Downsizing Blog
Obama’s Stimulus: A Bit of Pork, a Lot of Opportunism
FHA Bailout Is Inevitable, But Taxpayer Pain Is Not
Boehner’s Bogus Debt Ceiling Line in the Sand
Do Tax Cuts “Starve the Beast”?
On to the Next Manufactured Fiscal Crisis
It seem like it was just yesterday that congressional Republicans took the national debt hostage even though shooting it was never an option. Having just taken back control of the House on a wave of popular discontent over the federal government’s mounting red ink, the pressure was on the GOP to deliver.
It didn’t — and now the rout is on.
The Spending Cliff
Twenty-three point nine trillion dollars. That will be our national debt in 2022 under the fiscal-cliff bill that just passed Congress. That’s nearly $4 trillion more than the current-law baseline, and while most of that comes from making the Bush tax cuts permanent for most Americans without offsetting the loss of revenue through spending cuts, at least $330 billion of the new debt results from the increased spending that was part of the deal. Our government debt will amount to more than 118 percent of GDP.
Grading the Fiscal Cliff Deal: Terrible, but Could Be Worse
Happy New Year, Washington
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, a Democrat representing the federal workforce, frets over the impact of sequestration or any alternative on his Fairfax County district: “Undoubtedly, we will take a hit…It’s going to result in a steady retrenchment in government investment in both the civilian and defense sectors. That’s going to affect employment and the robustness of our economic growth in this region.”
Advantages of Low Capital Gains Tax Rates
For Afghan Reconstruction, Millions of Dollars Up in Smoke
Unconscionable levels of waste, fraud, and abuse continue to plague America’s 11 year nation-building mission in Afghanistan. According to an investigation by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), officers with the NATO training mission shredded the financial records of fuel purchased for the Afghan National Army. As a result, “the U.S. government still cannot account for $201 million in fuel purchased to support the Afghan National Army.”