However much I regularly enjoy Liz Peek’s cogent writings, I disagree with her recent effort to blame President Obama for the current fiscal impasse in Washington that has put the federal government at the precipice of a federal default. Here’s why: First, Peek says Obama didn’t meet his legal requirement to propose a budget in …
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s plan for a debt limit increase not only would take Congress off the hook in raising the limit through 2012, it also suggests a way for President Obama and lawmakers to do the country a big favor by fixing the problem on a permanent basis. McConnell would force the president …
Continue reading “Expand the McConnell Plan, Make It Permanent”
On tax policy, let’s stop pretending. For all of the Democrats’ rhetoric about how they look out for average people while Republicans look out for the rich, there’s hardly a dime’s worth of difference between the parties. It’s all there in the new budget plan from Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D- N.D. With …
Continue reading “Democratic Tax Policy: Myth versus Reality”
I don’t know what’s more pathetic – Republican presidential candidates who urge a GOP nocompromise stance in White House-congressional budget negotiations related to the debt limit, or media that doesn’t explore the implications. The New York Times reported over the weekend that “Republican presidential candidates were campaigning against any outcome that smacks of compromise, underscoring …
TESTIMONY OF LAWRENCE J. HAAS SENIOR FELLOW FOR U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON H. R. 963: “THE SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING ACT OF 2011” Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Nadler, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the …
Continue reading “THE SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING ACT OF 2011”
Today’s decision by the two Republican participants to withdraw from negotiations led by Vice President Biden to reach a deficit-reduction package, saying they won’t go for tax increases, would seem to put President Obama and congressional Democrats on the defensive. It doesn’t have to. At first blush, Republicans seem to have the upper hand. The …
Winston Churchill may have said it best about his fond friends: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” On fiscal policy, we Americans have long been “trying everything else.” We’ve cut taxes and boosted spending for at least a decade, turning surpluses into deficits that …
Continue reading “Moving in the Right Direction on Deficits”