Ron Paul

I was interviewed by Sarah Eisen on Bloomberg Television this past Tuesday to give grades to the Republican presidential candidates on the budget. The full interview is here for what I hope will be your viewing pleasure. But we ran out of time before we could go through the full candidate list so here's a quick summary of my grades.

First, it's important to keep in mind that few candidates for any public office ever talk directly about the federal budget because there aren't too many voters who want to hear that their taxes will go up or that the services they get from the government will go down or be eliminated. Even when a candidate mentions specific policies, that discussion is almost always at a macro level that allows every voter to feel as if he or she will be protected.

Not only is that true in this case, but almost all of the GOP presidential candidates are currently talking about plans that would make the deficit and debt situation worse even though they're labeled as deficit reduction.

There was a flurry of activity in the media and on Wall Street yesterday after the White House let it be known that it was going to request a $1.2 trillion increase in the federal debt ceiling on Friday.

I received a number of calls from reporters and clients wanting to know if this was just a bureaucratic exercise of the government's responsibilities or a power play by the Obama administration that would end up angering Congress and starting yet another round of hyperbolic and hyperventilating fights over the budget.

Everyone please take a deep breath. This may be fun to talk about but doesn't change the very likely outcome -- an on time increase in the debt ceiling -- in any way.

Here are the basics:

1. To request this increase, the Obama administration is using the procedure agreed to in the Budget Control Act that was enacted in early August. This is the same law that created the anything-super committee that so completely failed to agree on a deficit reduction plan.

(originally posted on The Will and the Wallet

For thirty-five years, the Egyptian people believed the myth and lived in fear, fear of the security forces and fear of the chaos and instability that might exist without a strong ruler.  They have just overcome that fear and created hope.   That collective psychic shift was the key to making the change they needed to bring about.

Over at his Reuters blog, Jimmy Pethokoukis has been subjected to the same type of personal comments attack that CG&G's own Bruce Bartlett did for taking a similar position as Bruce on Rep. Ron Paul's proposal to have the GAO audit the Federal Reserve's monetary policy operations.  After looking at the comments, it's hard not to conclude that this was a coordinated assault (calling it a "response" would be far too mild).  In fact, many of the comments use remarkably similar language.

(Like Jimmy P's blog, CG&G moderates the comments it receives and some of the most vicious responses to Bruce's post were deleted.  We love comments that further the discussion, but those that are vile never see the light of day.)