and largest finan­cial insti­tu­tions.” Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren (D‑MA)

To judge from Warren’s record so far, she would be pre­fer that the coun­try be run for the ben­e­fit of its biggest uni­ver­si­ties. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Should Obamacare Evolve Into “Medicare for All?”

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Federal agents storm a Los Angeles hospital engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is rampant, raising the question of whether "Medicare for All" is a good idea. [Credit: LA Times]

Fed­er­al agents storm a Los Ange­les hos­pi­tal engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is ram­pant, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether “Medicare for All” is a good idea. [Cred­it: LA Times]

Estill Mitts, a 68-year-old from Los Ange­les, came up with an enter­pris­ing idea some years back that made him mil­lions: pay home­less peo­ple from the city’s “Skid Row” dis­trict who were eli­gi­ble for Medicare or Med­ic­aid to check into local hos­pi­tals, even if they didn’t need to be there.

Set­ting up shop at a faux med­ical facil­i­ty that he dubbed the ”Assess­ment Cen­ter,” Mitts hired what he called “stringers” to pay home­less peo­ple small sums of mon­ey to go to one of three med­ical facil­i­ties that were in on the scam – City of Angels, LA Met­ro­pol­i­tan and Tustin Hos­pi­tal and Med­ical Cen­ter – where they were admit­ted whether or not they actu­al­ly required care. The hos­pi­tals billed Medicare or Med­ic­aid for the inpa­tient stays and made kick­back pay­ments to Mitts. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

How The Budget Deal Could Threaten Obamacare

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An angry John Boehner (R-OH) lashed out at conservative groups who opposed the budget deal. The deal strengthens his hand with his caucus and in negotiations over changes to Obamacare. [Credit: Washington Post]

An angry John Boehn­er (R‑OH) lashed out at con­ser­v­a­tive groups who opposed the bud­get deal. The deal strength­ens his hand with his cau­cus and in nego­ti­a­tions over changes to Oba­macare. [Cred­it: Wash­ing­ton Post]

“Frankly, I think they’re mis­lead­ing their fol­low­ers. I think they’re push­ing our mem­bers in places where they don’t want to be. And frankly, I just think that they’ve lost all cred­i­bil­i­ty.” – House Speak­er John Boehn­er (R‑OH), com­ment­ing on oppo­si­tion by con­ser­v­a­tive groups to the bud­get deal.

Last week’s over­whelm­ing House vote to rat­i­fy a mod­est bud­get agree­ment has been var­i­ous­ly depict­ed as a defeat for the Tea Par­ty, a rare instance of bipar­ti­san­ship, and a moment of ratio­nal­i­ty in an oth­er­wise chaot­ic and dys­func­tion­al bud­get process. It is all of those things and some­thing more: a new threat to the already trou­bled imple­men­ta­tion of Oba­macare. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Politics as the Art of Spurning Compromise

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It may take a bigger gavel for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his Senate counterpart Patty Murray (D-WA) to hammer out a budget agreement. (Credit: Swampland Times)

It may take a big­ger gav­el for House Bud­get Com­mit­tee Chair­man Paul Ryan (R‑WI) and his Sen­ate coun­ter­part Pat­ty Mur­ray (D‑WA) to ham­mer out a bud­get agree­ment. (Cred­it: Swamp­land Times)

Bud­get nego­tia­tors have strug­gled for near­ly two months to find agree­ment on the out­lines of a spend­ing bill that would fund the gov­ern­ment after Jan­u­ary 15.  The tar­get date for a deal is next Fri­day. They hope to meet it.

The agree­ment that con­tin­ues to elude them, if it comes at all, would be a small one. Gone are aspi­ra­tions for a “grand bar­gain” that would reform enti­tle­ments and the tax code and replace future across-the-board cuts with some­thing less mind­less. Changes to Medicare, Med­ic­aid, Social Secu­ri­ty and oth­er “manda­to­ry” spend­ing pro­grams, which togeth­er con­sti­tute 63 per­cent of non-inter­est gov­ern­ment spend­ing, are off the table.  So, too, are tax­es. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

In Washington, All Is Well

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The faces of Congressional leaders are hardly etched with joy, but they did manage to avert a fiscal crisis, even if only for a few months. [Credit: Bloomberg]

The faces of Con­gres­sion­al lead­ers are hard­ly etched with joy, but they did man­age to avert a fis­cal cri­sis, even if only for a few months. [Cred­it: Bloomberg]

Octo­ber 16, 2013, 6:00 am

All is well in Wash­ing­ton. The gov­ern­ment is spend­ing and bor­row­ing again. Con­tin­ue read­ing →