A thoughtful piece in the latest New Yorker by David Remnick on the death of Bin Laden got me thinking about the costs of war. Remnick wrote*: “Bin Laden’s death underscores the question of why we go on losing young men and women daily in the defense of an indefensibly corrupt government in Kabul.” I’ve… Read more
Archive for the ‘Deficits, Debt and Taxes’ Category
Family Budget Not Equal to Government Budget
Heading into work the other day, I heard a Congresswoman on the radio using a common argument that always sticks in my craw—or it would if I knew what a ‘craw’ was. Here’s the gist: “The federal budget is just like a family budget, and we in government must tight our belts and live within… Read more
The Correct Diagnosis
In my opening post to this new blog, I pointed out that a top objective was to correct false assertions regarding economic arguments. Well, allow me to outsource to my CBPP colleague Paul Van de Water. If we’re going to meet the fiscal challenges we face, we’ve got to accurately diagnose the problem. The much-circulated… Read more
More on the Importance of Social Security Benefits
Derek Thompson makes a fair point re my post on Social Security benefits being such an important part of retiree’s income. He notes that lots of things are important and in a climate of cuts, how is one to chose whether one program is more important than another? I’ll have more to say about this—it’s… Read more
Sell the Gold Above the Fold (And a Few Words on the Debt Ceiling)
As I wearily got my Washington Post from the stoop early this AM—yes, some of us still read the “broadsheets”—I was bemused to see this crazy article, front page, above the fold. There are lots of reasons why this is a bad idea: –selling public assets may be a fine thing to do but it… Read more