Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Increasing pressure on lawmakers to negotiate a state budget that closes a $19 billion shortfall, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency over the state's finances on Wednesday. In the declaration, Schwarzenegger ordered three furlough days per month beginning in August for thousands of state employees to preserve the state's cash to pay the state's debt obligations and for essential services. California's budget is several weeks overdue and Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers are at impasse over how to balance the state's books.

At last week's G-20 meeting, President Barack Obama achieved a two-fer. He suffered a significant international defeat, and he increased the chances his party will suffer a major domestic one this fall. Mr. Obama's international defeat was self-inflicted. He went to Toronto to press other major nations to do as he has done: Expand government spending, or suffer, in the president's words, "renewed economic hardship and recession." Canada, Germany, Great Britain and most other countries declined Mr. Obama's invitation. The German economic minister "urgently" prodded America to cut spending at a press conference on June 21, prior to the G-20...

How bad is America's fiscal policy? Pretty bad. Even the drunk-sailors of Europe are lecturing us on the need for greater fiscal probity. The Europeans! Last time I checked, most European countries were allowing public sector employees to retire with full salary at 50, importing jihadis so that they could be put on welfare and paying farmers massive subsidies that force farmers in the Third World to starve to death. And yet the Europeans are right. . . Here we are in 2010. The UK is led by Prime Minister David Cameron, who speaks openly about the next few decades...

The media are forever trying to create a division in the Republican Party between those who care most about so-called social issues and those who want priority for fiscal issues. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is the most recent politician to fall into this trap by asserting that the next president "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues." The truth is that social and fiscal issues are locked in a political and financial embrace that cannot be pried apart. Those who emphasize runaway government spending and out-of-control debt and deficits must face the fact that those trillions...

ATHENS—Greece's fiscal crisis took a new turn to violence Wednesday when three people died in a firebomb attack amid a paralyzing national strike, while governments from Spain to the U.S. took steps to prevent the widening financial damage from hitting their own economies. U.S. Treasury officials have been quietly urging their European and International Monetary Fund counterparts to put together a Greek rescue plan more quickly to contain the damage, it emerged Wednesday, as U.S. policy makers worry the continent's problems could undermine a U.S. recovery much as U.S. housing woes hammered Europe in 2008. In Spain, rival political leaders...

The government and the Federal Reserve are winding down massive stimulus programs as the economy recovers. But can they both exit at the same time without sending the economy back into recession? The Fed has ended most of its emergency lending programs but likely will reiterate Wednesday that it plans to leave interest rates near 0% for "an extended period" to support the budding recovery. Policymakers also will likely take no action on the Fed's

California faces a 12.6% unemployment rate, and a $20 billion budget deficit. Assembly Democrats seem to believe that the solution to these problems is to rush to implement ObamaCare. Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez introduced a bill this week to conform parts of state law to ObamaCare and set up a massive new state health care bureaucracy. Given that even the federal government is still figuring out exactly how they are going to implement this sweeping new law, there is no need for California to push a bill prematurely through the Legislature right now. ObamaCare is facing Constitutional challenges and...

<p>Last week, Moody's released guidance stating that the US and UK Aaa bond ratings are at risk. Debt levels are rising rapidly to levels where those ratings cannot be maintained, and avoiding that outcome will require "fiscal adjustments" -- read, spending cuts and/or tax increases -- that are likely to "test social cohesion."</p>

Before his disgrace as a cheater, a liar and a cover-up artist, former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential aspirant John Edwards talked about there being "two Americas," one for the "haves" and the other for the "have nots." Well, maybe the multi-millionaire ambulance/skirt chaser was on to something. It appears there are two Americas, but the country is divided between those who work for the public sector and those work in the private sector. And not surprisingly, those working for the government are doing pretty darn good. As recently noted by Grove City College professor and economist Dr. Mark W....

Several times during his presidency President Obama has espoused the virtue of a balanced budget and enforcing pay-as-you-go for Congressional bills. Moreover, he revels in chiding the "previous administration" for not doing so. Not only are these vitriolic criticisms and notions of fiscal responsibility entirely laughable coming from the biggest deficit spending president of all time, they are not what the United States of America needs. ...America doesn't need pay-as-you-go nor do we need a balanced budget because both imply the same, or greater, government engorgement upon our hard-earned money...

This post from The Economist's Democracy in America blog seems pretty compelling on the surface. Unfortunately, it is based on a basic misunderstanding of how the U.S. health system works and the sources of cost growth. The post, by "M.S.," notes that Paul Ryan's plan to transform Medicare from a defined benefit to a limited defined contribution program toward the purchase of insurance is a departure from current practice, which is accurate. She or he then makes a number of interesting extrapolations from said departure. Under Mr Ryan's proposal, starting in 2021, Medicare would be gradually eliminated. Instead, seniors would...

In the last few weeks we've witnessed a series of events that reveal the Obama administration's juggling act. It has sought to introduce policies to maintain growth and tame the fiscal deficit, while also garnering the Congressional support it needs to see them pass. The Democrats' loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat, though, raised questions about President Obama's ability to move forward on financial regulation, fiscal austerity and health care reforms. Obama's waning political capital will stand in the way of achieving his fiscal, social and economic goals. Obama on Jan. 14 proposed a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, a tax...

Rob mItchell is running for Congress in the 8th District of Pennsylvania. See, www.Rob4Congress.com "It's a Matter of Trust!"

... don’t believe the fact that Hoffman is a social conservative was the reason for his loss, but when it comes to priorities, Simon makes a point worth considering: Hoffman’s capital “C” Conservative campaign tried to separate itself from the majority parties by making a big deal of the social issues. He was all upset that Scozzafava was pro-gay marriage, seemingly as upset as he was with her support for the stimulus plan. The majority of Americans are conservative — not just on matters of fiscal policy, but also on many social issues. After all, in the last presidential campaign...

I don't follow the monetary and fiscal problems of other countries very closely. We've got enough of a crisis here to worry about anywhere else. But during the stim bill debate, you may recall liberals pointing to Japan's "stimulus spending" in the decade of the 1990's as an example of how to get out of a deep recession. Maybe they should have read the fine print as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph explains: The IMF expects Japan's gross public debt to reach 218pc of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, 227pc next year, and 246pc by 2014. This has been...

Poltico's Jonathan Martin reports: "The surging campaign of third-party candidate Chris Daggett has turned the New Jersey governor's race into a dead-heat and left Republicans divided over the seriousness of the threat he poses to GOP nominee Chris Christie." The Hill's Reid Wilson reports: The House GOP conference is bitterly divided over a centrist New York Republican’s run for the House seat vacated by Army Secretary John McHugh. "Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who backs abortion rights and has voiced support for gay rights, has drawn a challenger from the right who is running on the Conservative Party line. And though House...

Three Government Reports Point To Fiscal Doomsday by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. 10-05-09 When our leaders have no awareness of the disastrous consequences of their actions, they can claim ignorance and take no action. Or when our leaders have no hard evidence as to what might happen in the future, they can at least claim uncertainty. But when they have full knowledge of an impending disaster … they have proof of its inevitability in ANY scenario … and they so declare in their official reports … but STILL don’t lift a finger to change course … then they have only...

Fiscal ruin of the Western world beckons For a glimpse of what awaits Britain, Europe, and America as budget deficits spiral to war-time levels, look at what is happening to the Irish welfare state. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 18 Jul 2009 Events have already forced Premier Brian Cowen to carry out the harshest assault yet seen on the public services of a modern Western state. He has passed two emergency budgets to stop the deficit soaring to 15pc of GDP. They have not been enough. The expert An Bord Snip report said last week that Dublin must cut deeper, or risk...

Reporting from Sacramento -- In this economy, every state is hurting. Unemployment is in double digits, tax receipts are taking a dive and deficits are piling up. But, once again, California seems to be in a class of its own when it comes to financial dysfunction. The problems here eclipse those elsewhere. California has the distinction of being the only state that is constantly running out of cash. California is the only one pleading with the federal government to backstop an emergency borrowing plan. California is the only state that never completely closed its deficit from the last economic downturn...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The day of reckoning that California has been warned about for years has arrived. The longest recession in generations and the defeat this week of a package of budget-balancing ballot measures are expected to lead to state spending cuts so deep and so painful that they could rewrite the social contract between California and its citizens. They could also force a fundamental rethinking of the proper role of government in the Golden State. "The voters are getting what they asked for, but I'm not sure at the end of the day they're going to like what they...