Fiscal Future Daily: If S&P is Worried, Should You Be, Too?
The decision by bond rating agency Standard and Poor’s to have a “negative outlook” for Treasury bonds caused a slump in the stock market, but the stock market wasn’t the target: it was Washington. And in Washington, not much immediately seemed to change.
Fiscal Future Daily: The Difference Between Doing Something and Nothing on the Deficit
There’s a surge of articles today arguing that “doing nothing” might do as much to solve our fiscal problems as any of the plans on the table. The problem is that this defines “something” and “nothing” in purely Beltway terms. The public’s going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting either way, and someone’s going to have to persuade them that it’s necessary.
Fiscal Future Daily: Will Obama Endorse Simpson-Bowles Deficit Plan?
The smart money seems to believe President Obama will endorse the so-called Simpson-Bowles plan tomorrow, more or less. Since a large part of the reaction when the plan was first proposed was to the effect that it would never fly, that’s an advance. But whether the plan should fly is another question. Time to get prepped.
Fiscal Future Daily: The Tradeoffs Start to Become Clear
There’s an enormous amount being written about the House Republican budget plan and its plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system. In all that analysis, however, it’s the staid Congressional Budget Office that makes the basic tradeoff in the plan completely clear: we would control our unsustainable debt by asking seniors to pay more for health care. In the end, its up to the public whether that’s a tradeoff they want to make.
Fiscal Future Daily: Get Braced, Get Briefed for the Debate on Medicare and Medicaid
The House Republican budget plan is expected to propose the most sweeping overhauls of Medicare and Medicaid since they were first set up in the 1960s. If you’re going to keep up, you’d better get briefed. We’ve got suggestions for you.