“The Department of Defense’s new proposed budget would dwarf military spending sought during President Ronald Reagan’s time in office, concludes Michael O’Brien of The Hill in a January 25th articel titled “Obama spending more on defense than Reagan had at peak.” O’Brien cites a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report. He also reports Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a post on the CBO Blog defense spending “exceeds the peak of about $500 billion (in 2010 dollars) during the height of the Reagan Administration’s military buildup in the mid-1980s.”

On the surface O’Brien’s report makes defense spending seem … Continue Reading

The January 26th Washington Post carried a Rob Stein story on a new Guttmacher Institute study that found, between 2005 and 2006, the pregnancy rate among teenage girls rose for the first time in more than a decade. At two points in the story, Stein mentions some possible causes for the rise:

The cause of the increase is the subject of debate. Several experts blamed the increase in teen pregnancies on sex-education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence. Others said the reversal could be due to a variety of factors, including an increase in poverty, an influx of Hispanics and

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Covering President Barack Obama’s upcoming State of the Union proposals, Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in January 25ths New York Times:

For example, the president is calling on Congress to nearly double the child care tax credit for families earning less than $85,000 — a proposal that, if adopted, would lower by $900 the taxes such families owe to the government. But the credit would not be refundable, meaning that families would not get extra money back on a tax refund.

What exactly does Stolberg mean by “extra”? If, come April 15th, a family has had more taken out of their paychecks … Continue Reading

In the January/February 2010 2010 issue of The Atlantic, David Frum writes:

Almost every concept in Obama’s intensely controversial health plan has at one point or another been advanced by a senior Republican, from Bob Dole to Mitt Romney.

Frum appears to buy himself some wiggle room when says “almost ever concept” … but the numbers do not lie. In both the House and Senate versions of the bill, over half of those who gain health insurance do so through a Medicaid expansion.

According to the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under the House … Continue Reading

The Washington Post’s Alec MacGillis reported on January 13th:

The $787 billion economic stimulus package has created or saved between 1.7 million and 2 million jobs, but its impact on the economy ebbed slightly in the final quarter of 2009 compared with prior months, the White House said Tuesday night.
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Congressional Republicans have questioned the administration’s claims about the stimulus’s impact, pointing to the 10 percent unemployment rate nationwide. Romer’s new figures are based on macroeconomic estimates, not reports filed by stimulus funding recipients, the next round of which is due later this month.

Separately, the White House has announced a change

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Covering the ongoing health care negotiations between the House and Senate, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Steve Greenhouse report in January 12th New York Times:

President Obama told union leaders at a private White House meeting on Monday that he remained committed to taxing high-cost insurance policies as a way to drive down health costs.
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The 40 percent excise tax would apply to any cost above $8,500 for individual policies and $23,000 for family plans; the Congressional Budget Office has estimated it would generate $149 billion in tax revenues over 10 years, which would help Mr. Obama meet his goal of passing

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A January 12th Associated Press article carries the headline “Employer health mandate may be dropped” and Erica Werner reports:

The House-passed bill included an income tax increase on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples making over $1 million, as well as a requirement for large businesses to cover their workers. The Senate bill contained neither. It included a tax on high-value insurance plans and a modest increase in the Medicare payroll tax. Instead of requiring employers to offer health coverage, the Senate bill penalized businesses if any of their workers obtained government-subsidized health care.

The House and Senate … Continue Reading

On January 11th, Matt Apuzzo and Brett Blackledge reported on an Associated Press analysis of federal government infrastructure stimulus spending writing:

Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama’s argument that more road money would address an “urgent need to accelerate job growth.”
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AP’s analysis, which was reviewed by independent economists at five universities, showed that strategy hasn’t affected unemployment rates so far. And there’s concern it won’t work the second time. For

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In the January 2, 2010 Washington Post Ariana Eunjung Cha reports:

China’s state-owned banks have become a main engine of the global recovery, financing the construction of copper mines, purchase of airplanes, expansion of retail stores and other projects even as their U.S. and European counterparts scale back lending.
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Over the first nine months of 2009, new lending by Chinese banks has injected $1.3 trillion into the world economy, according to statistics from the People’s Bank of China, which functions as China’s central bank.

But as Heritage Foundation Asian Studies Center Research Fellow Derek Scissors points out, it is a stretch … Continue Reading

Reporting on President Barack Obama’s damage control meeting with U.S. intelligence agencies, Karen DeYoung and Michael Fletcher write in the January 6th Washington Post:

But [Obama] said he will continue with already delayed plans to close [Guantanamo Bay], which he said “has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.”

“In fact,” he added, “that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

The Yemen-based group, known as AQAP, was founded in part by prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay during George W. Bush’s administration.

DeYoung and Fletcher are technically correct that AQAP “was … Continue Reading

On December 29th, Mary Carmichael reported for News week on What Health-Care Reform Will Mean for You. She writes:

Two changes will affect people with current private insurance in 2010. One is that they won’t have to worry about maxing out their lifetime medical benefits, because as of six months after enactment, insurance companies won’t be allowed to impose those maximums on anyone. … A second is that people who are frustrated with their plans will have someone to gripe to other than their congressmen: the Senate bill calls for the immediate creation of new state offices that will handle

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