Category Archives: Budget & Debt

In a column posted today on Bloomberg Views I suggested a way to resolve the budget impasse. It starts with the fact that about $6 trillion in deficit reduction is needed over 10 years to get to balanced budget.The proposal … Continue reading →

CBO’s Long-Term Budget Outlook released this week is essentially the same as last year’s: without a change in policy the debt will explode to over 900 percent of GDP. One difference is that CBO decided not to print out the … Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal’s headline for my article today In Praise of Debt Limit ‘Chicken’ nicely conveys the idea that linking a hike in the debt to a cut in spending—which pundits call a game of chicken—is not a game … Continue reading →

For months now top economic officials in Washington have been arguing that the Congress should vote to increase the debt limit without any reductions in the growth of spending—in other words a “clean debt limit hike.” Just last Thursday Ben … Continue reading →

Yesterday Paul Krugman, citing Brad DeLong’s post earlier in the day, joined the commentary on my Wall Street Journal article of Friday which I further discussed in my blog of Sunday. Krugman takes issue with my statement that “Mr. Obama, … Continue reading →

This graph from my Friday Wall Street Journal article simply presented basic facts about the second Obama budget and compared it with the first Obama budget and with the House budget. So why did it attract so much attention here … Continue reading →

A transparent budget proposal—such as the Administration’s first 2012 Budget presented by President Obama on February 14 or the House Budget presented by Paul Ryan on April 6—contains year-by-year tables showing the proposed path for government outlays over time. These … Continue reading →

The budget agreement that emerged from last week’s negotiations literally changes the direction of federal spending. As the chart shows the Obama Administration’s proposed increase in discretionary spending for 2011 has been reversed in the course of the negotiations into … Continue reading →

Much has been written on how the House Budget Resolution for 2012 presented on Tuesday by Paul Ryan compares with the Administration’s Budget for 2012. From a macroeconomic perspective, perhaps the biggest difference is that the House Budget brings outlays … Continue reading →

Last week the Senate voted down the House proposal (HR1) to slow the growth of spending in the current fiscal year 2011. Now alternative plans are being laid to slow the growth of spending in 2011 by roughly the same … Continue reading →