Tag Archives : Obama
Can the GOP Win the Government Shutdown Fight?
When existing spending authority expires on March 4, the “non-essential” parts of the federal government will shut down unless Republicans and Democrats reach an agreement. This is causing lots of agitation in Washington, both by Democrats who don’t want the money spigots in the off position and Republicans who fret that they will be blamed […]
read more...Spending Restraint Works: Examples from Around the World
America faces a fiscal crisis. The burden of federal spending has doubled during the Bush-Obama years, a $2 trillion increase in just 10 years. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Because of demographic changes and poorly designed entitlement programs, the federal budget is going to consume larger and larger shares of America’s […]
read more...Compared to the Reagan Era, the Bush-Obama Years Have Been a Fiscal Nightmare
Since February is the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth and I still haven’t gotten over my man-crush on the Gipper, I figured it would be interesting to look at Reagan’s fiscal record, particularly to see whether he was successful in restraining the growth of domestic spending. There is lots of good information in the […]
read more...Obama’s Budget Means the Burden of Government Spending Will be $2 Trillion Higher in Ten Years
Fiscal policy wonks (like me, I’m forced to admit) sometimes miss the forest because we focus too much on individual trees. So while I think my posts on the spending and revenue sides of Obama’s new budget contained lots of useful information, I didn’t pay any attention to the elephant in the room (I’m really […]
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Deconstructing the Revenue Side of Obama’s Budget
I looked yesterday at the spending side of Obama’s budget and found some good news and bad news. The good news was the absence of any big new initiative to expand the burden of government. That’s a welcome relief since the past couple of years have featured budget busting proposals such as the so-called stimulus […]
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Deconstructing the Spending Side of Obama’s Proposed FY2012 Budget
President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 has been released and there is lots of rhetoric in Washington about “budget cuts.” At first glance, this seems warranted. According to the just-released fiscal blueprint, the federal government is spending about $3.8 trillion this year and the President is proposing to spending a bit more than […]
read more...To Fix the Budget, Bring Back Reagan…or Even Clinton
President Obama unveiled his fiscal year 2012 budget today, and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that there’s no major initiative such as the so-called stimulus scheme or the government-run healthcare proposal. The bad news, though, is that government is far too big and Obama’s budget does nothing to address this […]
read more...Obama the Born-Again Budget Cutter?!?
Chalk up another victory – at least on the rhetorical level – for the Tea Party. President Obama will release his fiscal year 2012 budget tomorrow and he’s apparently become a born-again fiscal conservative. Here are some excerpts from a Washington Post story. President Obama will respond to a Republican push for a drastic reduction […]
read more...If Obama’s Allowed to Lie, I’m Allowed to Be Snarky
I didn’t watch President Obama’s interview with Bill O’Reilly a couple of days ago, and that’s probably a good thing since I probably would have suffered a stroke if I actually heard Obama state, “I didn’t raise taxes once.” This was such an absurd display of mendacity that even the left-leaning PolitiFact people had no […]
read more...Comparing Reaganomics and Obamanomics with Minneapolis Fed Data
Ronald Reagan would have been 100 years old on February 6, so let’s celebrate his life by comparing the success of his pro-market policies with the failure of Barack Obama’s policies (which are basically a continuation of George W. Bush’s policies, so this is not a partisan jab). The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has […]
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