A different strategy for impatient fiscal conservatives

Several conservative House and Senate Members, dissatisfied both with the spending cuts enacted so far and with repeated short-term appropriations negotiations, are threatening to oppose another Continuing Resolution. I think that’s a…

The Schumer maneuver

Last week Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) made news by proposing a “reset” of FY11 appropriations negotiations. He suggested substituting savings from Medicare and Medicaid and tax increases for the cuts being negotiated in discretionary spending.

Bad cop, worse cop

Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell are effectively maximizing their leverage in the ongoing appropriations negotiation.

Republicans did good work over the past month emphasizing that they don’t want the government to shut down. In doing so they created a political and…

Whoops

Having totally fouled up the back end of this blog, I am now in the process of restoring it after a complete from-scratch reinstall. Arrgh.

I think I have fixed most of the big stuff, but please don’t be surprised if there are some glitches over the next few days. In particular, I lost a…

Deficits are an important but incomplete metric

The budget debate will soon expand beyond the current short-term fight. Negotiations on appropriations funding for the remainder of FY11 continue, and a government shutdown on April 9th is quite possible. I will write about that battle as events…

Looking at the Senate spending votes

Yesterday the Senate voted on competing proposals for discretionary spending for the remaining seven months of Fiscal Year 2011.

Republicans offered the House-passed bill, H.R. 1. Democratic leaders supported an alternative offered by…

What happened to stimulus vs. austerity?

For two years American policymakers battled. Those on the left argued that America’s top economic policy priority was addressing an extremely weak short-term economic picture, and that fiscal stimulus was the solution.

When halfway isn’t

The negotiations on the continuing resolution (CR) began yesterday. The Administration’s new line, echoed by Congressional Democrats, is that their new offer “comes halfway.”

As the players jockey for position they will be throwing out all kinds of confusing numbers…