Category Archives: Economy
Fiscal Sacrifice
The president came to Washington, demanded shared sacrifice, got his fiscal cliff deal and returned to Hawaii. According to Bloomberg taxes will go up for 77.1 percent of American families. The Congressional Budget Office says the deal will cost $4 trillion over the next decade. Spending cuts? … Maybe later. Kevin O’brien has a nice rant about that here.
Budget Baseline Camp
Uncle Sam’s starting point for spending is a baseline of the previous year CBO projections for the coming year.
“The most absurd current example is Mr. Obama’s claim that his “$4 trillion” plan reduces the deficit by about $800 billion over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those “savings,” as he calls them, are measured against a White House budget office spending baseline that is fictional. Those wars are already being unwound and everyone knows the money will never be spent. But they are called “savings” to gull the public and make the deficit reduction add up to a large-sounding $4 trillion.”
Right to Riot
Civility is one of the most absurdly abused of our political values. It is always centrally important to our functioning as a democracy — right up until the time someone proposes crossing the unions. Then, it goes from “can’t we all get along?” to “nothing to see here.”
“Moreover, it is more than slightly ironic that Democrats, the fiercely pro-choice party, reserve free choice for aborting a fetus while denying it for such matters as choosing your child’s school or joining a union.”
Lied and Died
Federal judge Gladys Kessler last week ordered tobacco companies to admit, on every pack of cigarettes, that they deceived the public and caused death with their product.
