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The United States Postal Service projects that it will have a $160 billion loss over the coming decade, so it needs to boost revenue and cut costs. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy thinks he has the answer: offer slower service. That's right, DeJoy's blueprint for making the USPS solvent includes cutting costs by slowing mail delivery for millions of Americans coupled with hoped-for increased revenues from postage rate hikes, CBS News reported. However, critics have been quick to point out that this will likely discourage people from using the Post Office. What's happening? Starting Friday, DeJoy said, the postal service will...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is out with its annual report. It’s a blockbuster. This 165 page monster is filled with dozens of charts, graphs and detailed projections. It will be talked about for weeks. The report provides a dismal outlook for the economy. Here is the CBO forecast for real GDP for 2012 and 2013:

FHA Is SOL By Ian Mathias 11/13/09 Baltimore, Maryland – Just as we forecast, the Federal Housing Administration revealed yesterday that it will likely need a government bailout. The results of an external audit (after being suddenly delayed for a week) showed the FHA’s capital cushion to be just 0.53% of its portfolio of insured mortgages. That’s way below the 2% mandated by Congress. In other words, the FHA has just $3.6 billion in reserves to back up a $679 billion book. That’s into the Fannie Mae stratosphere of leverage insanity, worse than anyone expected, and way, way beyond the...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama laid out his first budget plan Thursday predicting a stunning federal deficit of $1.75 trillion this year — nearly four times last year's record — and asking Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy to stem that flood of red ink while still moving the country toward guaranteed health care for all. Denouncing what he called the "dishonest accounting" of recent federal budgets, Obama unveiled his own $3.6 trillion blueprint for next year, a bold proposal that would transfer wealth from rich taxpayers to the middle class and the poor. Congressional approval without major change...

Republicans beat back Democratic attempts Thursday to use a $60 billion tax bill to pinch oil and energy companies that have been reporting record profits while consumers pay high gasoline prices. The bill, which would prevent a number of individual and business tax breaks from expiring, already levies almost $5 billion in taxes on major oil companies. The energy amendments faced opposition from the Republican majority and stood little chance of success, but they reflected attentiveness on Capitol Hill to high gasoline prices and fears of skyrocketing home heating costs this winter. Some GOP senators were already unhappy with tax...

I have this weird daydream that investigators in some future California will discover high levels of lead in the peach and green designer paint in the state Senate and Assembly chambers in Sacramento, at last giving baffled historians the answer to the mysterious behavior exhibited by legislative leaders in the budget crisis of 2003. Then, we’d understand the refusal of Senate leader John Burton and Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson to do their jobs (the sick puppies had brain damage). If you hang around Sacramento, you cannot tell that California has an astronomical $26 billion to $35 billion deficit or that...