Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Monthly Budget Review”
Some of you probably thought we were kidding when we suggested that the first approximation revenue raise from a 20% across-the-board tariff would only amount to two months worth of deficit. But by the beginning of December the federal government had already spent $600 billion more than it took in—pretty much what we estimated the proposed tariff would produce annually …
Frozen Last month we hinted at a paradox lurking in budgetary operations: that having more money to spend slows down the process and provides less. While this is by no means a universal law, it seems to be prevalent in areas like construction and capital equipment. To illustrate, let us consider the Coast Guard’s icebreaker program. The United States currently …
Last month’s commentary elicited a question from a reader — how do we square our distaste for deficits with our insistence that Social Security need not be cut? After all, media stories and commentary bemoaning the deficit almost always conflate this with the Social Security Trust Fund “running out of money” within the next decade unless something is done. The …
