Blogs

Moe, Larry and Curly are fighting in the back seat of the car. No one is in the driver’s seat. As the boys settle down, Curly looks up and says, “Hey, don’t look now but we’re about to be killed.”…

Budget-watchers in Washington are interested to see how Republican Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, will write a budget to achieve the sometimes conflicting aims of his conference.Republicans say voter anger over deficits last fall helped them take…

The temper tantrums, blame-throwing and unrealistic thinking in Washington sometimes resemble an unruly elementary school classroom rather than a mature, deliberative national government.That’s particularly true when the subject is the federal budget, where the political debate often degenerates into an…

Since the early 1990s, public pension reforms in countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have reduced future benefits by an average of 20 percent.But a new O.E.C.D. report says further reforms will be necessary for these national…

Budget-watchers in Washington are quite interested in how Republican Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, will write a budget that will achieve the numerous and sometimes conflicting aims of his conference. (more…)

With the aging of the population expected to strain government resources in the coming decades, it is crucial for Americans to save substantial amounts of money for retirement. Unfortunately, many fail to do so.Only about six in 10 workers report…

With unsustainable deficits projected over the coming decade, President Obama and the House of Representatives should embrace a call from 64 senators of both parties to “engage in a broader discussion about a comprehensive deficit reduction package.”The need for such…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a useful report presenting more than 100 spending and revenue options for deficit reduction.Of the 38 options discussed for discretionary spending, about a third involve defense. With mandatory programs, the CBO said, policymakers…