Obama Punts, Delays Pipeline Decision

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  November 10th at 02:27 PM  | 

So this is leadership. Reuters reports that President Barack Obama plans to announce on Thursday that his administration will explore an alternative route for a Canada-Texas oil pipeline, delaying final approval until after the 2012 presidential election. The $7 billion Keystone XL project is designed to carry oil—the equivalent of more than a million barrels of oil per day—from tar fields in Alberta to refineries | Read More »

Obama the “Good Czar”

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  September 5th at 10:03 AM  | 

There’s an old myth in Russian politics that’s shielded whoever occupied the Kremlin since the days of the czars from personal criticism. It holds that the ruler himself is never to blame for the terrible policies of his administration. The czar, according to this myth, is ever the fatherly good doer but surrounded by unscrupulous advisors who are conspiring to make life as hard as | Read More »

Higher Tax Rates Won’t Boost Revenue

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  August 3rd at 09:57 AM  | 

President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party would have liked to increase taxes as part of a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction. Republicans, adamantly opposed to raising taxes, especially during a time of fragile economic recovery, managed to prevent immediate tax hikes although revenue enhancement could be part of a broader plan that is supposed to be worked out by a bipartisan congressional committee later | Read More »

Why the Stimulus Was Bound to Fail

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  July 26th at 05:54 PM  | 

In the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, Congress enacted an almost $800 billion stimulus bill in the assumption that an artificial increase in consumer demand could propel the nation into recovery. The rationale was pure Keynesian economics—in times of crisis, the government should borrow, spend and boost demand to generate growth. Two years later, it’s clear that the stimulus didn’t work. Unemployment is still | Read More »

Why Should We Think Obama is Serious Now?

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  July 17th at 06:39 AM  | 

President Barack Obama urged legislators this week to “seize the moment,” saying that they had “a chance to stabilize America’s finances for a decade, for fifteen or twenty years.” He is reportedly still pushing Republicans for a “big deal” that would include $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years. But why should we believe that he is serious about cutting spending now? | Read More »

White House Unveils Regulatory Review

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  May 26th at 09:49 AM  | 

President Barack Obama announced earlier this year to undertake a grand review of economic regulation in the United States and get rid of rules that “are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.” Today, the first plans are in and you can review them here. There is a lot of sensible stuff among the different proposals. Red tape has been rising under | Read More »

Obama: Can’t Let the Rich “Relax and Count Their Money”

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  April 26th at 02:54 PM  | 

“I’m rooting for everybody to get rich,” President Barack Obama said last week, speaking at a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada. “But I believe that we can’t ask everybody to sacrifice and then tell the wealthiest among us, well, you can just relax and go count your money, and don’t worry about it. We’re not going to ask anything of you.” The president urged | Read More »

Should The Rich Pay More in Taxes?

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  April 15th at 09:19 AM  | 

The United States, like most nations in the developed world, maintain a progressive federal income tax system, meaning people not only pay a given percentage of their income in taxes but that percentage increases for high income earners, from 10 percent for individuals making a little more than $8,000 a year to 35 percent on incomes over $370,000. As a result, in 2008, the top | Read More »

White House Takes Credit for Record Oil Production

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  March 13th at 02:24 PM  | 

President Barack Obama on Friday rejected criticism from Republicans that his administration was hurting the American oil industry. Indeed, he pointed out that oil production last year rose to its highest level in seven years and added that his government was prepared to encourage new drilling in the face of rising gas prices. After imposing a de facto moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf | Read More »

Obama: Budget Cutters “Impatient”

By: Nick Ottens (Diary)  |  February 19th at 05:53 AM  | 

President Barack Obama has called critics who point out that his budget falls short of restoring fiscal balance “impatient.” After running multitrillion dollar deficits for two years though and bracing for a third, how much more patience does he want? The president introduced a $3.7 trillion budget on Monday that included $100 billion in yearly spending cuts. While his budget would achieve $1.1 trillion in | Read More »