STUNNINGLY INEXPERIENCED NOMINEE UP FOR KEYBUDGET POST; DEMONSTRATED TROUBLING LACK OF CANDOR AND KNOWLEDGE IN TESTIMONY A critical position at a critical agency at a critical time: This afternoon, the Senate Budget Committee is scheduled to vote on the controversial nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be President Obama’s deputy budget director at the Office of […]
The president tells the American people that his FY 2012 budget “asks Washington to live within its means,” but his request for the Department of Education shows how far this rhetoric is from reality. After spending nearly $300 billion on education over the last three years, the president is requesting $77.4 billion for the department, […]
In challenging times, a chief executive must lead. But President Obama has failed to confront the fiscal and economic challenges before us. Instead, he continues down the same unsustainable path: growing the government, weakening the economy, and increasing the burden of debt on each and every American. Spends Too Much: $8.7 Trillion In New Spending […]
The president’s “freeze” would continue dramatically increased spending levels at a time when we have a $1.5 trillion deficit, producing an estimated $3.8 trillion in accumulated deficits over the next 5 years.[1] It maintains inflated levels of non-defense discretionary spending while allowing for ongoing increases in the rest of the budget. The “freeze” pushes us […]
“…Democrats still run the Senate… When it comes to their core responsibility under the law of passing a budget resolution, they are A.W.O.L.” Wall Street Journal (Cool Hand Harry) “While Mr. Obama has tried to set parameters for budget negotiations, his party has yet to settle on a plan for Medicare or the broader budget […]
Deficit ReductionThe president claimed deficit reduction of $1.2 trillion dollars over 10 years in his last budget. CBO said it would increase deficits by $2.7 trillion. Is the president’s new claim based on the same discredited assumptions in his last budget? Non-Security SpendingThe president says he will now freeze non-security discretionary spending in 2012 at […]
Today, GAO identified massive duplication, fragmentation, and other inefficiencies that cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year in waste and degraded service—all while President Obama’s budget surges federal spending across the board and adds $13 trillion to the debt. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its first annual report on government duplication today. The report […]
The budget that the Obama Administration presented to Congress on February 14th pushes our nation further down an unsustainable path: growing the government, weakening the economy, and increasing the burden of debt on each and every American. Now, the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the president’s budget conceals an additional $2.3 trillion in deficits. […]
“Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., eliminated government-related debt from his flagship fund last month as the U.S. projected record budget deficits.” – Bloomberg, “Pimco’s Gross Eliminates Government Debt From Total Return Fund,” March 10, 2011 “We believe that if we do not take decisive action our […]
The American people deserve an honest, fact-based budget. Instead the president’s deficit speech was the biggest gimmick yet. An analysis of the president’s April 13 speech from the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee exposes the president’s claim that he has a revised budget framework which will result in $4 trillion dollars in deficit […]
“I’m proposing real, serious cuts in spending… All told, this plan cuts $2 in spending for every dollar in new revenues.” – President Obama unveiling his deficit plan, September 19, 2011 $1.4 trillion Actual deficit reduction through 10 years under the president’s plan, less than half the amount promised Zero Percent of deficit reduction that […]
By law, the administration is required to provide by July 16 an update of the president’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. The update, which has come to be known as the Mid-Session Review (MSR), must provide revised estimates of receipts, outlays, budget authority, and budget deficits, taking into account information such as newly […]
“It’s irresponsible, it’s wrong, it’s a failure of leadership, it’s absent without leave… Can you imagine the greatest threat to our country, dwarfs any other problem this nation has… and the president’s not providing any leadership? The commander-in-chief is absent from battle.” – Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, interview on FOX News January 25, 2011 – In […]
800 …………. Days since the Democrat Senate has passed a budget resolution $3.2trillion …. Debt accumulated since a budget was last passed $7.3trillion …. Total federal spending over that time $439billion …. Net interest payments over that time 2024 …………. Projected year that Medicare will go bankrupt 2036 …………. Projected year that Social Security will […]
Tax Hikes Won’t Work, Aren’t Needed To close this year’s $1.4 trillion deficit through tax increases alone, individual and corporate rates would have to more than double overnight. Even if all of the income of those earning more than $1 million were confiscated at a 100 percent marginal rate—with the unlikely assumption that taxpayers wouldn’t […]
More than 800 days since passing a budget as required by law—and still refusing to even make one public this year—Senate Democrats recently shared a copy of their phantom budget proposal with the Washington Post. Stunningly, they asserted a fifty-fifty split between tax hikes and spending cuts. They claimed a meager $2 trillion spending reduction […]
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced his revised plan to increase the limit on the debt (this time by $2.4 trillion) from the current $14.3 trillion to $16.7 trillion—an amount sufficient to allow the Treasury to continue borrowing to finance our deficits through early 2013. This revised plan is essentially the same as his […]
CBO now projects that debt held by the public would exceed 100 percent GDP by 2021 under current policies (the alternative fiscal scenario). This is a 10 percentage point increase in debt relative to CBO’s projections of only one year ago. What’s more, debt held by the public is only a fraction of total federal […]
Higher debt leads to slower economic growth. Empirical studies show that high levels of government debt inhibit economic growth by creating uncertainty, displacing needed private investment, and placing upward pressure on interest rates. For example, Reinhart and Rogoff found that, in advanced economies with gross government debt above 90 percent of GDP, median economic growth […]