The U.S. Senate passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 on Tuesday, after the bill was approved Monday by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Forty-five Democrats, 28 Republicans and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman voted in favor of the bill. Nineteen Republicans, 6 Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie
Potential Republican 2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman appeared in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday to discuss his views on economic and budget issues, among other topics. Despite the former Utah governor’s insistence, his positions have changed on spending and the deficit since More…
The Wall Street Journal posts an interesting story, noting that “ultra-affluent” customers — who spend more than, gulp, $7,000 a month on their credit cards and meet other, unnamed income criteria — are spending more on both fast food and fine meals. The super-rich, the article says, are bifurcating More…
Today, the Senate approved the long-stalled Small Business Jobs Act, a deficit-neutral bill containing tax cuts and an array of other measures to aid businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Its signature component is a $30 billion lending fund, which will encourage small banks to lend to small businesses. More…
At The Daily Beast, Benjy Sarlin reports that Tea Party-affiliated candidates might force Republicans to get specific on where they would cut the country’s spending. To boot, Rand Paul, the GOP candidate for a Kentucky Senate seat, promises to filibuster any deficit-increasing budget:
The Obama administration is this week proposing a series of expensive tax breaks for businesses as part of a larger effort to create new jobs: $100 billion to make permanent a research and development tax credit and $200 billion to let companies to deduct the full cost of the More…
Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that income, disposable personal income and spending improved a bit in July, after all three declined slightly in June. This month, spending up edged up $44.1 billion, or 0.4 percent, as Americans saved less. At The Atlantic, Daniel Indiviglio makes a More…
Yesterday evening, the House passed a stripped-down supplemental war funding bill, providing the administration with $59 billion for continuing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama is expected to sign the bill today. The vote was 308 to 114, with 148 Democrats and 160 Republicans in support and 102 More…
It is a simple (and poll-tested) fact: Most people like the government services they themselves consume, and they’re less than keen on taxes. When governments stop mending potholes, or the police or fire department takes 20 minutes to answer a call, elected officials start to get voted out of office; More…
When it comes to President Obama’s 2011 budget, Republicans deplore deficits. They don’t like spending money (even if it’s to help Americans struggling to find work or keep their homes) except when they can extol the virtues of the pork projects the Democrats’ votes help them bring home. But they More…
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