2010 budget
Here's my column from today's Roll Call.
What The Federal Budget Did on Its Summer Vacation
Sept. 8, 2009
The federal budget debate returned from its summer vacation this week to find that this year’s deficit will be a bit smaller, the longer-term deficit will be higher, reconciliation is a little more of an issue now than it was when Congress left town for the August recess, and some people are saying we need to start reducing the deficit immediately.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is going to reveal the proposed Pentagon budget for 2010 on Monday. Here's what today's Washington Post had to say about what Gates may do.
On the one hand, this makes no sense.
The Obama administration let it be known last week that its detailed budget proposal won't be released until May, at least several weeks later than had been expected. Revealing the details of the military budget a month or more before the rest of the budget invites it to be taken out of context and, with no other agency or department budgets to look at, for the media to obsess about it.
Here's my "Fiscal Fitness" column from today's Roll Call.
The Return of the Budget Committee Jedi
March 10, 2009
By Stan Collender
Roll Call Contributing Writer
Friday’s very discouraging unemployment report, which showed that 651,000 jobs were lost in February, could make the House and Senate Budget committees far more important and powerful than they have been in decades. If it happens, this would be a shock to the system roughly akin to what fans of “Star Wars” (the movies, not the missile-defense system) would call a “disturbance in the force” as the Budget Committee Jedi return to prominence.
Last November, I titled a post "Dancing with the Budget." My "Fiscal Fitness" column from this week's Roll Call is a follow-up to what I talked about then.
Obama Proves His Choreography Skills With Budget Rollout
March 3, 2009
By Stan Collender
Roll Call Contributing Writer
You can’t help but admire the brilliant choreography that the Obama administration used last week to release its fiscal 2010 budget.
The Obama budget projected a 2009 deficit of $1.75 trillion. But that number would have been much lower had the White House used the same accounting tricks and conventions used by the Bush administration.
Follow the bouncing deficit:
