** An American Promise **
● A Balanced-Budget Amendment to the Constitution, with appropriate exceptions for times of war and recession.
● A line-item veto, to give the President a fighting chance to eliminate pork and earmarks.
● A limitation on federal spending, to 20% of GDP.-
** About We Elected You **
** Building A Million Dollar Retirement Portfolio **
Most of the millionaires in the U.S. are small business owners, and their wealth is tied up in their businesses. They drive used, American-made sedans; they live in modest homes in middle-class neighborhoods. Most of them are first-generation wealthy; they did not inherit their wealth, but earned it the hard way, through adding value in a business, or by saving diligently. Source: "The Millionaire Next Door", by Thomas Stanley and William Danko.Have Your Say!
- John Lumbard on Problems With a Balanced Budget Amendment?
- Chris Curley on Problems With a Balanced Budget Amendment?
- John Lumbard on How to Fix the Health Care Mess
- Did Government Agencies “Raid” Social Security “Coffers”? « Joejolly’s Weblog on “The Debt The Government Owes Itself For Raiding Social Security”
- John Lumbard on The Antidote
- Gen Y on The Keepers of the Flame
- Chuck Bailey on Amendment Filed. Call Your Congressman!
- Phoebe Addington on Party On!
- FaGaurlwal on Incentives Rule!
- James Schaefer on The ENTIRE Government Runs on Borrowed Money
Topics
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Archive for November, 2010
On America’s Deficit
By James Schaefer
The current issue of The Economist (Briefing: America's Deficit, November 20,2010) calls for spending cuts and tax increases in the ratio of 75:25. However -- whether fact or perception -- all tax increases are permanent, and all spending cuts are temporary.
This point has not been lost on America's...
Read More Three Cheers for the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility!
By John Lumbard.
The President's Commission on Fiscal Responsibility will release its findings on December 1, but recently the two chairmen--Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles---took the extraordinary step of releasing a "draft" of the "Co-Chair's proposal". It's an end-run around the dissenting voices in the commission, and a clear statement that...
Read More A Billion Here, A Billion There . . .
By James Schaefer
Recently, both President Obama and the Republican leadership have taken principled stands against "earmarks", those special spending riders for local projects that are attached to larger appropriations.
Advocates of earmarks insist that earmark reform is misguided, since all earmarks total only --"only" -- 2% to 3% of federal spending.
Federal...
Read More Public Servants And Their Material Non-Public Information
By John H. Haldeman, Jr., CFA
During the 1840s, before Texas was admitted to the Union and before oil was discovered, bonds issued by the territory were deemed speculative, and traded at a large discount. Embedded in the treaty of annexation was a provision that the United States would assume...
Read More Explaining the Tea Party
It's obvious that the Tea Partiers are driven by anger at the "irresponsibility of Congress" as my Colby College English professor Ed Witham put it (many times) in the mid-to-late 1970s. At first it appeared that this was all about fiscal responsibility, but let's be honest---budgets don't generate much passion. ...
Read More Your Legislators Work for You. Make Them Do Their Jobs!
We've heard a lot of talk about fiscal responsibility in the last few months, and now it's time for the new Congress to follow through. The primary responsibility of our congresspeople is to manage our money responsibly; if they continue to pile IOUs onto the backs of little children we should...
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