KeithHennessey.com

I want to propose a four-part test for measuring any particular bill on health care cost control.

short run

long run

Federal deficit

1

2

Government health care spending

X

3

Private health care spending

X

4

In each case, I will define the test so that “yes” is a good outcome:
Test 1:  The bill does not increase the federal deficit in the short run.
Test 2:  The [...]

Each year Congress enacts 12 annual appropriations (spending) bills.  Those bills are the subject of vigorous and legitimate fights about spending priorities.
Included in these annual appropriations bills are spending for defense, veterans, military construction, highways, housing, education (except student loans), foreign aid and the foreign service, the FBI, CIA, and Department of Justice, most of [...]

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 [...]

Yesterday I wrote about the history of tax increases since World War II, and about the battle over the total level of taxation.  Now I want to turn to spending.
I am a low-tax guy.  I have worked on tax issues for 12 of my 15 years in Washington, helping elected officials lower taxes and prevent [...]

The President emphasized the importance of health care reform in Tuesday evening’s press conference.  One of his arguments was that reforming health care would help address federal and state government fiscal problems:
What we have to do is bend the curve on these deficit projections.  And the best way for us to do that is to [...]

Welcome to my new blog.  If you would like to learn more about American economic policy, I would be honored to be your guide.  I will do my best to explain the options faced by senior American economic policymakers, and to analyze the choices they make.
I anticipate defining “economic policy” broadly as we did at [...]

USA Today editorializes today against making the tax cuts permanent, and includes an opposing view from me.
I’ll include both here.  I’ve learned that he who writes the opposing view is at a disadvantage, in that they get to see what I wrote, but not the reverse.  I thought I had anticipated their attacks, but I [...]

About three hours ago, the President signed into law H.R. 5140, The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 , less than four weeks after he first proposed Congressional action.
We are enormously pleased with this rapid and bipartisan legislative success.  The final bill passed the House 380-34, and the Senate 81-16.  Here is a one-page summary of [...]

Monday the President proposed his budget for Fiscal Year 2009.  This is the first “e-Budget” – it was transmitted electronically as an official document to the Congress, and was digitally signed by the Executive Clerk.
At a press conference Monday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) said:
But let me emphasize to you what I see [...]

The President delivers his State of the Union address this evening, beginning just after 9 PM.  We typically release “fact sheets” along with the address.
Since the big document is 36 pages long, we also have versions of the different component fact sheets on whitehouse.gov.  Here are the economic ones:

Economy
Budget
Free trade
Energy
Health care

We also have separate fact [...]