Obamas Former Commerce Secretary Nominee: U.S. Economy is on Unsustainable Track

Obamas Former Commerce Secretary Nominee: U.S. Economy About To Collapse
Fox News: After three decades of public service, retiring Senator Judd Gregg R-Nh., isn’t pulling any punches when it comes to his assessment of The Economy, which he classifies as headed for an “inevitable fiscal meltdown.” Gregg, the Ranking Member on both the Senate Budget and Banking Committees, has long been recognized as an expert on fiscal matters and spoke to Fox News on Sunday as he prepares to leave office. Chief among Gregg’s concerns is the massive Deficit u...

Transcript: Sens. Dodd, Grassley on 'FNS'
The following is a rush transcript of the June 14, 2009, edition of "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace." This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. Chris Wallace, HOST: The debate over Health Care really got going this week. It involves almost 20 percent of The Economy, and it will affect every one of us. We've brought in two men at the center of the debate, Senator Chris Dodd who, along with Ted Kennedy, has drafted the leading Democratic plan, and Senator Charles Grassley, th...

...the sacrifices necessary...
Beat the Press Dean Baker November 22, 2010 says it well: The Washington Consensus That Excludes the Overwhelming Majority of the Public A front page Washington Post editorial * touted the "accord seen in debate over Deficit." It begins by telling readers that: "the sacrifices necessary to achieve those goals are coming into sharp focus." Included in the Post's list of sacrifices are Cuts to Social Security. It never mentions the fact that poll after poll continue to show that the vast majorit...

Who's Behind the Deficit Crisis
To accomplish this, Social Security and Medicare are being targeted by President Obama's Deficit Commission. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan recently said that the recommendations from Obama's deficit commission were inevitable: "The only question is, is it before or after a Bond Market crisis? Because there's no alternative." (Rueters, November 14, 2010). There is indeed an alternative; many in fact. The most obvious one is that taxes be drastically raised on the wealthy bond h...

Eric Cantor Talks About Taxes and Deficits at the WSJ CEO Council - WSJ.com
Please register to gain free access to WSJ tools. An account already exists for the Email Address entered. Forgot your username or Password? This service is temporary unavailable due to system maintenance. Please try again later. another account. Please enter a different username The Email Address you have entered is already in use. Please re-enter the email address. Why Register? Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for ...

House And Senate Dems Out Of Sync On Tax Cut Strategy
After a flurry of meetings, phone calls, member-to-member discussions and public jousting with Republican Leaders, Democrats left Washington on Friday aware of two key facts: Both the House and Senate will eventually vote to allow the Bush Tax Cuts on upper-income earners to expire; but Party Leaders in neither chamber have a clear path to winning that vote. And more importantly, with the White House still pressing for a Bipartisan solution that can pass before the end of the year, the only th...

Lieberman Embraces GOP Position On Tax Cuts
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is backing the GOP position on the Bush Tax Cuts. After a Press Conference last week where he pressed his colleagues to back the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Lieberman called the GOP's position -- a temporary extension of all the Cuts -- the best plan he's heard yet. "I continue to believe that this is a bad time to raise anybody's taxes and therefore the best suggestion I've heard, which I think could get Bipartisan support, is to extend all the Tax Cuts for one ...

Calling the bluff on deficits
By E.J. Dionne Jr. NYT Monday, November 22, 2010 Ronald Reagan (bless his sense of humor) loved to say that the problem with his administration was that the Right hand didn't know what the Far Right hand was doing. Something of that sort is happening among Conservatives on the supposed urgency of closing the federal Budget Deficit. On the near Right is the preliminary proposal of the co-chairs of the president's Deficit commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. It is a deeply conservative d...

Pelosinomics-It happened on her watch
For the last two years, President Barack Obama has behaved like a toddler regarding his predecessor. He inherited a mess, everything was his predecessor’s fault, and it will take him forever to clean up the mess that was left for him. Actually, that is more accurate if one is describing Congressman Ed Royce of California, who takes the Financial Services Committee Chairmanship from Barney Frank. Congressman Royce recently missed a function because it was his Wedding Anniversary. The audien...

Is President Obama's Second Term in the Bag?
You might think Yale Economics Professor William C. Fair is a bit crazy. After all, he's predicting that President Obama will cruise to Reelection in 2012. However, Fair has a good track record of predicting presidential outcomes based on his Economic model, which puts numbers on the slogan that "It's The Economy, stupid," which Bill Clinton adviser James Carville famously coined. Fair's model is simple enough. According to the The New York Times, he has two econometric models -- one that pred...

Irish PM Brian Cowen is due to make a statement at 2:00 PM ET. All day there have been rumors about the possible dis...
Irish PM Brian Cowen is due to make a statement at 2:00 PM ET . All day there have been rumors about the possible dissolution of the government, spurred this morning when the coalition Green Party announced it would split in January. Stay tuned. To embed this post, copy the code below and paste into your website or blog. Receive email updates on new comments! putting the country before politics. pass the Budget on 7 December Got a tip? Let us know! Q: Who owns the companies that make the new a...

Transcript: Peter Orszag and Sen. Judd Gregg on 'FNS'
The following is a rush transcript of the July 19, 2009, edition of "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace." This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. Chris Wallace, HOST: It's been a tough week for Health Care reform. There are new questions about the Cost, and moderate Democrats have raised new objections to proposed taxes to pay for it. We're joined now by President Obama's Budget chief Peter Orszag. And, Mr. Orszag, welcome to "Fox News Sunday." Peter ORSZAG, DIRECTOR OF THE O...

Robert J. Samuelson - Our burgeoning budget and the politics of avoidance
America's Budget problem boils down to a simple question: How much will we let programs for the elderly displace other government functions - National defense, education, transportation and many others - and raise taxes to levels that would, almost certainly, reduce Economic Growth? What's depressing is that this question has been obvious for decades, but our political leaders have consistently evaded it. This includes and indicts Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, Liberals and every presi...

Cato Institute: Policy Forum
Featuring Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts); Loren B. Thompson , Chief Operating Officer, Lexington Institute; and Benjamin Friedman , Research Fellow in Defense and Homeland Security Studies, Cato Institute; moderated by Christopher Preble , Director of Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute. Concern over the nation's looming Deficit has prompted a renewed focus on the need for Spending Cuts. Some in Washington would shield the Pentagon's Budget from scrutiny, but several newly elec...

Geithner Warns Republicans Against Politicizing the Fed
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the Obama Administration would oppose any effort to strip the Federal Reserve of its mandate to pursue Full Employment and warned Republicans against politicizing the Central Bank. “It is very important to keep politics out of Monetary Policy,” Geithner said in an interview airing on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” this weekend. “You want to be very careful not to take steps that hurt o...

"Call Their Bluff, Mr. President"
David Cay Johnston urges Obama to call Republicans' bluff on Tax Cuts for the wealthy (there's quite a bit more in the original): Call Their Bluff, Mr. President, by David Cay Johnston, Tax.com: Will President Obama cave on yet another of his campaign promises, this time by giving in to Republican demands to extend all of the temporary Bush tax cuts? ... Republican congressional leaders have said they will let all of the Bush Tax Cuts expire unless the president bows to their demand th...

Billionaire Buffet: Tax me, please; trickle down doesnt work
Gov.-elect Susana Martinez promised not to cut education or Medicaid funding in her campaign, but given that New Mexico’s Budget Deficit has grown from $260 million in July to $450 million, she is changing her language. The New Mexico Independent’s Trip Jennings won two second place awards in the annual statehouse reporting contest sponsored by the Association Capitol Reporters and Editors. The honor follows an awards banquet last month in which the Independent was given the First Am...

News Headlines
As the question of extending the Bush Tax Cuts remains Undecided, President George W. Bush defended the Cuts on CNBC Monday, saying that they promote Job growth. “If one is interested in Job Creation in the private sector, it is important to recognize that lower taxes enable the Job creators, i.e., small businesses, to have more money with which to expand their work force. And I would, yeah, I think they ought to be extended.” Bush also challenged critics—both conservative a...

Extending Tax Cuts Will Create Jobs: George W. Bush
Source: CNBC As the question of extending the Bush Tax Cuts remains Undecided, President George W. Bush defended the Cuts on CNBC Monday, saying that they promote Job growth. “If one is interested in Job Creation in the Private Sector, it is important to recognize that lower taxes enable the Job creators, i.e., small businesses, to have more money with which to expand their work force. And I would, yeah, I think they ought to be extended.” ... Bush also challenged critics—both conservative an...

Reform spending, control debt and ban earmarks (Sen. Mark Udall)
There’s an old saying that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. That pretty much sums up what I’ve heard from many of my fellow Coloradans, who are justifiably worried about the Federal Deficit. There was a time not long after President Clinton left office that we actually enjoyed a Budget surplus, but that was before Vice President Dick Cheney famously said that “Deficits don’t matter” and the administration of George W. Bush (with significant support from Congre...

No More Mister Nice Blog
Republicans: STUPID OR EVIL? DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE Steve Benen has a long post up on the question of whether Republicans are deliberately sabotaging The Economy in order to regain power. It won't surprise you that I agree with him -- though I'm not sure their minds are just on sabotage, as I'll explain below: Consider a thought experiment. Imagine you actively disliked the United States, and wanted to deliberately ...

Maddow Economics: Tax Cuts, Tax Rates, What's the Difference?!
Isn't Rachel Maddow supposed to be the smart one at MSNBC? You'd never know it when she talks taxes. Either that or she's engaged in a pattern of deception that would bring a blush to Bernie Madoff. Maddow: Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House under Nancy Pelosi, told Democrats at a Caucus meeting today that they won't cave. Greg Sargent at Washington Post reporting that as Progressives have been advocating, Democrats will schedule a vote on a Tax Cut for all Income...

American Sauce: Jon Stewart, is this what you meant?
‘American Sauce:’ Jon Stewart, is this what you meant? Washington (CNN) - To those crying out for more substance and less finger-pointing in the news, CNN Radio has an answer. Beginning today, we’re launching a new Podcast, aimed directly at what many people say they want: the news about major issues with none of the Washington nonsense. We call it "American Sauce," a show that boils down the key questions the U.S. and Congress face, with a look at what issues mean to in...

How Readers Chose to Fix the Deficit
Reduce the size of the Military rather than reduce pay for noncombat members of the Military. Impose a Millionaire’s Tax rather than Cut deductions for high-income households. Cap the growth of Medicare Spending rather than raise the eligibility age. Experts on taxes, Health Care, entitlements, the Military and other Federal policies offer their ideas. These were among the choices made by readers who completed the online you-fix-the-deficit puzzle that accompanied a Week in Review article...

Ireland to accept EU bailout, must agree to tax increases of 5 BB Euros and spending cuts of 10 BB Euros
Ireland will ask for EU Bailout. The exact package is not public but GS estimates that it could be over $100 BB dollars. In order to receive the bailout, they have to specific targets for Tax Increases on 5 BB Euros and Spending Cuts of 10BB Euros. The good news is that they will not have any change to their Corporate Tax which is the lowest in Europe. The real question is what happens if they agree to these cuts but do not fulfill. A package that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates may total 9...