Clik here to view.
What Is Obama Getting?
By James Kwak Nothing, as far as I can tell. The media are reporting the potential Obama-Boehner deal as $3 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in unspecified future revenue increases. But as far...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Understanding the Budget Deficits
By James Kwak Today’s Atlantic column is a follow-up to last week’s on the size-of-government fallacy. In the column, I break down the projected 2021 deficit into three components: Social Security,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tax Loopholes and the French Revolution
By James Kwak Today’s Atlantic column is about one of my favorite topics: the French Revolution. Actually, it’s mainly about tax expenditures and how traditional Republicans should want to eliminate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Barack Obama and Harry Potter
By James Kwak Helene Cooper of the New York Times wrote a “news analysis” story saying that the challenge for President Obama is this: “Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Big Is the Deficit, Anyway?
By James Kwak According to its CBO score, the Budget Control Act of 2011 (a.k.a. the debt ceiling agreement) initially reduced aggregate budget deficits over the next ten years (2012–2021) by $917...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Confused?
By James Kwak Some of the headline numbers for President Obama’s deficit reduction proposal that you hear are the following: $3 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years—more than the $1.2–1.5...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Big Is the Long-Term Debt Problem?
By James Kwak Articles about the deficits and the national debt generally talk about unsustainable long-term deficits that will drive the national debt up to a level where scary things happen. Sensible...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Expanded Safety Net?
By James Kwak In general, I think Binyamin Appelbaum and Robert Gebeloff’s article on how the same people oppose government handouts and take government handouts is very good. But I think their framing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Denial or Principle?
By James Kwak I wanted to make a belated return to Binyamin Appelbaum and Robert Gebeloff’s article on reluctant safety net beneficiaries. Earlier this week I argued that their framing of an expanding...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Fetishization of Balance
By James Kwak I generally don’t bother reading Thomas Friedman. A good friend gave me a copy of The World Is Flat, and I started reading it. Somewhere in the first one hundred pages Friedman has an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Long Can We Finance the Debt?
By James Kwak Everyone should know by now that the Treasury Department can borrow money at historically low rates. That is a major reason why some very smart economists think that the federal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Impossibility of Defense Cuts
By James Kwak Apparently the thing we need to keep ourselves safe is a fast, lightweight ship that can sweep mines, launch helicopters, fight submarines, and perform other assorted duties—but can’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Someone Is Wrong In The Times*
By James Kwak James Stewart has doubled down on his infatuation with Paul Ryan. Ryan’s budget, he says, is a viable centrist starting point for budget negotiations, and attacks from “left and right”...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The One-Sided Deficit Debate
By James Kwak Michael Hiltzik (hat tip Mark Thoma) wrote a column lamenting the domination of the government deficit debate by the wealthy. He clearly has a point. The fact that Simpson-Bowles—which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Debt Ceiling Confrontation Is Playing With Fire
By Simon Johnson Congressional Republicans are again threatening not to increase the ceiling on the amount of federal government debt that can be issued. On Wednesday, they agreed to postpone this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who Cares About the National Debt?
By James Kwak Not Greg Mankiw. Or, to be precise, not “Republicans.” This past weekend Mankiw wrote a column for the Times laying out the arguments for a carbon tax. They are so well known and so...
View Article
