January 2012
Talk is Cheap
During a recent interview on 60 Minutes, Barack Obama stated that "our deficit problems would be solved" if we
• reformed "some of our health care programs, like Medicare and Medicaid,"
• cut "discretionary spending,"
• and went back to tax rates "that would still be lower than they were under Ronald Reagan."
Higher Debt Likely Means Lower Growth
In a New York Times column entitled "Nobody Understands Debt," Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman writes that "the way our politicians and pundits think about debt is all wrong, and exaggerates the problem’s size." His dominant message is that our national debt is not a major problem, and Washington has an "ill-informed obsession" with it.