Blog
Welcome to our blog – The Bottom Line, where you’ll find up-to-date commentary and analysis on the most important news in the fiscal world. Below is a list of our blog posts.
$98 Billion Wasted
Government agencies misspent over $98 billion last year, $26 billion more than was wasted the previous year, the Associated Press reports. The White...
Debt Hits $12 Trillion
This week, the gross national debt hit a record $12.031 trillion. Gross debt is a broad measure which includes both debt held by the public (currently...
GM Outlook Improves Despite Q3 Losses
Early this week, General Motors stated that while it is still experiencing losses, it has stabilized itself enough so that the company can begin...
Several Executives Predict Third Stimulus
Several executives from General Electric and Bank of America Merrill Lynch said early this week in a BofA Merrill Lynch webcast that they see Congress...
CMS Analyzes House Health Care Bill
On Friday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a report estimating the effects of the House health care reform bill. Looking...
Weekend Editorial Roundup
Here are the highlights from this weekend’s editorials on fiscal and budget policy: The New York Times applauds the House and Senate Finance bills for...
Three More FDIC Bank Closings
On Friday evening, the FDIC reported that it has taken over an additional three banks ( Pacific Coast National Bank, Orion Bank, Century Bank) for a...
Freezing Discretionary Spending...
UPDATE: Stan Collender thinks we might be making ice mountains out of snow hills. According to a number of news reports, President Obama has begun...
FDIC to Collect Three Years of Premiums in Advance
The FDIC has just adopted a rule to require banks to pay at the end of 2009 the amount they would owe the FDIC for insurance premiums over the next...
Administration Claims Extra TARP Cash Is Deficit Reduction
This morning, a Wall Street Journal article reported that the White House intends to use some of the remaining TARP cash for deficit reduction, while...
Monthly Treasury Statement Shows $1.417 trillion Final Deficit Number for FY 2009
The Monthly Treasury Statement is out, and states that Fiscal Year 2010 is off to a perilous start. The deficit for the month of October is ringing in...
High Unemployment Numbers Displayed in Interactive Graphics
Last Friday, we blogged on new information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting the astonishingly high monthly unemployment rate for October...