Budget Director Peter Orszag wrote on his blog yesterday that he thinks “Debt held by the public net of financial assets is the most meaningful measure of current federal debt.”

Keith Hennessey in Keith Hennessey

Apr 8, 2009

Let’s not hide $1.4 trillion of IOU’s

Yesterday on his blog the President’s Budget Director, Peter Orszag, asks himself and then answers the question, “How much does the federal government owe?”

This sounds like a technical question of concern only to “those of us wearing the…

Keith Hennessey in Keith Hennessey

Apr 6, 2009

Can we ever know how many jobs the Obama Administration has saved?

Almost two months ago, President Obama set a specific employment goal for his Administration:

I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs.

Keith Hennessey in Keith Hennessey

Apr 3, 2009

What happened to FREE markets in London?

Thanks to Reuters’ MacroScope blog for noticing:

Keith Hennessey, a former top economic adviser to President George W. Bush, saw this one coming. He rightly predicted that the Group of 20 would drop a key word from its communique at…

Keith Hennessey in Keith Hennessey

Apr 2, 2009

Is $700 billion enough? Clearing up the confusion (or at least trying to)

Last Friday I raised the question of how much funding is left in the TARP. This is now a broader discussion involving Secretary Geithner and the Treasury staff, the General Accounting Office, the Wall…

Keith Hennessey in Keith Hennessey

Mar 27, 2009

Health spending fallacy

The President emphasized the importance of health care reform in Tuesday evening’s press conference. One of his arguments was that reforming health care would help address federal and state government fiscal problems:

What we have to do is bend the curve on…

Keith Hennessey in Keith Hennessey

Mar 27, 2009

Is $700 billion enough? Part 2: the Obama warning

In part one of this series, I explained why I think the Obama Administration will soon run out of TARP money and need to ask Congress for more.