NewsTrust - U.S. Budget - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Deficit hawks attacking the wrong prey

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By David Sirota - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - When the House considered a health care expansion proposal that the CBO says will reduce the deficit by $11 billion a year, tea-party protesters and Congress' self-described "fiscal conservatives" opposed it on cost grounds. At the same time, almost none of them objected when Congress passed a White House-backed bill to spend $636 billion on defense in 2010. The hypocrisy is stunning

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Ezra Klein on the House health care reform bill

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Oct. 29 (Interview) - So what exactly did the House put out this morning? Is it the Robust opt-out Public Option that Sen. Reid talked about? Ezra Klein: No. So to do a bit on defining terms here: Robust refers to a public option that can use Medicare's payment rates. That would let the public option save 20-30 percent against private insurance. Neither the House nor the Senate includes such an option. The House bill has a national public option that will set rates in the same way private insurers do (negotiating with providers). The Senate bill has a national public option that works the same way as the House's, save that it has an opt-out feature starting in 2014.

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Tom Coburn picks on political science

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Daniel W. Drezner - Oct. 08 (Comment) - OK, dear readers, I want you to close your eyes and imagine a world in which your entire knowledge of political behavior emanated only from CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, and political parties.

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No Exit

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - Aug. 13 (Opinion) - The Fed is keeping the money pumping even though it also conceded that "economic activity is leveling out," which is an acknowledgment that the recession is all but over.

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Why NASA's Moon Landing is the Wrong Model for Science in America

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Root - By Dayo Olopade - Jul. 20 (Opinion) - “We are attempting to develop major new systems with ten-year technology, eight-year programs, a five year plan, three-year people, and one-year dollars,” he wrote. What’s more, large, corporate contractors dominate the federal procurement process —hiking up the costs of aerospace technology for taxpayers. The consequences of this lax management can be both embarrassing and deeply wasteful: It took engineers six costly tries to get the shuttle Endeavor, carrying the last Japanese pieces of the International Space Station, into orbit last week.

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Rules For Commenting On The CBO's Judgments

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Jul. 17 (Opinion) - In the least surprising revelation of the day, the Congressional Budget Office doesn't see much in the way of savings coming from health-care reform in the next 10 or so years. This is because the bills under consideration do not save much money in the next 10 or so years.

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California v Texas: America's future

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - Plenty of American states have budget crises; but California’s illustrate two more structural worries about the state. Back in its golden age in the 1950s and 1960s, it offered middle-class people, not just techy high-fliers, a shot at the American dream—complete with superb schools and universities, and an enviable physical infrastructure. These days California’s unemployment rate is running at 11.5%, two points ahead of the national average. In such Californian cities as Fresno, Merced and El Centro, jobless rates are higher than in Detroit. Its roads and schools are crumbling. Every year, over 100,000 more Americans leave the state than enter it.

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Wrong Way on Health ’Reform’

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Robert J. Samuelson - Jun. 15 (Opinion) - ... uncontrolled health spending is almost single-handedly determining national priorities. It's reducing discretionary income, raising taxes, widening budget deficits and squeezing other government programs. Worse, much medical spending is wasted, the CEA report says. It doesn't improve Americans' health; some care is unneeded or ineffective.

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Will Obama's Financial Overhaul Bring Real Change?

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

National Public Radio - By Liz Halloran - Jun. 12 (Interview) - President Obama expected to announce next week his plan to revamp regulation of the nation's dysfunctional financial system, speculation about what he'll recommend has been running rampant. But what already appears clear is that the president plans to pull back on some of the more ambitious proposals that his administration had floated on Capitol Hill, from consolidating four bank-and-savings regulatory agencies into one uber-overseer to merging two agencies that oversee financial markets.

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Obama's Pay-Go Flameout

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Robert J. Samuelson - Jun. 11 (Opinion) - If President Obama thought he'd score some easy political points by endorsing new PAYGO legislation to control deficit spending, he was sadly mistaken. Although PAYGO--budget-speak for "pay-as-you-go"--seems to limit Congress' ability to cut taxes or raise spending, the initial reviews were unkind and sometimes harsh.

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Obama's PAYGO Plan Won't Cut the Federal Budget Anytime Soon

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Jun. 11 (Editorial) - the president's self-congratulatory back-patting about fiscal rectitude is more than a bit hard to take in light of the huge exceptions he would grant. Yes, the president inherited a budget in arrears, an economy in tatters and a tax system that is unsustainable as written. It was necessary to add to the deficit in the short term to jolt the economy back to life. The House has these four exemptions in its pay-as-you-go rule; even without the Obama exceptions, there was no reasonable hope that these costs would be paid for.

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Obama sets the stage for health care reform battle

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsday - Jun. 11 (Editorial) - Obama's PAYGO push met with some guffaws. A president who inherited a huge deficit, made it even bigger and then called for fiscal discipline, is an easy target. But as Washington moves beyond economic crisis management to structural reform, living within its means is key. It's no coincidence that PAYGO was in place in the 1990s when deficits became surpluses, or that deficits reappeared after it was abandoned. Health care for all is important. So is responsibly paying for it.

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No gain but we avoid a lot of pain

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Michael Hiltzik - Jun. 02 (Opinion) - Whether the government's novel venture into industrial ownership will save the economy, or whether it's even a necessary component of an economic recovery, are questions certain to be widely debated in the coming months while GM hares its way through an expedited bankruptcy reorganization.

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The Half-Penny Solution

Sat, 09 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - May. 09 (Editorial) - Mr. Obama and his advisers know the public won't accept gigantic governmental expansions without at least some effort to pare the waste in Washington. So they scrubbed "line by line" through this historically huge budget and identified $16.7 billion of budget savings.

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Can Peter Orszag keep the President’s political goals economically viable?

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Ryan Lizza - Apr. 26 (Opinion) - A few weeks ago, Peter Orszag, President Obama’s trim, apple-cheeked budget director, stretched out in the green room of what has become, in recent years, the locus of reliably liberal sensibility in this country—the midtown studios where Jon Stewart tapes “The Daily Show.” Orszag’s day had been a reflection of the Obama Administration’s frenetic attempts to stave off worldwide economic disaster—urgent phone calls, BlackBerry messages, meetings with the editorial boards of the Times and the Wall Street Journal, lunch with Mayor Bloomberg, constant communications about wavering members of Congress preparing to vote for (or against) Obama’s budget—yet Orszag remained well pressed, in a dark pin-striped suit and black cowboy boots. After a while, he spotted a gift bag on the coffee table nearby. Orszag’s girlfriend, Claire Milonas, and his communications director, Kenneth Baer, joked about whether the free hat and Irish liqueur inside complied with White House ethics rules banning gifts that cost more than twenty dollars. “I bet this only retails for twelve,” Baer said, pointing to a “Daily Show” T-shirt.

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The Class Clowns

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Apr. 23 (Opinion) - The actual text, which included no specifics or numbers at all, was full of wildly general phrases like "Republicans would fully fund our ongoing commitments overseas while devoting the entirety of any savings from reduced fighting to deficit reduction." As one observer put it, it was like an invasion plan that read, "Send ships, land troops, kill Germans."

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Tax Me, Tax Me!

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

National Public Radio - By Dick Meyer - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - You want to hear some deeply wise and thoroughly counterintuitive wisdom from the crowd? How about this: Americans are perfectly happy with how much they are taxed.

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Tax Tea Party Time, Part Two

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Forbes - By Bruce Bartlett - Apr. 16 (Opinion) - many protesters implicitly assume that that the deficit has increased solely as a result of Barack Obama's policies. But in fact, the Congressional Budget Office was projecting a deficit of more than $1 trillion this year back in January, before any of Obama's policies had been enacted, and a cumulative deficit of $4.3 trillion through 2019. (CBO made no assumptions about what his policies might be in making its projection.)

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A Budget Deficit

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Weekly Standard - By Matthew Continetti - Apr. 05 (Opinion) - You can learn a lot from a budget. President Obama's $3.6 trillion behemoth isn't just a bunch of numbers and tables. It's a vision of where America ought to be in the future. Obama would ramp up government spending in health care, energy, and education. Taxpayers would foot the bill for a larger, more intrusive government that would claim to improve the quality of life and reduce inequality. Annual deficits and a growing public debt burden would be secondary to improving society. Obama is betting that, by throwing money at schools and hospitals and environmentally friendly industries, he'll lay the foundation for the next economic boom. The president says he's neither a socialist nor a big-government liberal. He sees himself as the venture-capitalist-in-chief.

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The Ever Spending Story

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Apr. 02 (Comedy News) - Congress expresses the fire of their passion over Barack Obama's budget with jumbo placards.

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It only looks different: Both parties love big government

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Steven Thomma - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Strip away the political finger pointing over President Obama's proposed budget and the fight boils down to a clash of values. Both major parties are really for big government — just big in different places. Republicans say they're outraged that Obama would "borrow and spend" his way to a new behemoth government. But they borrowed and spent their way through the '80s and the current decade. And they love big government — when it's at the Pentagon.

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Are stocks facing ‘irrational pessimism?’

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Rachel Beck - Mar. 08 (Comment) - The negative environment in the overall market is driving away prospective buyers, said Darin Newsom, senior analyst at the Omaha, Nebraska-based market information company DTN. "Right now no one wants to support this market," he said.

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Stage of Fools

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Maureen Dowd - Mar. 04 (Opinion) - Team Obama sounds hollow, chanting that “the status quo is not acceptable,” even while conceding that the president is accepting the status quo by signing a budget festooned with pork.

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The Re-Redistributor

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Mar. 02 (Opinion) - the central issue in american politics now is whether the country should reverse a three-decade-long trend of rising inequality in incomes and wealth.

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Op-Ed Contributors - Head Start Falls Further Behind - NYTimes.com

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Douglas J. Besharov, Douglas M. Call - Feb. 08 (Opinion) - BARACK OBAMA ran for president promising change. Unfortunately, a look inside the stimulus package reveals that “change” mostly means spending vastly more on domestic programs without necessarily improving the way they operate. Nowhere is this clearer than in its provisions concerning education, particularly Head Start. America’s most vexing educational problem is the achievement gap that puts low-income, mostly minority children far behind their peers on a host of important social and cognitive measures. The achievement gap stems from many sources, including historical discrimination, the abysmal condition of many schools serving low-income children and the child-rearing styles of many poor families.

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