Tag Archives: CBO

Deadlines Begin to Hem in Congress

BY STEVE BELL
FEB 2, 2017 | Reprinted from BipartisanPolicy.org

Despite the rousing reassurances by Republican congressional leaders at the GOP retreat in Philadelphia last week, it remains clear that Congress’ schedule is so jammed that the “first 200 day” pledges will never materialize. How President Trump reacts to this inevitable reality will reveal how deep the rifts remain between the president’s timetable and Congress’ legislative processes.

The first deadline Congress set for itself as it began the “repeal and replace” effort on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has come and gone. Committees were instructed under reconciliation to report legislation to repeal much of the ACA by January 27. They reportedly remain hard at work to produce these bills as soon as possible. Continue reading →

Doesn’t Matter Which Way You Go

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from TelemachusLeaps.com

We were talking to a friend yesterday about the stock market recovering to exceed its peak of 2007, right before it fell to its valley when the banking system nearly evaporated in 2008.

Remember? That was not that long ago, you know.

‘There’s something that just seems ‘odd’ about it all’, he said.

The current state of affairs in America reminds us of that great Socratic philosopher in ‘Alice in Wonderland’, the Cheshire Cat when he counsels Alice Continue reading →

Future of US Finances

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Sometimes, it is just smarter (and easier) to let people who are smarter than you explain complicated things.

Such is the case with Chuck Blahous, a long-time friend from Washington DC who is now a trustee on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund. We were about to plow through the CBO update on long-term economic and budget projections that came out yesterday when we saw Chuck’s summary come in our email inbox.

CBO reported that ‘deficits would fall below $1 trillion!’ for the first time in 4 years. People from the White House on down, including the President, Continue reading →

The Gathering Fiscal Storm

BY STEVE BELL

We have written about the fiscal cliff and its possible economic consequences several times in recent months. Other organizations have been more sanguine about the impact of the expiring tax cuts and large federal spending reductions that are set to occur at the beginning of January 2013.

A few days ago, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest assessment of the fiscal cliff and the analysis bolsters our argument: Going over the cliff inevitably leads to a serious recession.

Continue reading →

Hardest Job in Town: Boehner’s

BY STEVE BELL

Far from yielding an ambiguous electoral outcome, the Iowa caucuses solidly confirmed the Balkanization of the Republican Party, a fact that will lead to potential electoral failure in 2012 unless neutralized soon. These internal divisions hurt the party’s leadership in Congress in 2011; they have already improved Democratic chances to retain the Senate, gain substantial seats in the House, and keep the White House in 2012.

Super-imposed on this chaos is a 2012 Congressional legislative schedule that virtually no one on Capitol Hill believes has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever passing.

Let’s take a look at the GOP. Mitt Romney gets a quarter of the vote, what we can call the “competency vote.” Ron Paul gets a quarter of the vote, what has been called the “Libertarian” vote, mostly male, mostly an exaggerated macho response to external order, such as a government provides. Rick Santorum, coupled with the Michelle Bachmann Continue reading →

If The Glove Fits…

BY JOHN FEEHERY

So, according to various news reports, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is going to “investigate” corporate America for reacting to the president’s new healthcare law by promising to take huge tax write-downs because of the expected negative impact of the law on their bottom lines. This kind of reminds me of when O.J. Simpson decided to launch an “investigation” into who killed his wife.

Who killed the jobs, Mr. Waxman?

Continue reading →