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Archive for June, 2011

How Costly Would a U.S. Default Be?


Monday June 27th, 2011   •   Posted by Emily Skarbek at 10:05am PDT   •   1 Comment

Discussions of a Treasury default all share one common feature—no one is certain as to what a default would actually entail. A recent article in The Economist highlights a study by Terry Zivney (Ball State University) and Richard Marcus (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) that looked at the last instance of U.S. default in 1979. The…
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The Taxes That Businesses Pay


Saturday June 25th, 2011   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 12:08pm PDT   •   3 Comments

One of the common refrains we hear from people who want to focus on “fixing” the budget deficit by increasing federal tax revenues is that U.S. corporations pay less in income taxes than what businesses in other nations pay. But in focusing on just U.S. corporate income taxes, these people are ignoring a huge…
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Congressional Budget Office Predicts Federal Debt Is Getting Far Worse


Wednesday June 22nd, 2011   •   Posted by David Theroux at 10:19pm PDT   •   0 Comments

In “CBO Releases Daunting Long-Term Outlook,” Tim Fernholz at the National Journal reports that: Increasing federal debt will be a growing burden on government action, crowding out lawmakers’ ability to adopt tax and spending priorities in good times and reducing flexibility during recessions, all while making a fiscal crisis more likely and hindering long-term…
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A Budget-Cutting Deal in the Works?


Saturday June 18th, 2011   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 8:33am PDT   •   2 Comments

The Washington Post‘s Michael Gerson reports on the progress of budget cutting talks currently ongoing in Washington, D.C,. in his opinion column: For the first time, Senate Republicans describe to me the outlines of a possible deal: a package of immediate and specific budget cuts; budget caps reaching out five years to reassure conservatives…
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Bernanke Responds to Incentives


Wednesday June 15th, 2011   •   Posted by Emily Skarbek at 9:59am PDT   •   1 Comment

Bernanke urges for an increase in the debt ceiling, demonstrating the wisdom of James Buchanan and Richard Wagner. In Democracy in Deficit, Chapter 8, the authors set out to model Keynesian-oriented fiscal policy with the “the plausible hypothesis that monetary authorities are, like elected politicians, subjected to both direct and indirect political pressures, and…
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Interest Payments on U.S. Government Debt Are on Track to Bankrupt America


Monday June 13th, 2011   •   Posted by David Theroux at 2:20pm PDT   •   5 Comments

This video, “Brother, Can You Spare a Trillion? Government Gone Wild!”, has now had over 2.7 million views on YouTube. It summarizes the gigantic threat that U.S. government debt poses for America, with annual interest payments alone this year totaling more that all federal spending for the combined costs of the departments of Commerce,…
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How Medicare Subsidies May Have Caused U.S. Medication Shortages


Wednesday June 8th, 2011   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 4:41pm PDT   •   3 Comments

The news from America’s hospitals as recorded by the Associated Press sounds dire: A growing shortage of medications for a host of illnesses — from cancer to cystic fibrosis to cardiac arrest — has hospitals scrambling for substitutes to avoid patient harm, and sometimes even delaying treatment. “It’s just a matter of time now…
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Federal Debt vs. Terrorism – Which Is a Bigger Threat?


Tuesday June 7th, 2011   •   Posted by Emily Skarbek at 3:49pm PDT   •   3 Comments

Last year, Americans believed Federal government debt to be just as dangerous as terrorism. According to the a June 2010 Gallup poll, 4 in 10 Americans ranked both Terrorism and Federal Debt as an “extremely serious” threat to the future well-being of the United States. One year later, Osama bin Laden is dead. The…
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Federal Government Workers Make Twice That of Private-Sector Counterparts


Sunday June 5th, 2011   •   Posted by David Theroux at 9:31pm PDT   •   7 Comments

Based on a new study from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Chris Gonsalves at NewsMax reports in “What Debt Crisis? Fed Workers Making More Than Governors” that: At a time when many American workers are struggling to make ends meet and government debt is threatening to undermine economic recovery, thousands of federal employees are…
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China Drops 97% of Its Holdings in Short-Term U.S. Treasury Bills


Sunday June 5th, 2011   •   Posted by David Theroux at 3:58pm PDT   •   0 Comments

Terence Jeffrey reports at CNSNews.com that “China Has Divested 97 Percent of Its Holdings in U.S. Treasury Bills” over a 20-month period. Is this a major reflection of the increasingly precarious status of the U.S. dollar and U.S. government finances worldwide? China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing…
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