Reactions to the President’s press conference
No matter who gets blamed for it, a legislative stalemate leads to a terrible short-term macroeconomic consequence: increased unemployment and a new recession.
The President sends mixed signals on the fiscal cliff
The fiscal cliff is a test of President Obama’s ability to negotiate with people with whom he disagrees. He was unsuccessful in this regard in his first term. If he fails again over the next seven weeks, American taxpayers and workers will suffer for it.
Fiscal cliff diving
A smaller version of that deal is, in theory, possible during the lame duck session: incremental changes to the major entitlements plus scaling back tax preferences for the rich, and keeping all the rates in place for, say, a year.
For tonight’s debate
It is time to stop worrying about who gets blamed when things go wrong and start working on getting economic policy right.
The Washington Post’s hatchet job on Paul Ryan
When the Post’s staff publishes an obviously partisan hit piece with such weak intellectual support less than six weeks before Election Day, they destroy any credibility they have for objectivity or nonpartisan reporting. That’s a shame.
The price of politics: a bit over $1 trillion
If Mr. Woodward is right, President Obama is intentionally using these numbers, these “tricks,” to mislead you. He wants to claim credit for as much deficit reduction as is in the Ryan budget, but he didn’t want to propose the spending cuts and/or tax increases to hit that target.
Tax levels cheat sheet
Just remember this: 18-19-20-21.
The “insufficient detail” critique of the Ryan budget
The Ryan budget is a serious fiscal policy roadmap. It proposes the detail required for its intended legislative purpose, and it offers a roadmap for future reforms. And until President Obama and a Democratic-majority Senate propose an alternative long-term path or are replaced, the Ryan plan is literally the only long-term game in town.
What if it’s a status quo election?
President Obama’s answer to Mr. Feller’s question is that, if there’s a status quo election, he would not do anything differently than he has for the past two years of fiscal policy stalemate.
Responding to some of President Obama’s Medicare claims
America needs to slow significantly the growth rate of government spending on the major old age entitlements. Language such as that used by President Obama may scare some seniors into voting for him, but it will make needed reforms that much more difficult after the election.
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