Policymaking is a zero-sum game. Officials weigh policy proposals not in a vacuum but against the status quo. Implicit in the question “should we do this?” is a second one: “how does it compare to doing nothing?” That’s what was wrong not only with this week’s efforts by the co-chairs of President Obama’s fiscal commission …
The nation’s elected leaders will soon begin their next round of debate over one of Washington’s more irrational and, indeed, dangerous processes – enacting legislation to raise the limit on federal debt. Let’s be clear: a vote to raise the debt limit is not a vote to change fiscal policy. It’s not a vote to …
Continue reading “One Man’s Debt Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor”
President Obama begins an important new phase of his tenure on Wednesday morning. After surveying the political damage of Election Day – which likely will bring a new Republican controlled House and a more closely divided Senate (even if Democrats retain control of it) – he will have to interpret the results and decide how …
Keith Overton, who runs the TradeWinds Resort in St. Pete Beach, FL, thinks he deserves a piece of the $20 billion oil spill fund that BP set up in the aftermath of last April’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. To be sure, the oil never reached St. Pete Beach. In fact, it didn’t come …
Can it be? Is there hope? Might we see cooperation between the parties on fiscal and other matters after November? What are we to make of the signals from Republicans in recent days that, presuming they retake control of the House (if not also the Senate), they want to work with President Obama rather than …
Continue reading “More GOP Signals of Post-Election Cooperation”
My blog post of last week, suggesting that we not dismiss any possibility of deficit-cutting action under President Obama and the next Congress, surely attracted its share of skeptics among my friends and colleagues. “I have lost all hope,” one of Washington‟s preeminent fiscal experts e-mailed me, dismissing my comparisons between, on one hand, the …
Continue reading “Raging Skepticism That We Can Address Deficits”
With regard to the nation’s long-term fiscal challenge, nothing is more striking than the conflict between our absolute necessity to act at some point and the widespread doubts about our ability to do so. The doubts arise from the following argument: Our political system is more polarized than ever, with Democrats and Republicans less willing …