Home · Economy
Subscribe to RSS Updates

Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category

« Older Entries
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 7:28am

National Energy Tax Bill

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Politics, Current Events, Economy

From Politico:

Senate authors of a controversial climate change bill heralded EPA modeling results unveiled Tuesday as proof that their plan would have a limited pinch on Americans’ pocketbooks.

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) found many reasons to gloat after getting the 74-page study that showed the overall costs from their legislation’s major global warming provisions would cost an average household between $80 to $150 per year.

“There’ll be some people who will want to demagogue that politically, but that’s less than $1 a day,” Lieberman told reporters. “Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we…

No Comments Tags: , , , ,
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 6:28pm

Two Things the President Shouldn’t Do Tonight

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Politics, Current Events, Economy, The American Presidency

I don’t anticipate that the White House will take my advice, but here’s two things President Obama shouldn’t do tonight in his address to the nation.

  1. Blame BP and Big Oil.  Good leaders focus 80% of their time on the solution and 20% on the problem.  People want to hear about solutions tonight.  They want to hear that the government has relaxed the necessary regulations to ensure a speedier cleanup and resolution to the problem.  Blaming BP and Big Oil will score the president points with the Sierra Club crowd, but that’s about it.  No one wants to hear excuses or listen to the president of the United States point fingers–just what he’s doing to address the problem.
  2. Push a new cap…
No Comments Tags: , ,
Sunday, June 13th, 2010 at 4:26pm

Hoyer’s Diagnosis: ‘Spending Fatigue’

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Politics, Current Events, Economy

President Barack Obama is trying to push through yet another “emergency” spending bill.  According to The Washington Post,

President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year’s huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy’s free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. “We must take these emergency measures,” he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party.

For a president who claims to be serious about deficit reduction, he sure…

1 Comment Tags: , ,
Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 9:00pm

National Debt Will Exceed GDP in 2012

Posted by Tom Skypek in Economy

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is projecting that by 2012 our national debt will exceed our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

From Bloomberg:

June 4 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.”

The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world’s largest economy to expand at…

No Comments Tags: , , , , , ,
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at 10:13am

I Support Ken Cuccinelli’s Fight Against Socialized Medicine

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Politics, Conservatism, Economy, The American Presidency, Virginia Politics

On Tuesday, March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law a health care bill of historic proportions.  That bill includes an individual mandate on Americans that declares that they must buy health insurance or face penalties.  This overreaches the authority of Congress under the Commerce Clause and is therefore unconstitutional.  Yesterday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed a suit in federal district court in Richmond challenging the constitutionality of this legislation.  It is heartening that there are public servants who still believe in, and are willing to defend, the United States Constitution.

The United States Senators and Representatives who passed this legislation have betrayed their oath of office.  Since they’ve long forgotten, here it is:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution…

1 Comment Tags: , , , , ,
Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 7:08pm

Thoughts on the Fiscal Commission

Posted by Tom Skypek in Economy

You can’t spend like there’s literally no tomorrow, rack up massive deficits, add to the national debt and then pretend to care about spending.  Are you kidding me?  We don’t need another commission to tell us that we’re bankrupting this country.  This is simply political top cover for the Obama administration–they can point to this in November and say, “We’re serious about the debt.”  There’s a huge credibility gap, though.

According to Karl Rove:

…from Jan. 20, 2001, to Jan. 20, 2009, the debt held by the public grew $3 trillion under Mr. Bush—to $6.3 trillion from $3.3 trillion at a time when the national economy grew as well.

By comparison, from the day Mr. Obama took office last year to the…

No Comments Tags:
Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 2:09pm

Raising Taxes to Pay for Government-Run Health Care

Posted by Tom Skypek in Economy

Greg Mankiw wrote a great piece in The New York Times yesterday on the likely tax implications of the current health care reform legislation.  It looks like tax hikes on the middle-class might be used to pay for the costly, health reform legislation. 

The bill that recently came out of the Senate Finance Committee illustrates the problem. Under the proposed legislation, Americans would have the opportunity to buy health insurance through government-run exchanges. Depending on a family’s income, premiums and cost-sharing expenses, like co-payments and deductibles, would be subsidized to make health care more affordable.

A family of four with an income, say, of $54,000 would pay $9,900 for health care. That covers only about half the…

No Comments Tags: , ,
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 3:20pm

Ian Bremmer on Afghanistan, China’s Recovery

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Economy

Some interesting points from Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, on U.S. foreign policy and the global economy. A couple of key takeaways from the interview:

1. Bremmer thinks that Obama will indeed support some type of troop surge in Afghanistan. However, he notes that while a “consesus” approach might work in Washington it won’t work in Afghanistan.

2. China’s economic recovery has been impressive, recently posting third quarter GDP growth of 8.9%.

No Comments Tags: , , ,
Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 9:33pm

Senate Finance Committee Health Bill: 1,502 Pages

Posted by Tom Skypek in American Politics, Economy

I guess when you’re attempting to remake one-sixth of the American economy it takes a lot of paper.  The bill is not yet up on the Finance Committee website or Thomas.gov.  More on the bill at Politico.  I bet there are a lot of gems in this one.

1 Comment Tags: ,
Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 8:30am

Pelosi’s “Value-Added” Tax

Posted by Tom Skypek in Economy

Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw has some great points on the so-called value-added tax, or VAT, on his blog. Recently, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi raised the specter of implementing a new tax to help boost revenue for Uncle Sam. In terms of taxes, the VAT is about as equitable as they come. It’s a consumption tax similar to the Fair Tax, which was advocated by Mike Huckabee during the 2008 Republican primaries. The problem is, however, that the VAT would not replace our current tax system; instead, it would be an additional layer of taxation. If you want to kill jobs and retard economic growth, add new layers to an already convoluted tax system. Like Mankiw…

No Comments Tags:
« Older Entries

© 2009 Hope is Not a Foreign Policy: Conservative commentary on foreign policy, American politics, and current events

WordPress theme by Develop Daly