Yes, after a vacation induced hiatus, the linkfest will return later this weekend.
I put the l-fest together all week; As I process all the materials I come across, I pull the 4 or 5 of the most interesting items each day. By Friday, I have a ton-o-stuff.
What stood out this week were all the budget deficit/savings related issues. It all started with a surprisingly upbeat NYT article on the deficit: Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit.
A few of the more discerning deficit watchers noted the NYT had been punk’d. The White House has pulled a page from Wall Street and is playing the game of beat by a penny. Budget Watcher extraordinaire Stan Collender states this has become an annual game: Each year, the White House overstates expected deficits, and then manages to produce an "upside surprise." He details this in Deficit Reduction: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One.
The L.A. Times is even more succinct: In Deficit’s Good News Less Than Meets the Eye Joel Havemann wrote:
"This will be the third year in a row that the administration put forth relatively gloomy deficit forecasts early on, only to announce months later that things had turned out better than expected. To some skeptics, it’s beginning to look like an economic version of the old "expectations" game."
The last word on Deficits and tax cuts came via the WSJ’s Washington Wire. Dasvid Wessel noted that the claim that "Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves" is belied by the administration’s own budget: The answer is No, "if you read the fine print in the new White House midsession review of budget trends."
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Its not only the Federal Government who’s spending exceeds its income — its the American family also. The Kansas City Star — about as heartland as you can get — is warning that our Saving trend is troubling; Paul Merriman goes even further, and claims America’s savings hoax exposed.
More later this weekend . . .
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Courtesy of Yahoo!
i think a lot of citizens stupidly use their stocks , homes , 401k’s to balance their net worth , so if the value of those assets go up , they say, ” I save money”…… this is how they justify their lack of saving ….fine when they go up in value , but if these assets fall … whoops
The whole deficit thing just drives me crazy. The number is so absurdly large and no amount of spin can make that go away.
As always, I wonder why the democrats and other opponents of the current crazy govt process don’t just keep hounding on basics like this.
Spin can be a two way game! There is always an effective counterspin to any spin. One just has to want to play the game.
yea. Where’s that mythical liberal media when ya need ’em?
What is the outrage of the White House giving a positive spin to deficit reduction? Please give me a break. The Dems love to spend money just as much as the Reps. The big dig in Boston is a classic example of taxpayer money thrown away. How long has that money pit been going on? How much over the original estimates are they? Tom in Indy
Barry, it’s Paul Farrell who wrote the article on America’s savings hoax.