Is the GOP going to cave on the sequester?
Bloomberg’s Joshua Green speculates about a “looming Republican crackup” over the sequester as anti-tax GOPers square off against pro-defense GOPers. First of all, these are not two neatly divided...
View ArticleWill the sequester really knock almost a point from GDP and cost 700,000 jobs?
“The macroeconomic impact of the sequestration is not catastrophic.” That’s the bottom line conclusion of Macroeconomic Advisers, the highly regarded consulting firm. The US economy would grow 2.0%...
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The Oscars, the debt, and foreign policy goals: What you may have missed in...
Oscar Gold: Before the golden statues are given out at this year’s Oscar broadcast, CBS and Vanity Fair surveyed Americans on the silver screen. Twenty-eight percent said Clint Eastwood came closest to...
View ArticleHere’s how Washington insiders think the sequester fight is going to go down
Chris Krueger, the plugged-in political analyst at GS Washington Research Group, gives his best guess on how the sequester will play out: Once the media begins pumping out human-interest stories on the...
View ArticleA WARNing about the sequester
The looming sequester is giving defense contractors major heartburn. Anxiety is exacerbated by uncertainties about application of the WARN Act, a federal labor law requiring employers to give 60 days...
View ArticleIs this the real reason why Obama is worried about the sequester’s defense cuts?
President Obama seems to pride himself on a deep understanding of the Republican/conservative mind. He thinks he knows the other side’s arguments at least as well — probably better — than they do. And...
View ArticleShould the sequester spare science?
Current MIT boss Rafael Reif and former Intel boss Craig Barrett make the case in the FT today that the sequester’s across-the-board cuts to federal research spending would be a “mistake” and “further...
View ArticleHere’s a $300 billion way to offset some of the sequester’s defense cuts
The current US tax code subsidizes more expensive homes at the expense of more business investment — in the process offering the biggest tax benefits to the wealthiest taxpayers. It’s costly policy in...
View ArticleUS needs more private-sector growth, not GDP accounting tricks
Simon Kuznets, the economist who created the accounting mechanism known as gross domestic product, warned that “distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs...
View ArticleWhat austerity in 1946 tells us about the possible economic impact of the...
In 1946, the US economy shrank by 11%. Back to the Great Depression, right? Yes — but only for government. Of that 11 percentage point drop, government spending accounted for a massive 29 percentage...
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Polling the sequester
With the sequester drama reaching its zenith, both Republicans and Democrats are arguing over the likely effects of the budget cuts. But another substrata of discussion, one that is receiving a great...
View Article9 reasons why fears about sequestration are overblown
Will sequestration really take a roughly 0.6 percentage point bite out of the US economy this year? That’s what the models of the Congressional Budget Office and many private forecasters are saying....
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The polls this week: Obamacare, the sequester, and immigration
ACA bleeds: The Kaiser Family Foundation released its latest monthly update on attitudes toward Obamacare and found support for the law at its lowest point since passage in 2010. Thirty-five percent in...
View ArticleThe only hope for states and localities to get their budgets under control...
Actions speak louder than words. And yet words are the favorite fiscal tool of many a state and local policymaker. My colleague Benjamin Zycher released a new paper this week examining state...
View ArticleWhy this defense drawdown must be different: Q&A with Mackenzie Eaglen
Over two months in, deep and arbitrary budget cuts imposed by sequestration are popping up all over the US military with real consequences for those in uniform. This may be one reason the president’s...
View ArticleHigher taxes, not the sequester, is what’s killing US economic growth — San...
A new study from the San Francisco Fed estimates US budget policy will knock as much as one percentage point a year from GDP growth over the next three years. And 90% of the fiscal drag comes from...
View ArticleIn praise of budget meat cleavers and rules over scalpels and discretion
The Economist says sorta nice things about the sequester and “dumb rules”: Of course, the sequester was ill-timed, and has probably hampered America’s economic recovery. That shouldn’t stop us from...
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