House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed a controversial  plan to balance the budget in 10 years, entirely by cutting planned spending by $4.6 trillion. While Ryan includes lots of specific spending cuts, his tax agenda is far less clear.    In some respects, the former GOP vice presidential candidate mimics the tactics [...]

I suspect that by early next week, the sequester will be old news. We’ll be on to the next crisis—the impending government shutdown scheduled for just a month from now. And there may be good reason for that—any deal to avoid the shutdown will almost surely replace the effects of the sequester, at least for [...]

The latest chapter in Washington’s never-ending fiscal drama is about to play out in tomorrow’s sequester–a word most Americans should never have had to learn. For all the partisan noise about these automatic spending cuts, it is important to keep in mind that they are both relatively small and very stupid. First, the size. As the [...]

I would like to propose a simple plan that would let Republicans and Democrats avoid a blunt, across-the-board sequester that fails to set priorities. It would give both parties something they want without abandoning their core principles. And it would strengthen the party making the proposal by putting the other on the spot if it [...]

With 10 days to go until the dreaded sequester—the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that most lawmakers profess to hate—the Washington drama machine is starting to get in gear. Today, President Obama stood in front a group of uniformed first responders and warned darkly of layoffs if the spending cuts kick in. At the same time, [...]

The balanced budget amendment introduced by Senate Republicans yesterday contains a striking error. As written, it would limit federal spending much more than they claim or, I suspect, intend (I said the same back in 2011, when this first came up). The senators want to balance the budget by limiting spending rather than raising tax [...]

House Republicans say they want to balance the budget in a decade with only spending cuts and no tax hikes. In his state of the union address tonight, President Obama—perhaps channeling his new pal New Jersey Governor Chris Christie—had a response. In a word, fuhgedaboutit. Obama’s priorities: Gun control and immigration reform, along with a [...]

In what will probably be the usual endless laundry list of State of the Union promises, President Obama is likely to include tax reform, by which he means a rewrite of the corporate revenue code. The White House seems ready to take a run at lowering corporate rates and scaling back targeted business subsidies. So [...]

In one of the more dangerous fiscal developments of recent months, some on the left are defining successful deficit reduction as merely stabilizing the federal debt at about 70 percent of Gross Domestic Product by 2022. While there is no magic target, this one is far too modest and threatens to leave future fiscal policy [...]

If their leaders’ public statements are to be believed, the fiscal chasm between the political parties is widening. And it is hard to see how it can be bridged.    Congressional Democrats and Republicans have agreed to put off the next budget crisis for a month or so. This is a good thing, especially considering [...]