If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Normally we're not about giving away our lifting secrets, but with a looming sequestration deadline of March 1, it's time for everyone to get swoll and responsible with deficit reduction. Here's our 3 step workout plan.
There will be no end to tax loopholes for the rich, House Speaker John Boehner has asserted. The Republican ruling: The vast middle class, the elderly and the poor must suffer.
Smart investments now in effective therapies, personalized medicine, early interventions and health literacy, particularly among at-risk populations, can pay significant dividends down the road in healthier communities and a reduced need for hospitalizations, surgeries, emergency room visits and acute care episodes.
There is a right way and a wrong way to cut federal spending, but the sequestration plan about to go into effect is perhaps the most boneheaded approach that could possibly be concocted.
The "sequester" -- mindless, across-the-board spending cuts designed purposefully to be abhorrent to both political parties -- now seems likely to go into effect on March 1. The sequester cuts added to spending cuts and tax increases already scheduled will slow growth and cost jobs. Government austerity has already contributed to the worst recovery in post-World War II history. Why would the U.S. repeat this folly, despite warnings from the IMF and Federal Reserve officials? Every calamity has many authors -- Obama's premature turn to deficit reduction in 2009, the Tea Party zealots, a hapless and clueless Republican congressional leadership and more. One major contribution comes from the money and monomania of Pete Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire who has committed about half a billion bucks rousing hysteria about deficits and debt.
The private sector became a net borrower against the rest of the world. Sound familiar? These weren't the only issues underlying the Greek crisis, of course. To tick a few more linked fundamentals off the list: A problematic effective exchange rate was propelling a deterioration in the trade balance.
A speech delivered by Janet Yellen, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, began by reminding the audience that the Fed's mandate is a society of high employment, not just low inflation, and she made several important points that seem to have eluded President Obama -- all of which are implicit rebukes to the Administration's fiscally deflationary approach to the recovery. What sort of a topsy-turvy world is it when we have to look to the Federal Reserve, normally the home of inflation hawks and shills for commercial bankers, for ordinary common sense on the economic recovery? It's not that the Reserve has become dangerously left wing. It's that the rest of Washington has been captured by the deflation delusion.
The problem is how to create enough new jobs to generate more demand for goods and services. And only government is in a position to do that at present. Nothing else will generate the growth we need.
As Congress struggles through one budget crisis after another, it is becoming increasingly evident that austerity doesn't work. We cannot possibly pay...
Americans are much more unified in their aspirations and worries than they are about how to address them. An effective political leader must be bilingual -- speaking to the anxieties and desires of both the left and the right.
Cutting money does not spur doom and gloom just as throwing money at a problem will not fix it. What matters is whether money is spent effectively.
Big lies can do great damage in a democracy. This one could help Republicans in their coming showdowns. But it could keep the economy in first gear for years, right up through the 2014 midterm elections, maybe all the way to the next presidential election.
In the long term, Social Security must be fixed. The President and some other Washington politicians have proposed breaking it.
Given that the stated goal of Fix the Debt is to reduce budget deficits, it is worth asking why taxes don't figure more prominently on their agenda. It is also worth asking why one tax in particular, a financial transactions tax, never seems to get mentioned in anything the group or its members do.
The implementation of Electronic Health Record technology produces significant savings in the long run. The question, from a macroeconomic perspective, is whether the implementation of technology does generate savings for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The remedy for losing one's proposals is to win a majority for them in the next election, not taking the American people hostage.
Most Popular Deficit Stories
