BudgetDeficit News

BudgetDeficit News From AOL News

Opinion: America's Unquenchable Defense Spending

(July 20) -- If there's one issue that seems to unite an increasingly divided and fractured capital, it is the ever-expanding federal budget deficit. Everyone seems wants to curb Washington's appetite for spending. Except one area of the federal budget is seemingly off limits: the $692 billion elephant in the room --...

Debate: Do We Need a New Way to Tax Citizens?

(April 14) -- With worries about chronic massive budget deficits and economy-destroying national debt mounting, talk about a new "value-added tax" has grown increasingly loud. White House economic adviser Paul Volcker last week said the U.S. should consider a VAT, which is commonly imposed in European countries, and the...

Debate: Don't Take Anything Off the Table

(April 14) -- Editor's note: This piece is excerpted from the current issue of National Affairs. Everyone understands that the federal government's finances are a mess and that policymakers have failed to take the problem seriously. "Paying for what you spend is basic common sense," President Barack Obama quipped in June....

If Past Is Guide, Debt Commission Chiefs Agree on Little

WASHINGTON (Feb. 18) -- Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have the unenviable task of getting an 18-member commission and then a majority of Congress to agree on an unpopular combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that are likely needed to rein in the nation's enormous deficit. If their records are a guide, they may have...

After Congress Punts, Obama Names Deficit Panel

WASHINGTON (Feb. 18) -- A former Republican senator from Wyoming and a Democratic former chief of staff to Bill Clinton will lead a presidential commission charged with recommending solutions to the nation's soaring deficit, President Obama announced Thursday morning. The president tapped Alan Simpson, who represented...