Tag Archives: deficit reduction

Good News Coming On The Deficit. Well, Sort Of.

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Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras hopes to prevail in today's Greek elections, which could mark a turning point in his nation's struggle against a crushing load of debt. Meanwhile, U.S. government deficits are improving. Sort of.

Syriza par­ty leader Alex­is Tsipras hopes to pre­vail in today’s Greek elec­tions, which could pro­voke a show­down between Euro­pean lead­ers and Greece, which strug­gles under a crush­ing load of debt. Mean­while, U.S. gov­ern­ment deficits are improv­ing. Sort of. [Cred­it: BBC]

On Tues­day morn­ing, the Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office will announce that the fed­er­al deficit con­tin­ued to decline last year.

The announce­ment will trig­ger an orgy of self-con­grat­u­la­tion in Wash­ing­ton.  The Admin­is­tra­tion will claim that its poli­cies have been vin­di­cat­ed.  Repub­li­cans also will take a bow, tout­ing spend­ing con­straints they’ve imposed since win­ning the House majority.

But you’ll hear noth­ing from the Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who most deserve cred­it for reduced deficits: the Fed­er­al Reserve Board of Gov­er­nors.  By hold­ing inter­est rates near zero and lend­ing tril­lions in free mon­ey to the Trea­sury, the Fed has allowed the gov­ern­ment to reduce deficits even as it gorged on debt. 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 →

Republicans Getting Deficit Reduction, But President Getting His Way

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The President and Speaker are headed for another budget confrontation. [Credit: Fox News]

The Pres­i­dent and Speak­er are head­ed for anoth­er bud­get con­fronta­tion. [Cred­it: Fox News]

Con­gress is on hol­i­day, rest­ing up for the next round of bud­get wars that will resume after Labor Day. The issues they will face when they return are famil­iar: the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is about to lose author­i­ty to do what it does best (or, at least, most nat­u­ral­ly) – bor­row and spend. Con­tin­ue read­ing →