On Wednesday, January 25, Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling to allow more government spending until about May of this year. The sequester’s forced automatic spending cuts go into effect March 27th. Debt, spending, “fiscal cliff’, budgets, etc. keep Americans on the verge of a heart attack, and many find themselves wondering: how much … Continue reading »
By Chris Hartline The American political system is broken. Congress is broken. Our representatives don’t represent us. These are common refrains you hear particularly outside of Washington – though inside as well – and they possess some semblance of truth. The 112th Congress was the most unproductive Congress in 60 years and the 2nd year of … Continue reading »
By Thomas Kelemen Members of Congress and President Obama are squaring off for a showdown. The US will hit the debt limit by the end of February, and with Obama insisting that he will not negotiate, “dooms day” scenarios are being predicted. Discussions of alternative solutions have yielded little in the way of progress. The … Continue reading »
By Joel Chapman In a recent report published by the New York Federal Reserve Bank, student debt in America now totals $956 billion in outstanding loans. Consequently, the delinquency rate on student loans in 2012 was higher than any other type of consumer loan, which includes credit cards or auto loans. In the same year, … Continue reading »
Last Thursday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner presented Congress with the Obama administration’s plan intended to avert the impending fiscal cliff. The plan was, quite literally, laughable. It called for $50 Billion in new stimulus spending, the end of Congressional authority to raise the debt limit, $1.6 Trillion in new revenues from higher taxes on the … Continue reading »
Our elections may be over, but our growing national debt remains. It is also approaching unprecedented levels—last year, it exceeded 100% of GDP for only the fourth time in history. The other three times were during World War II, when we were fighting a war on all seven continents. Yet the economy is recovering from … Continue reading »
$16,168,932,000,000. That is the current US debt burden. That is over sixteen trillion dollars. In order to balance the American debt level, each individual, from tot to geriatric, would have to pay $51,402. The median income of Americans is about $40,000; confiscating all wages would not come close to paying off the debt. If you … Continue reading »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2i8KZtQRTI&feature=g-upl
That crazy bill our politicians refuse to address. Featuring economic policy experts Joe Minarik and Doug Holtz-Eakin. A video by Peter G. Peterson Foundation Interns Ben Gitis of American Action Forum and Kathryn Tinker of Committee for Economic Development.
Remember that debt limit fiasco last summer? Its repercussions still haunt us today. In order to motivate congress to come up with a cohesive debt reduction plan, the law passed to increase the debt limit stipulated that if the “super committee” failed to pass a plan by November 2011, across the board cuts (referred to … Continue reading »
By Will Portman The U.S. needs deficit reduction, but there’s such thing as too much of a good thing — or, in the case of the end-of-year “fiscal cliff” the country is approaching, implementing too much of a good thing much too quickly. In the absence of congressional action, a slew of tax increases and spending … Continue reading »
