TaxVox: Federal Budget and Economy

Very little in President Obama’s 2011 budget, released this morning, is new. But the numbers…. Even in Washington, where we throw around trillions of dollars as if they were Hershey’s Kisses at Halloween, these numbers take your breath away. This year, the federal government will spend $3.7 trillion, but will collect only $2.2 trillion. That gap of $1.5 trillion would be equal to more than ten percent of the national’s total economic output.

With Democrats crying for a jobs bill they can bring to voters before the November elections, it looks like President Obama may be about to...

Here in Washington you can feel it in the air: We are about to have one of our periodic donnybrooks over deficit reduction. And, Washington being Washington, the antagonists are already choosing sides. The White House drops broad hints that its upcoming budget will include some first steps towards much-needed budget-cutting. Republicans are trying to say, at once, don’t mess with Medicare, our new cause célèbre; don’t dare raise taxes; and—by the way—you should be ashamed of the debt you are leaving our children. Interesting bit of triangulation.

On Friday, January 15, TPC and the University of Southern California law school will be running an all-day program at USC called Train Wreck: A Conference on America's Long-term Fiscal Crisis. The title pretty much says it all.