Another budget drop, another round on the Tilt-A-Whirl of political spin. On CNBC this morning, New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg did not hold back. “I think it was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity was doing the wrong thing over and over again and expecting change,” says Gregg, who almost became Obama’s Commerce …
Budgets
Gimmick or No, President Obama Still Has Big Deficit Problems And A Dysfunctional Debate
On February 26, 2009, President Obama declared “A New Era of Responsibility” when he released his 2010 budget. Except it wasn’t.
According to the president’s own bean counters’ calculations, the 2010 Obama budget left the U.S. economy with unsustainable deficits in the out-years, from roughly 2012 to 2019, even before the big boom in …
UPDATE: Health Reform and the States
As Karen noted earlier today, she and I have a story in this week’s magazine about how much states will be on the hook if and when federal health reform passes.
The impetus for the story was, in part, the growing number of governors across the country publicly slamming the idea of expanding insurance coverage to millions of …
Democrats Hope to Spend Now to Save (Their Seats) Later
A story from me about the logjam of spending Congress will spend the next three weeks chewing through. The spending issue is becoming increasingly sensitive, especially since three Blue Dogs — fiscal conservative Dems who usually come from swing districts — have now announced their retirement. CW states that Dems weren’t likely to lose …
An Update on the Senate Health Reform Debate
The Senate health reform bill is in a procedural holding pattern right now. Even though the body will be in session over the weekend, Majority Leader Harry Reid has put off votes on the bill while he waits for the Congressional Budget Office to evaluate a new Democratic proposal that could strip the public option out of the bill. In my …
The Coming Deficit War: Why You Will Be Paying More To Uncle Sam (Or Getting Less From Him)
The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber has a piece up this morning describing the bipolar economic pressures that the White House is now struggling with: the need for more stimulus spending vs. the need for less deficit spending. (I also have a piece in the next issue of the magazine–subscribe here $1.99 for six weeks–on the same topic.) …
A Jobs Speech with Elbows
The President gave a terrific economic speech today, proposing some new jobs-creating initiatives, one of which–a 0% capital gains tax rate for small businesses–seems a Republican dream, but was hilariously opposed on deficit cutting grounds by Senator Mitch McConnell…whose votes on a range of budget items during the Bush presidency …
A “Public Option Compromise” That’s Not?
If the weekend is any guide, the Senate health reform bill is not likely to undergo much tweaking. Between Friday and Sunday, despite hours of debate on the Senate floor, the only amendments that passed were those from Democrats simply reiterating things the bill already calls for. One sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was a “sense …
A Big Setback for Health Reform?
Read this quote, from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee. You are going to hear it repeated often by opponents of the health reform bills that have been unveiled thus far.: