By Bill Wilson — To hear the White House tell it , the economy shrank in the fourth quarter by 0.1 percent solely because government spending was cut by $40.4 billion, largely in defense. To be fair, there is a degree of truth to that. If you factor out government spending as a component […]

By Robert Romano — The U.S. is currently at risk for another credit downgrade of its AAA rating, this time by crediting ratings agency Fitch . Except it has nothing to do with any sort of fiscal brinksmanship by congressional Republicans, but because the deficit is not being significantly reduced. In its statement, Fitch […]

By Robert Romano It is up to the House of Representatives to maintain the $85 billion sequester cuts set to go into effect on March 1. Agreed to in August 2011 in exchange for the then $2.1 trillion increase in the debt ceiling, these were cuts promised […]

By Bill Wilson — On Jan. 23, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a measure suspending the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling until May 19, 2013 through passage of H.R. 325 . Ostensibly, the purpose is to buy the House time to address the $85 billion of sequestration cuts that […]

By Adam Bitely — House Republicans have turned the power of the purse over to the White House after passing H.R. 325 , a bill that suspends the debt ceiling until May 19, 2013 and threatens to withhold pay from members of Congress after April 15 if […]

RE: On New Year’s Eve, outgoing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner informed the American people the federal government once again reached its credit limit.  Now, like reckless teenagers, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats are demanding another credit limit increase with no strings attached. Not only […]

By Robert Romano — There are a great many politicians and pundits in Washington, D.C. arguing that the debt ceiling should not be used to extract spending cuts from the Obama Administration. It is on them that the onus falls to show that the conventional budget “process,” […]

By Bill Wilson — “There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills or it can fail to act and put the nation into default.” That was how White House Press Secretary Jay Carney put it on Jan. 12 , urging House Republicans to give the Obama Administration another blank check — increasing the […]

By Bill Wilson — Gross Domestic Product (GDP) forecasts are coming in for the fourth quarter, and they are not good news for the economy — and foretell another hard year for the 22.4 million people struggling to find full-time work, and the 5 million who have […]

Jacob “Jack” Lew, Obama’s choice to replace Timothy Geithner as the Secretary of the Treasury, is a terrible choice for a department that has such a powerful role in the national debt. As Obama’s budget director, he has been entirely unsuccessful in drafting budgets that […]