Senate Democrats have threatened to block Speaker John Boehner’s $917 billion deficit reduction plan that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling by a similar amount this year. Just what budget cuts are they willing to accept? Republican House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan‘s budget achieved more than $6 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years. All House Republicans voted for his budget in | Read More »
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 »
While a temporary spending measure has averted a government shutdown in the United States, the two major political parties are still tens of billions apart in how much they’re willing to cut. Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to cut $61 billion from this fiscal year’s budget but the Democratic majority in the Senate rejected the measure. Senior Democratic Dick Durbin of Illinois told | Read More »
With its latest report (PDF) on the budgetary projections of the president’s health care reform law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provides an enhanced view of what ObamaCare is likely to cost. The full spending provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will not come into effect until 2014. So far, the CBO has projected expenditures of the law until 2019. Its | Read More »
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 »
Since President Barack Obama’s budget for the fiscal year 2012 only cuts domestic discretionary spending and leaves entitlements and defense untouched, the Federal Government will remain in the red for probably this entire decade unless Congress pushes for deeper spending cuts. Domestic discretionary spending doesn’t even account for 15 percent of the president’s $3.7 trillion budget. Only by reining in entitlement spending or dramatically raising | Read More »
House Republicans announced Thursday that they will cut $74 billion from the president’s budget for the current fiscal year. Just $32 billion will be slashed before the end of the calendar year however—far less than the $100 billion Republicans promised ahead of November’s congressional elections. According to Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, who chairs the House budget committee, it’s just a start. “The spending limit measure | Read More »
After billions in stimulus spending and bailing out banks and automakers, America’s public finances are in a dismal state. This year, the federal deficit alone is set to near $1.5 trillion while the national debt reach a staggering $13.7 trillion last month. Americans may need to brace for austerity but plans to rein in spending are few and controversial. Ahead of November’s midterm elections for | Read More »
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