Free Republic

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said a stopgap funding deal that would fund the government until January might be necessary as talks on a long-term spending package drag on. “We’re at a pretty significant impasse,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “Time is ticking. We have not been able to agree on a top line yet, and I think it’s becoming increasingly likely that we might need to do a short-term CR into early next year,” McConnell continued, using the shorthand for continuing resolution. “We are running out of time, and that might be the only option left...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell drew a heavy red line for Republicans negotiating legislative and budget-related deals with President Biden and the Democrats. Speaking to Punchbowl News in an interview published Wednesday morning, McConnell (R-Ky.) warned he did not expect members of his party to vote for any bill that includes a hike to the debt ceiling, the limit on how much the federal government can borrow. “I can’t imagine there will be a single Republican voting to raise the debt ceiling after what we’ve been experiencing,” the nation’s top-ranking elected Republican told the outlet from the Capitol.

Ten U.S. states still have not regained all the jobs they lost in the Great Recession, even after six and a half years of recovery, while many more have seen only modest gains. […] Wyoming had 3 percent fewer jobs last month than it did in December 2007, when the recession began, the Labor Department said Friday. That is the biggest percentage decline among the states. Alabama's job total trails its pre-recession level by 2.7 percent, followed by New Mexico, where job totals are 2.6 percent lower. Some larger states are also still behind. New Jersey has nearly 1 percent...

Hillary Clinton said Friday the nation needs a "new bargain" for the economy and called upon all the presidential candidates to offer a "credible strategy" for raising wages as her primary race against rival Bernie Sanders shifts to a series of Rust Belt contests. Clinton's address at Detroit Manufacturing Systems, a manufacturer of instrument panels for cars, offered her the opportunity to contrast herself with both Sanders and business mogul Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate. "Anyone running for president owes it to you to come up with real ideas, not an ideology, not an old set of talking points...

President Barack Obama says he won’t give Republicans controlling Congress concessions on must-pass legislation to increase the government’s borrowing cap. Lifting the so-called debt limit is required to forestall a market-quaking, first-ever default on U.S. obligations like interest payments and government pension benefits. …

The U.S. Treasury Department has raised by $22 billion its estimate of what it needs to borrow in the third quarter to keep the government operating. Treasury said Monday that it expects to borrow $192 billion in the July-September period, up from an estimate of $170 billion announced in April. The borrowing increase is mainly due to the government taking in less in revenue than previously expected. Treasury also said it expects to borrow $187 billion in the fourth quarter of the year. …

Since John Boehner became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 5, 2011, the debt of the federal government has increased by $3,064,063,380,067.72. That is more than the total federal debt accumulated in the first 200 years of the U.S. Congress—during the terms of the first 48 speakers of the House. It also equals about $26,722 for each of the 114,663,000 households the Census Bureau estimates are now in the United States. The $26,722 in new debt per household accumulated under Speaker Boehner would have been more than enough to buy every household in the United States a...

The U.S. national debt would reach 1.1 million miles into space if stacked in one dollar bills. According to the latest available data from the U.S. Treasury, the total public debt outstanding is $16,738,105,803,858.21. A dollar bill is .0043 inches in thickness. … Thus, the national debt would stretch 1,135,951 miles into the air. …

World Health: At a star-studded gala Thursday, President Obama drew big praise from AIDS activists and NGOs for expanding AIDS-fighting programs. But the real accomplishment rests with his predecessor, President Bush. After quietly helping to save 30 million lives from the scourge of AIDS across the African continent, it would seem that higher honors would be in store for Bush, whose AIDS initiatives there have been an astonishing success. Obama, to his credit, acknowledged Bush in his World AIDS Day speech Thursday, as have serious-minded Africa advocates including rock singer Bono. But among the garden-variety NGOs, media elites or activist...

In 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger barnstormed around the state for Proposition 58, using an oversized credit card as a prop and vowing that it was time for the state to "tear up its credit card." Now Attorney General Jerry Brown has concluded that Assembly Democrats' plan to borrow billions to help ease the state's $19.1 billion deficit could be deemed illegal under that ballot measure if challenged in court. "We conclude that a court could reasonably determine that the proposed transaction violates Proposition 58," the attorney general's office said in a letter to Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary. Assembly Speaker John...

<p>"At what point do we run out of money?" President Obama was asked in May. "Well, we are out of money now," he replied. That was when he projected the deficit to be $7 trillion over the next 10 years. Now his administration admits the number likely will reach $9 trillion. We sure are out of money -- and the true deficit number probably is at least another $1 trillion bigger.</p>

With the congressional debate on the Obama/Pelosi/Reid debt bill has come an intense, and long overdue, debate on the proper role of government, its appropriate size and scope, and whether and when the private sector is a superior alternative to direct government action. With that in mind, lawmakers and pundits everywhere would do well to commit these January 17-18th Rasmussen Poll numbers to memory. They explain why liberal Democrats seem so happy to sign on to nearly a trilion dollars (it's actually $953.3 billion in new spending plus interest) in new spending without missing a beat. Their constituents want it!...

Why did the governor push ahead an appeal of the trial court's decision, even though he removed the potential savings from his budget? Our only conclusion is that the administration wanted to create a precedent that would eviscerate taxpayer protections for bond spending. Had the state won the case on appeal, virtually any debt run up by the government (for schools, government salaries, pensions, etc.) could be determined a legal obligation, and then those costs could be offloaded to future taxpayers and kept off the annual budget books. State legislators and this governor love to spend money. They love to...

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Don Perata were friends and allies again Wednesday, a day after a political dispute threatened to torpedo a bipartisan effort to pass $37 billion in state infrastructure bonds. Perata and Schwarzenegger each spoke at a $50,000-a-head breakfast fundraiser at the Palo Alto Hills Country Club, then strolled out to the patio by the golf course to ask reporters what all the fuss was about. "There's been some noise recently, last day or so, that Republicans and Democrats, specifically the governor and the legislative leadership, are not going to be campaigning...

CBS) SHERMAN OAKS Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urged Tuesday voters to support a $37.3 billion plan on the November ballot to improve California's roads, schools and levees. The governor appeared at the Sherman Oaks Galleria to build support for Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, and 1E, which together represent a multibillion-dollar plan to overhaul the state's infrastructure. "California has always been an economic, environmental and technological leader, and this November we have the historic opportunity to make sure we continue this trend by building the roads, schools, levees and housing of the future," Schwarzenegger said. Proposition 1A would protect Proposition 42...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a crusader for fiscal restraint since he was elected two years ago, will unveil a budget today that would trigger billions of dollars in new spending well into the future. The governor plans to increase funding for education, healthcare and transportation programs. Much of it is spending that the state would continue to be responsible for in future years. Schwarzenegger's spending plan comes at the same time he is proposing — independent of his budget — to bring before voters $68 billion in new borrowing to improve the state's roads, bridges, ports and levees over...

The centerpiece of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's State of the State address Thursday is expected to be a call for a mega-bond paying for infrastructure improvements statewide -- and if a recent poll is any indication, he may finally have a winner on his hands. The poll conducted just before the holidays for the California Alliance for Jobs -- the state's powerful road-building lobby -- found that 58 percent of respondents would support a state infrastructure bond of up to $40 billion, while 38 percent would oppose it. State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch,...

Until Californians can agree, bond rating will be stuck at the bottom of the charts California boasts one of the world's largest economies, but the state's reputation is tarnished by a tax system that is often volatile, by a budget process that tends toward gridlock and by a habit of borrowing when it can't balance the books. All of which helps explain why California has the lowest bond rating of the 50 states -- a dubious distinction it might soon surrender to Louisiana, which can blame its predicament on natural -- not politically inflicted -- causes. "Five years ago, California...

In the wake of Katrina, Sen. John McCain says the budget deficit is so dire that the Medicare prescription drug benefit should be scrapped. Gloria Borger reports.

Although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's new spending plan contains less borrowing than he initially proposed, California still is strapped with more than $25 billion in debt from a variety of loans and bond sales used to help cover budget shortfalls during the last five fiscally dismal years. (snip) Elizabeth Hill, the state's nonpartisan legislative analyst, has estimated the state will pay about $4 billion next fiscal year to begin chipping away at its budget-related debts and interest. (snip) Davis' budgets, for instance, included the sale of bonds to be paid back in future years with the state's proceeds from tobacco lawsuit...