A Short History of Deficit Reduction

It’s been a day since the 2011 Budget was released, and analysts and journalists have written about what it means for individual agencies, specific issues, and states. But let’s not lose sight of the big picture. The President’s Budget represents an important step towards fiscal sustainability: it put forward $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years, even excluding savings from the assumed ramp-down in war funding over time. Including these war savings, the deficit reduction proposed in the President’s Budget rises to $2.1 trillion.

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A Dialogue on the Recovery Act

Nearly a year ago, the Congress and the President joined together to enact the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, one of the most sweeping economic recovery efforts in our nation’s history. Since then, and although more steps can and should be undertaken to promote job growth, the Recovery Act has spurred economic activity and thereby helped to avert a depression.

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Introducing the 2011 Budget

Today, the President transmitted the FY 2011 Budget to the Congress. In about an hour, he will deliver remarks about the Budget, and after that I will be taking questions from the press with CEA Chair Romer. This post gives readers of OMBlog a brief overview of the document.

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Facing the Fiscal Facts

A Wall Street Journal op-ed today by the prior Administration’s CEA Chair, Edward Lazear, observes that the ratio of federal spending-to-GDP has risen by 14 percent since 2008—and that the transition from 2008 to 2009 saw the greatest annual increase in spending in the last 30 years.