If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Until leading politicians reach the right balance of tax increases and spending cuts, any chance of long-term sustainability and returning to a Standard and Poor's AAA sovereign credit rating is slim.
For every dollar we reduce the deficit this year, we sacrifice about two dollars and twenty cents in GDP. The cuts will also result in the loss of 750,000 jobs. So why are we doing this again?
It is the GOP's extreme vision of what they think our country should be -- with a weak government and a free ride to corporations and the rich at the expense of the rest of us -- that has put them at odds with the electorate, which is made up of primarily hard-working and struggling Americans.
While much of Washington worries about how to constrain Medicare costs, two contrarian legislators want the program to spend $1 billion more annually to fund residency training for new doctors.
The failure to see the largest asset bubble in the history of the world, coupled with the failure to prescribe an effective remedy to deal with the damage, should be sufficient to earn the economics profession the contempt of right-thinking people everywhere.
Ryan's proposal seems more like sleight of hand than legitimate cost control. It's about weakening Medicare, not strengthening the program for future generations.
Handling the surge in outlays caused by the "Great Recession" was a formidable problem. Unfortunately the picture on the revenue side was even worse. So why will the GOP not admit that we also have a revenue problem?
Here's what's really going on in Washington, the back story of facts surrounding stage front Congressional theatrics.
If Congressman Ryan really wants to get serious about cutting spending, he should look to the one U.S. President who has squeezed the federal budget, and squeezed hard. So, who can Congressman Ryan look to for inspiration on how to actually cut spending? None other than President Bill Clinton.
How can we explain why both under Bush and Obama, Wall Street has grown even larger -- so large that even Eric Holder admits they are too big to prosecute?
The budget that Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray released yesterday stands in sharp contrast to the one that her House counterpart, Paul Ryan, released on Tuesday. Hers is more appropriate to meet the nation's economic and fiscal challenges.
If enacted, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget would slow the economic recovery. Chairman Ryan selectively uses Congressional Budget...
Both parties agree that we suffer from mass unemployment, declining wages, and growing inequality. Both agree that rising future deficits should be addressed. But they offer completely different responses to these realities. The question, of course, is where Congress lines up.
My career was going very well, I was healthy in every usual sense of the word, until this rare condition became a problem. Drawing on "entitlements" at a young age was not my plan. No one saw this coming, but thank goodness for those safety-net programs our country has in place.
This week the Republican "Ryan Budget" was released. As I write this Google News yields more than 72,000 stories. The Congressional Progressive Caucus released their "Back To Work Budget" this morning. So far a Google News search for "Back To Work Budget" yields... two results.
What is The Wizard of Oz, really, if not a tale of four welfare queens looking for a government handout? This is the adult cynicism I was afraid of.
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