My blog post of last week, suggesting that we not dismiss any possibility of deficit-cutting action under President Obama and the next Congress, surely attracted its share of skeptics among my friends and colleagues. “I have lost all hope,” one of Washington‟s preeminent fiscal experts e-mailed me, dismissing my comparisons between, on one hand, the …
Continue reading “Raging Skepticism That We Can Address Deficits”
With regard to the nation’s long-term fiscal challenge, nothing is more striking than the conflict between our absolute necessity to act at some point and the widespread doubts about our ability to do so. The doubts arise from the following argument: Our political system is more polarized than ever, with Democrats and Republicans less willing …
Those of us who work on fiscal policy can get lost in programmatic minutiae and lose sight of larger dynamics that can dramatically alter the fiscal landscape. One such dynamic is demographics – a force that will largely shape not just our fiscal future but that of other nations the world over, as the cover …
After Election Day, President Obama will surely face a far more conservative, more Republican Congress. Here’s how he can begin to regain his political footing, reclaim the fiscal agenda, and do the country a huge favor. When Congress returns in mid-November for its lame-duck session, lawmakers will face two central fiscal issues: what to do …
Continue reading “Advice to Obama: Kill the Bush Cuts, Create Your Own”
Fiscally speaking, conservatives are masters of the smokescreen. Rather than confront basic questions of fairness in matters of taxes and spending, they reframe issues to sidestep such questions, giving them more leeway to push for policies that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest among us. For decades, conservatives have forcefully pushed for lower tax rates on …
With Republicans poised to regain the House and, if the political gods shine upon them, perhaps even the Senate, let’s turn our attention to two intriguing budget-related questions that will soon take center stage in Washington: Will Republicans, like their forebears a generation ago, plant the seeds of both their own destruction and President Obama’s …
Continue reading “Government Shutdowns and Their Consequences”
On the very day Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the United States would lead a renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, Iran boasted that it had test-fired a surface-to-air missile. A day later, Iran began loading fuel rods into its Bushehr nuclear reactor, marking further progress on its quest for nuclear weapons. A day after …