KeithHennessey.com

The President and his Budget Director Peter Orszag argue they are being fiscally responsible when they support a massive new health entitlement. But combining Kennedy-Dodd with all of the President’s proposed Medicare and Medicaid savings would make America’s long-term entitlement spending problem much worse than under current law.

The White House has released a letter from the President to the two Senate Chairmen who are working on (different) versions of health care reform:  Senator Kennedy (D-MA), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.  The letter is dated yesterday and [...]

Today the Administration released more detail for the President’s budget.  The President tried to emphasize his fiscal responsibility by highlighting some of the programs he proposes to terminate or reduce.  Budget Director Orszag released the Terminations, Reductions, and Savings volume.
This morning the President said,
But one of the pillars of this foundation is fiscal responsibility.  We [...]

I had missed this from the President’s remarks to Congress on February 24th:
This budget builds on these reforms.  It includes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American.

Budget Director Peter Orszag repeated the “down payment” language on his [...]

When I was growing up, I was taught that you change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles.
Suppose I take my three-year old car to Jiffy Lube for an oil change.
Jiffy Lube has all the latest information technology, as well as good data on both manufacturers’ recommendations and best practices.
After entering my license plate [...]

There has been a lot of debate about whether the President’s budget improves or worsens the future deficit picture.  This is a debate mostly about baselines – what do you assume would happen otherwise?  Rather than engaging in that debate here, I am going to look at the results of what the President has proposed.
What [...]

Budget Director Peter Orszag wrote on his blog yesterday that he thinks “Debt held by the public net of financial assets is the most meaningful measure of current federal debt.”
I wrote earlier today why I think Director Orszag’s new metric is misleading and dangerous.  Now, however, I’m going to take his argument [...]

Yesterday on his blog the President’s Budget Director, Peter Orszag, asks himself and then answers the question, “How much does the federal government owe?”
This sounds like a technical question of concern only to “those of us wearing the green eyeshades,” but the Director’s suggested answer has dangerous ramifications, and could mislead or at [...]

In part one of this series, I explained why I think the Obama Administration will soon run out of TARP money and need to ask Congress for more.
Several weeks ago the Obama team began to lay the groundwork for such a request.  Here are four signs.
1.  In his February 24th Address to the Nation, the [...]