U.S. In Fiscal Denial
Recent reports assert that the federal government has entered a new era of austerity. For instance, an article in Politico claimed “2011 was a year that saw spending trends break heavily in favor of deficit hawks.”[1] In fact, federal spending continues to increase at a rate well above inflation, despite the country having amassed $15 […]
War Savings Gimmick Explained
Some in Congress are willing to use a reduction in war spending to offset increases in domestic spending and reductions in revenue. This offset is a budget gimmick since it claims savings from money that would never be spent in the first place. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline assumes that war spending (overseas contingency […]
The November Jobs Report: A Closer Look
The unemployment rate dropped from 9.0 percent to 8.6 percent, but 315,000 Americans left the labor force. Had labor force participation remained steady, the jobless rate would have dropped to 8.8 percent, according to Citigroup calculations.
The Chorus Grows: Obama’s Budget Represents Failure Of Leadership
“President Barack Obama has unveiled a hugely disappointing budget, cutting only a few percentage points from the $100,000bn in projected US federal deficits over the remainder of this century… If Mr Obama will not make this case, who will?” Financial Times, Obama’s budget shows failure of leadership “The larger problem with the budget is the […]
Effects Of The Budget Control Act Sequester On Defense Spending
The Budget Control Act imposed caps on discretionary spending and provided a mechanism for achieving an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years through the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the so-called supercommittee). The failure of the supercommittee to find that additional deficit reduction will cause a $1.2 trillion spending […]
Questions And Concerns: What’s Really In The Gang Of Six Proposal?
When the Gang of Six constituted itself after the Fiscal Commission submitted its report in December 2010, its apparent mission was to turn the Commission’s proposals into legislative language in a way that could potentially be added to the debt limit bill and that would achieve the Commission’s proposed savings. Yesterday the Gang released an […]
Spending Cuts And Economic Growth: What Does The Cross-Country Empirical Evidence Show?
U.S. Senate Budget Committee Republican staff analysis IntroductionThe federal debt held by the public has doubled, in nominal terms, in less than four years. It now stands at over 62 percent of GDP, the highest level since 1951. What costs does this place on our economy? With our fragile economy still suffering high unemployment, can […]
SBC White Paper On Education In America: It’s Not About The Money
“Money does not necessarily correlate with student achievement… in this country in the last 30 years, we have more than doubled the amount of money we are spending per child… and the results have gotten worse, not better.” – Michelle Rhee, former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor, February 9, 2011 As the United States concludes […]
2011 Medicare/Social Security Trustees’ Report Analysis
[To read Ranking Member Hatch’s press statement click here]. Today the Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports on the financial status of the two programs. The following are the major highlights from the 2011 Trustees’ reports: Social Security Social Security is now permanently cash negative. Absent intra-governmental payments to the Trust Fund, […]
By The Numbers: Dem Leaders’ Failure To Confront Fiscal Danger Brings Us To Edge Of Shutdown
Experts warn that our uncontrolled spending threatens our whole economy. But as House Republicans have put forward bills to both fund the government responsibly in the short term and confront our fiscal challenges in the long term, Democrat leaders in Washington have not put forward a single serious proposal to cut spending. Instead, they have […]