NewsTrust - Deficit - Most Recent Stories

President Obama Should Seize the High Ground

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas Friedman - May. 27 (Opinion) - President Obama has quite a record of accomplishment to run on for re-election if he would only run on it. During a recent discussion in Seattle with a group of educators, one of them surprised me when she pointed out that even though their state did not win President Obama’s education “Race to the Top,” that program was critical in spurring education reform in Washington State. As I listened to her analysis, the thought occurred to me: I wonder how Barack Obama would do if he ran for president as himself. ... How he would do if he ran for re-election on all the things he’s accomplished but rarely speaks about.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Europe debt crisis and jobs numbers to drive stocks

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Hibah Yousuf - May. 27 (News Report) - Memorial Day may mark the unofficial start to summer, but investors won't be getting any rest and relaxation during the coming week. Following a three-day weekend (U.S. markets are closed Monday for Memorial Day), uncertainty will continue to swirl over Europe, with the threat of Greece leaving the eurozone still looming.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Europe’s rush to austerity will have severe consequences.

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Joseph E. Stiglitz - May. 13 (Opinion) - This year’s annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund made clear that Europe and the international community remain rudderless when it comes to economic policy. Financial leaders, from finance ministers to leaders of private financial institutions, reiterated the current mantra: The crisis countries have to get their houses in order,...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Hollande Ousts Sarkozy in French Presidential Election

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Steven Erlanger, Nicola Clark - May. 06 (News Report) - François Hollande swept into office on Sunday, becoming the first Socialist to be elected president of France since François Mitterrand left office in 1995. Mr. Hollande’s campaign promised a kinder, gentler, more inclusive France, but his victory over President Nicolas Sarkozy will also be seen as a challenge to the German-dominated policy of economic austerity in the euro zone, which is suffering from recession and record unemployment.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Austerity Is So Wrong!

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Paul Krugman - May. 06 (Opinion) - In a new book, End This Depression Now!, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman says the current economic problems can be fixed both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines. But politicians’ desire to slash spending is deeply destructive, and he details why austerity is so appealing even to Very Serious People—and why it’s such a bad idea.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Is US a model for austerity-wary Europe?

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Laurent Belsie - May. 05 (News Analysis) - America's poor jobs report has rattled world markets. Germany's DAX index fell 2 percent Friday. Wall Street saw its worst week of the year, as slowing job growth stoked fears that recovery in the United States is faltering. Last month, the economy added only 115,000 jobs.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Punk Economics: Lesson 3

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

YouTube - By David McWilliams - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Irish Economist David McWilliams discusses the dangers of playing games with liquidity, in Lesson 3.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Banks Repaid Fed Bailout With Other Fed Money: Government Report

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Mark Gongloff - Mar. 09 (News Report) - Though lots of people grumble about the government bailing out banks in the financial crisis, we have at least taken some comfort in the idea that the government has turned a profit on that bailout. Only problem is, that profit comes from taxpayer money -- money that was meant to spur banks to develop communities and help small businesses. Instead they've used it to develop and help themselves.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Cracks in the GOP dam?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Greg Sargent - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - Buried in this big New York Times piece on the continuing war over the payroll tax cut extension is a telling detail: Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said Tuesday that she had suggested a tax increase on high earners that protected employers from that burden. “I don’t think we should be imposing additional taxes on working families at a time when the economy is so fragile,” she said. Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said his party’s plan could involve a small increase in taxes for some high-income people who meet certain criteria. In other words, senators Collins and Roberts are looking for a way to support the millionaire surtax, or something like it.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Pledge: Grover Norquist's hold on the GOP

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

60 Minutes - By Steve Kroft - Nov. 22 (Special Report) - As head of Americans for Tax Reform since 1986, Grover Norquist has transformed a single issue - preventing tax hikes - into one of the key platforms of the Republican Party. As Steve Kroft reports, his biggest coup was getting more than 270 members of Congress, and nearly all of the 2012 Republican presidential primary candidates, to sign a pledge promising never to vote to raise taxes. But some opponents say the pledge may be hindering a solution to America's debt crisis.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Panel Fails to Reach Deal on Plan for Deficit Reduction

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Jennifer Steinhauer, Robert Pear, Helene Cooper - Nov. 22 (News Report) - After one last bout of fitful but futile talks, Congressional negotiators conceded the obvious: that the joint Congressional committee charged with drafting a deficit reduction package would miss its deadline this week. But they did not quite give up the ghost of a chance that a solution might be found later.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

World financial markets tumble on news of debt supercommittee’s stalemate

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Neil Irwin - Nov. 21 (News Report) - World financial markets tumbled Monday, as there were no new signs of resolution to Europe’s intractable crisis and as the U.S. debt supercommittee failed to reach agreement on a deficit reduction plan. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 245 points, or 2.1 percent and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 1.9 percent. Global markets were down even more, with the German Dax index off 3.4 percent and French and Spanish markets down by similar amounts.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama administration quietly bracing for debt supercommittee failure

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Anne E. Kornblut - Nov. 16 (Special Report) - White House officials are quietly bracing for “supercommittee” failure, with advisers privately saying they are pessimistic that the 12-member Congressional panel will find a way to cut $1.2 trillion from the deficit as required. In public, however, the official administration stance is that failure is not an option. ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Senate Democrats offer $3 trillion debt deal

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Lori Montgomery - Oct. 26 (News Report) - Senate Democrats are urging the debt-reduction supercommittee to pursue a far-reaching agreement to slice $3 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade through significant cuts to federal health programs, including Medicare, and as much as $1.3 trillion in new taxes.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Phony Fear Factor

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - The good news: After spending a year and a half talking about deficits, deficits, deficits when we should have been talking about jobs, job, jobs we’re finally back to discussing the right issue.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama Calls for New Taxes on Wealthy

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By John D. McKinnon, Jared Favole, Damian Paletta - Sep. 20 (News Report) - Obama called for $1.5 trillion in new taxes to help lower the nation's deficit, saying tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires in the last decade helped add to the country's massive debts.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama Rejects Obamaism

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Brooks - Sep. 20 (Opinion) - He claimed we can afford future Medicare costs if we raise taxes on the rich. He repeated the old half-truth about millionaires not paying as much in taxes as their secretaries. (In reality, the top 10 percent of earners pay nearly 70 percent of all income taxes, according to the I.R.S. People in the richest 1 percent pay 31 percent of their income to the federal government while the average worker pays less than 14 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.)

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama turns fire on Republicans

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dan Balz - Sep. 19 (News Report) - The deficit-reduction speech President Obama delivered from the Rose Garden on Monday underscores the sharp strategic pivot he and his administration have made in the wake of the debt ceiling negotiations. Call it lessons learned the hard way, or the necessary readjustment by a politician, but the Obama who spoke on Monday was in a far different place politically and stylistically from the president who tried to pull off a grand bargain with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in July and August.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

A real Wall Street takeover threat

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By David Talbot - Sep. 19 (News Report) - The hundreds of young people who converged on the New York Stock Exchange this weekend are calling their demonstration against Wall Street greed an "American Tahrir Square." While they have a long way to go before they create the tremors that brought down the Mubarak regime, their passion was clearly on display on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. The protestors were gathered in the square at the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street, after police blocked them from the epicenter of American finance a couple of blocks away. Many had spent the night in sleeping bags and insisted they were prepared to spend many more to make their point. "This country is in decline," said Jack Laxson, an 18-year-old Hampshire College student who was carrying a sign that read, "Corporations Run This Country -- Let's Do Something About It."

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Fact Check: Social Security, Health Care and More

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Michael Cooper, KITTY BENNETT, TRIP GABRIEL, NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., JOHN M. BRODER, RYAN MURPHY - Sep. 13 (Fact Check) - As Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was assailed by some rivals for the Republican presidential nomination at Monday night's debate for his misleading claims on Social Security, he also seemed to be debating himself at times.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Paul Krugman: 50 Percent Chance Global Economy Will Enter Recession

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Harry Bradford - Sep. 09 (Interview) - Even though Obama's jobs plan is "bolder and better" than Paul Krugman expected, the Nobel-Prize winning economist still told Bloomberg Television on Friday that it might not be enough to stave off global recession. The risk of global recession is "quite high, maybe 50 percent," Krugman told Bloomberg. He added: "The risk of something that feels like a recession is much higher than that. My central belief is that we're likely to have higher unemployment a year from now than we do today." Krugman said that while Obama's plan "could make a noticeable difference to the economy," Republican opposition to the President's proposal, on top of the euro zone crisis, still makes recession a substantial possibility.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

CBO: Economy Remains In 'Severe Slump'

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - By Eyder Peralta - Aug. 24 (News Report) - The Congressional Budget Office has just released the summer update of its Budget and Economic Outlook. The non-partisan government agency took in to account the recently enacted Budget Control Act, but not the recent market volatility. If you were looking for good economic news, this report is not it. Here's the bottom line as Director Douglas W. Elmendorf puts it in his blog: Although economic output began to expand again two years ago, the pace of the recovery has been slow, and the economy remains in a severe slump. Recent turmoil in financial markets in the United States and overseas threatens to prolong the slump. CBO expects that the recovery will continue but that real (inflation-adjusted) GDP will stay well below the economy's potential—a level that corresponds to a high rate of use of labor and capital—for several years. The AP reports that the agency reports the budget deficit will hit $1.28 trillion this year, which is down from the previous two years. Taking into account the deficit reduction package passed by Congress, however, that deficit will be reduced by $3.3 trillion over the next ten years.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Jon Stewart Takes On Fox News' 'Class Warfare' Claims

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jon Stewart - Aug. 19 (Comedy News) - On Thursday night's "Daily Show" Jon Stewart took a break from speculating about the GOP presidential race and did a lengthy segment on conservative pundits'...

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Defending Obama's pragmatism

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Fareed Zakaria - Aug. 15 (Opinion) - Over the last week, liberal politicians and commentators took to the airwaves and op-ed pages to criticize the debt deal that Congress reached. But their ire was directed not at the Tea Party or even the Republicans but rather at Barack Obama, who they concluded had failed as a President because of his persistent tendency to compromise. This has been a running theme ever since Obama took office. I think that liberals need to grow up. As the New Republic's Jonathan Chait brilliantly points out, there is a recurring liberal fantasy that if only the President would give a stirring speech, he would sweep the country along with the sheer power of his poetry. In this view, writes Chait, "Every known impediment to the legislative process - special interest lobbying, the filibuster, macroeconomic conditions, not to mention certain settled beliefs of public opinion-are but tiny stick huts trembling in the face of the atomic bomb of the presidential speech."

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average - 9 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Warren Buffett says the super-rich pay lower tax rates than others

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Aug. 14 (Fact Check) - It's not often you see someone stand up and say, "Tax me more!" Yet that's just what famed investor Warren Buffett has done in an op-ed in the New York Times headlined, "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich." Buffett says that very wealthy people like himself pay lower tax rates than the middle class, thanks to special tax categories for investment income. "While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks," he writes. As an example, Buffett said he paid an effective tax rate of 17.4 percent, while people who worked in his office made much less but paid higher effective tax rates of between 33 percent and 41 percent, averaging 36 percent.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer