Everyone today is talking about the “Fiscal Cliff”. It is a small decrease in spending combined with a significant tax increase. Let’s put this in perspective. The budget for fiscal year 2012 was $3.8 trillion and the deficit (shortfall which had to borrowed) was $1.1 billion. If no deal is reached, and we go “over [...]
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Congress broke a rancorous stalemate Tuesday to pass legislation designed to avert the so-called fiscal cliff. But the compromise bill, which blocked most impending tax increases and postponed spending cuts largely by raising taxes on upper-income Americans, left a host of issues unresolved and guaranteed continued budget clashes between the parties. … In two [...] Nothing happened. I was hoping that we would go over the fiscal cliff because taxes would go up on everyone. I think everyone should suffer the pain of paying for the government’s uncontrollable spending. Perhaps the “middle class”, whom politicians believe are clueless, would then start to think about the future of our country. Perhaps [...] We all have been following the dance in Washington about the budget problem that makes headlines every day about how Congress and the Obama Administration are heading for a fiscal cliff. Savvy political observers say that Obama has the upper hand in this fight to lay more taxes upon the rich. The more frantic say [...] This is from the Mercatus Center, adapted from an article by Charles Blahous in his e21 piece “How Did Federal Surpluses Become Huge Deficits?. According to Virginia de Rugy of Mercatus: According to the CBO, three areas have influenced the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits over the 2002–2011 period: (1) increased [...] This excerpt is from DelanceyPlace, which provides interesting excerpts from mostly recent books. You can sign up and receive regular emails with these pieces. This one centers around the formation of the Bank of the United States and is about the debate between the Federalists and the Republicans, led by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, [...] The Obama Administration released its new fiscal year 2012 budget for the federal government and it shows a projected $1.3 trillion deficit: The projected deficit is higher than the $1.296 trillion deficit in 2011 and also slightly higher than a roughly $1.15 trillion projection released by the Congressional Budget Office last week. The budget, according [...] This analysis just in from Cato’s Dan Mitchell on the Gang of Six’s budget proposal: The Gang of Six Is Back from the Dead: Contemplating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Their Budget Plan by Daniel J. Mitchell The on-again, off-again “Gang of Six” has come back on the scene and is offering a [...] I’d like to make a few observations before out-of-town visitors take me from blogging for a few days. On news of ”progress” on the debt ceiling matter, the long bonds went into a major rally and the short end showed mild rate increases. This compression of the 2-10 and 2-30 spread is consistent with the [...] |
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