Budget

Exciting as watching paint dry — that’s the usual assessment of a budget document. And Wednesday’s release of President Barack Obama’s budget promises to be as underwhelming as it is overdue. Will there be anything of interest at all?

The United States is facing a serious fiscal challenge. The Congressional Budget Office has made clear that in the absence of significant reform, the nation’s spending programs will burden the nation with growing debt that will lead to slower growth, slower job creation, and slower wage growth. The House of Representatives have passed a budget that would ultimately balance in ten years, and forestall the economic harm of high indebtedness.

There comes a point at which D.C. Beltway rhetoric doesn’t resemble any form of reality in the lives of most Americans.

When this happens, no amount of spinning or dodging by politicians can put lipstick on the pig and make it look anything more or less than what it is: a pig.

As the debate intensifies over the need to address our nation’s broken federal budget system, politicians on both sides of the aisle are trying to gain more air time to put forward their plan for how to pass a budget that will get America’s economy moving again.

Yesterday, Paul Ryan released his 2013 budget plan. His opponents on the Left -- who don’t believe the United States has a spending problem -- were quick to pounce, but we wanted to cut through the noise and tell you about the five most important things you need to know about the Ryan plan.

The day of reckoning for the legacy of any President takes place after they have left office. 

In the modern era of Presidencies, Americans , at first, loved Harry Truman for his frank talk and no-nonsense sensibilities.  Yet, in the spring of 1948, with an approval rating of 36%, most Americans assumed he was done.  Not only did he win re-election, but ever since he ranks amongst the most admired Presidents in American history.

It does not come as too much of a surprise to learn that "the White House says it will give states more time to comply with the new health care law after finding that many states lag in setting up markets where millions of Americans are expected to buy subsidized private health insurance." The New York Times reports that "Kathleen Sebelius, working with the White House, said she would waive or extend the deadline for any states that expressed in

President Obama took to the podium to chastise Congressional Republicans for daring to suggest that the United States remains in a precarious fiscal position. Instead of acknowledging this reality, the president has posited that the U.S. needs only modest deficit reduction to stabilize the debt. As has been documented elsewhere, this assumption is flawed for a number of reasons.

In the last 20 years, the United States has enacted 17 increases in the debt limit. Of those 17 increase, 3 were stop-gap measures: a temporary increases with a scheduled fall-back in the absence of superseding increase (P.L. 103-12), and two increase that allowed for uninterrupted operations of the Social Security program (P.L. 104-103, P.L. 104-115). Of the remaining 14 “permanent” increases, all but 3 were either passed as part of other legislation or pursuant to a now repealed rule that precluded a vote in the House of Representatives, the so-called “Gephardt Rule.”