Student loan debt is used to make an investment in human capital. Since this investment may seem intangible to young people, they may start to wonder: is college worth it?
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?
Well, another day, another dollar of revenue that's not being exchanged for a dollar of entitlement cuts. As sequestration remains in effect, and peop...
Want to straighten out the nation's finances, eliminate poverty, and end the income tax? Easy. Tax financial trades.
When fiscal crises become the "new normal" the public begins to remember that they elected politicians to do a job. And part of their job description is to take care of the public purse and not to create problems where none exist.
As the administration and Congress argue over cuts in social programs, inequality in America grows more extreme each day.
WASHINGTON -- Republicans are casting the latest battle over the nation's debt ceiling as a bid to win certainty in America's budget-making. But to De...
WASHINGTON -- Every election year, they become the popular ones, the celebrities with the power to hire or fire politicians. Then, when actual governi...
Back in the 1950s three social psychologists joined a cult that was predicting the imminent end of the world. Their purpose was to observe the cultist...
Just as colleges and universities try to work through financial aid challenges with families to make a "good fit" all around for students, I hope our government will follow suit. Otherwise, we'll be atop the cliff no more.
The holiday season is already upon us, but Congressional Republicans are not in a holiday mood. Because of their recalcitrance in the ongoing negotiations surrounding the pending fiscal crisis, they are on the verge of becoming the Grinch that stole America's economic recovery.
Before the liberals write the GOP's obituary it would be wise to acknowledge the role other "bubbles" play in inventing new and ingenious ways to get people to vote against their own self-interests. Rather than one all-encompassing "bubble" that hermetically seals the Republicans inside their media universe, there's no shortage of other equally important bubbles that serve corporate power. These bubbles often overlap in influence and personnel and still possess the awe-inspiring ability to persuade public opinion on the problems of greatest magnitude facing the United States today. Although it was amusing on election night to see Karl Rove on Fox News refuse to accept the reality of President Obama's Ohio victory, we shouldn't be too quick to draw totalizing conclusions from the Democratic victories.
At Fiscal Cliffs, the astounding seasonal menu highlights the vast disparity between would-be cuts to spending and enormous troves of lost revenue. Diners can choose from small plates like "Cold Medicare Cuts" and very large plates like "Prime Tax Cuts with local vulture urohydrosis trickle down."
Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), an outspoken proponent of cutting Social Security who has referred to it as a "ponzi" scheme, has not always been s...
Right now, a lot of attention is being paid to the federal deficit. But it's high time attention got paid to our other deficit.
By buying down tax rates from the bottom up, the savings are shared equally. Where would the final balance between spending cuts and tax hikes come out, and which spending programs would be curtailed?
America is engrossed in political spectacle while politicians play fiscal Russian roulette. The battle for the presidency has become tense and the U.S. economy could be about to jump off a fiscal cliff on January 1, 2013. Next year there will most likely be another fiscal cliff.
As much as I like to point out that GW Bush's fiscal policy is a key factor in our past, current, and future budget deficits, the fact is that after-tax median household income has grown considerably faster than pretax over the recent slumpy period.
While the show is set in the 1960s, we could imagine what its storyline would look like if written for today's era.
European countries must share their budgets to share their burdens, fully unite or expect exits, go hard or go home.
When governments announce that the sale of assets, they usually mean industries and companies owned and operated by the state. Greece has something sl...
Between public health epidemics costing the taxpayers tens of billions per year, there really is no winner. Who among us would wish a future for our children where they're crippled by fat or risk death from an ear infection?
Let's talk about the fiscal cliff -- you know, the one everyone's all wound up about? Well, the Congressional Budget Office just released their analysis of its potential impact on the economy and it ain't pretty. Add up all the stuff that's scheduled to turn into fiscal pumpkins at midnight on December 31, and you could get a serious impact on the economy. Unemployment would reverse course and start rising if that fiscal scenario remained in place -- but that's a big, important "if." All of the estimates assume we go off the cliff and don't climb back. But if, as Gail Collins imagines it, there's a bungee jump instead of a cliff dive, we can avoid the worst of this. One hopes that Congress can hammer the kind of compromise that has eluded them thus far -- the one that adds tax revenues to any agreement -- before the end of the year, or early next.
Detroit continues to face a fiscal crisis. However, the issue to address crime in the neighborhoods is not about resources; it's about managing the resources. The crime affecting our neighborhoods is fixable.
During the past 26 months, Detroit City Council has been more fiscally conservative than the Bing administration, when it comes to managing the City of Detroit's finances. We are reformers who have restored order and unity.
