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by
Howard Gleckman
on Tue 23 Sep 2008 06:25 PM EDT
Barack Obama and John McCain are slowly beginning to get it: For the next President, this week’s financial market meltdown has changed everything.
Suddenly, their grandiose promises of new tax cuts and ambitious spending are sounding more hollow than ever. An $11.3 trillion national debt will do that to you every time.
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by
Bob Williams
on Tue 16 Sep 2008 03:35 PM EDT
In January, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the federal budget would maintain rough fiscal balance over the coming decade. Last week, CBO updated that forecast and found that the government would run a cumulative $2.3 trillion deficit. That sharp change reflected a slowing economy and rapid spending growth. more »
 1 Attachments
by
Howard Gleckman
on Thu 11 Sep 2008 03:38 PM EDT
Should clergy have the right to stand up in their tax-exempt pulpits and endorse political candidates?
For a half century, the answer has been no. But The Washington Post's Peter Slevin reported on Sept. 8 that a conservative group called the Alliance Defense Fund wants to change that.
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Tue 09 Sep 2008 02:49 PM EDT
The deficit is about to get a lot worse, a lot faster.
At least that's the latest projection by the Congressional Budget Office. In the past six months, Washington's medium-term fiscal health has deteriorated markedly, and what CBO once projected to be a small surplus beginning in 2012 has now morphed into annual deficits in excess of $100 billion as far as the eye can see (to borrow a phrase).
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Tue 09 Sep 2008 09:58 AM EDT
I was, to say the least, surprised to read a couple of comments posted last week that claimed FactCheck.org was asserting Barack Obama’s tax-and-spending plans would pay for themselves. I was even more surprised to read that FactCheck was supposedly basing its conclusions on TPC data. So, I looked it up. more »
by
Howard Gleckman
on Fri 05 Sep 2008 12:35 PM EDT
Listening to John McCain's acceptance speech last night, I found myself asking the question that others have been asking me for the past year: Who is John McCain really?
Is he the McCain of 2000-2003, who blasted both wasteful government spending and the unaffordable Bush tax cuts? Or the McCain of 2008, who not only wants to extend President Bush's tax cuts but expand them without coming close to paying for this largess? Is he the supporter of limiting offshore oil drilling and requiring tradable credits for carbon-based fuels--which would sharply raise the price of oil and gasoline? Or is he the new darling of the "drill baby drill" crowd?
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Tue 02 Sep 2008 01:28 PM EDT
When it comes to taxes, Sarah Palin turns out to be an intriguing mix of Barack Obama and John McCain. Like Obama, she favors a tax rebate for consumers funded by a windfall profits tax on energy companies. But, like McCain, she also backs a gas tax holiday.
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Fri 29 Aug 2008 09:56 AM EDT
Barack Obama gave four speeches last night. The first was the same optimistic cry for change that has carried him so far in this Presidential season. The second was a tough, frontal attack on the economic and foreign policies of both George Bush and John McCain. The third was a (Bill) Clintonesque bit of social policy triangulation—we can all work together to find solutions to such hot button issues as abortion, guns, gay marriage, and immigration. The fourth was a recitation of his economic agenda—a long list of promises that is familiar to readers of TaxVox by now. more »
by
Howard Gleckman
on Wed 27 Aug 2008 01:25 PM EDT
Barack Obama has raised the ante on economic stimulus. Just two weeks ago, when I left for vacation, the Illinois Senator was talking about a $50 billion plan. I barely unpack (and yes, I had a nice time, thanks for asking) and learn he is now considering a $115 billion boost. That, at least, is what an Obama aide told the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
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by
Bob Williams
on Tue 19 Aug 2008 01:44 PM EDT
When the Tax Policy Center reported last month that Senators Obama's and McCain's tax proposals would both reduce federal revenues by trillions of dollars over the coming decade, both campaigns complained that TPC was using the wrong baseline to measure revenue changes. Instead of measuring revenue against current law, they asserted, analysts should assess the plans against "current policy." In fact, the choice of baselines is in some sense irrelevant as a gauge of our fiscal problems.
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Tue 12 Aug 2008 03:34 PM EDT
After I posted a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that, if he is elected president, Barack Obama should hire Doug Holz-Eakin to be his budget director, self-styled progressives have gone nuts. The Obamaites are up-in-arms because Holtz-Eakin happens to be John McCain's chief economic adviser. Could I have struck a nerve?
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Thu 07 Aug 2008 04:16 PM EDT
If Barack Obama gets elected President, the first thing he should do is hire Doug Holtz-Eakin to be his budget director. A highly-respected non-partisan budget wonk, who is leaning Obama’s way in the election, threw out this seemingly crazy idea at lunch the other day. And the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Thu 31 Jul 2008 05:01 PM EDT
Liberal bloggers have taken to ganging up on the Blue Dogs—conservative Democrats who tend to go their own way on fiscal and foreign policy issues. Smelling victory in November, some on the left would like to find a way to take out these lawmakers, who mostly represent southern and midwestern swing districts.
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Tue 29 Jul 2008 04:40 PM EDT
To paraphrase the oily Captain Renault of Casablanca fame, we in Washington are shocked, shocked to find that deficits are going on here. To listen to the cries of outrage and dismay, one might think the Bush Administration’s latest projection of nearly $400 billion in red ink for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, and almost $500 billion for next year was unexpected.
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by
Howard Gleckman
on Thu 24 Jul 2008 02:07 PM EDT
Barack Obama’s fiscal policy can be summarized pretty simply: Cut taxes for low- and middle-class Americans, boost spending for education, health care, and alternative energy, and pay for much of it raising taxes on the rich. That’s not the only way he’d finance his ambitious plans, of course—he’d also have to borrow $3 trillion and get some money from ending the war in Iraq—but he hopes to generate nearly $300 billion over the next decade just from rolling back the Bush tax rate cuts on high-bracket taxpayers.
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