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 ***
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
$1.6 trillion deficit $8.2 trillion $12.8 trillion American Promise Austerity Balanced Budget Amendment balance the budget bipartisan reform cbo compound interest Congressional Budget Office Constitutional Amendment Contract From America debt burden default economy entitlements fair tax system federal budget Federal debt Federal deficit fiscal respnsibility fiscal responsibility Fiscal Sanity government debt Greece growth of government interest rates Judd Gregg limit on federal spending Line-Item Veto national debt net debt Pledge of Fiscal Responsibility political platform Portugal Social Security Spending Cap Spending Limit Amendment Sustainable Government Tax Reform Tea Party Term Limits trillion dollars unsustainable fiscal policyBlogroll
Greece Archive
Whence We Came
By James Schaefer.
The original colonists of America and Canada were risk-takers -- by definition, a self-selecting group of people -- willing to leave behind family and culture and language and all that stood for civilization to cross an ocean in search of a better life.
No government handouts awaited them.
That entrepreneurial spirit...
Read More Contagion and Eurosclerosis
By John Lumbard.
The debt of Portugal has fallen in value so much that a buyer can now get a yield of 16% on long term, ten year bonds. Portugal won't have to actually pay 16% until it has to borrow again (most likely when an old bond issue matures and...
Read More Don’t Throw Rocks at the Firemen
When people are in trouble they're not always willing to accept help. Whether you're talking about an alcoholic resisting intervention, a drug addict, a wife who protects her wife-beating husband, or a homeowner who refuses to leave the flanks of an erupting Mount Saint Helens, there's never been a shortage of...
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 Americans For A Balanced Budget Amendment
Alan Parks is the founder of Americans For A Balanced Budget Amendment (http://www.balanceourbudget.com/), which collects signatures and builds support for the constitutional amendment that came within one vote of passing the Congress back in the mid 1990s. It can be done.
Alan tells us that he commissioned a survey, with dollars from his own pocket,...
Read More Greekonomics
By John Lumbard.
Today the Boston Globe printed an article titled Greekonomics (by Thanassis Cambanis, a professor at Columbia), which describes the financial hardship that Greece has reaped as a result of decades of debt accumulation:
"Try to live beyond your means forever, and one day it'll catch up with...
Read More Sustainable Government
By Dan H.
As California goes, so goes the nation. That has long been the case with fad and fashion, but lately California has been playing the role of canary in the coal mine. The state budget is out of control, and there are no longer any easy answers.
Much...
Read More Peter Treadway: Debt and Deflation . . . or Inflation?
By Peter T Treadway, PhD
Historical Analytics LLC
www.thedismaloptimist.com
“Show me where he sits and I’ll tell you where he stands.”
Old Washington proverb
“As the buyers become less eager and the sellers become more eager an uneasy period of ‘financial distress’ follows… For the economy as a whole, the equivalent is the awareness on...
Read More Calling All Democrats
Your Country Needs You.
By John Lumbard.
The really worrying thing about the unfolding spectacle in Greece isn't the insolvency of Greece. Low-cost loans from Germany and the rest of Europe will patch over the near term crisis. But Germany has already stated that it will not and cannot bail out Spain and...
Read More