The next Administration, whoever it may be, will feature a new direction on policies around economic and finance issues. That’s because, even if Barack Obama wins re-election, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has announced that he would leave his post. So you either get a Romney Presidency and an entirely new direction on these policies, or [...]

The FY 2013 budget that the Administration will release today is, in the long run, a meaningless document in substantive terms, so I don’t want to spend that much time on it. But I was a little surprised with the pushback I received about my assessment that it reflects a shift in tone rather than [...]

When Bill Daley was relieved of the Chief of Staff part of the Chief of Staff job, I thought he’d just end up as an appendage, a corporate bagman who could help the corporate community get things fixed at the White House, such as the decision to roll back new ozone standards. But over the [...]

Now that I’ve had a chance to examine what OMB Director Jack Lew actually said about the pay-fors in the American Jobs Act, the gambit is becoming more clear. Here’s the scenario, as best as I can describe it: The Administration had been readying a $3 trillion package of deficit reduction to submit to the [...]

The White House estimates that Hurricane Irene caused $1.5 billion in damages, virtually assuring that they will have to ask for a disaster relief supplemental sometime in the next couple months. The preliminary estimate, released by White House budget director Jacob Lew, is on top of $5.2 billion needed for other recent disasters, including tornadoes [...]

The White House’s mid-session review of the budget and the economy was a bracing acknowledgement of reality, with GDP growth and employment estimates plunging. But it still included the fantasy of sharply higher growth shortly down the road. The 2011 growth forecast was cut by a full point. As a result, it offered an alternative [...]

The CBO report on John Boehner’s debt limit plan has really set back the effort and probably poisoned the entire enterprise among the more conservative members of his caucus. But it did provide some key information. First of all, take a look at CBO’s summary of the Boehner plan. It would: Establish caps on discretionary [...]

The New York Stock Exchange dropped today, but by a relatively piddling amount, as the markets still have given no indication that they will yet punish Congress for failing to pass a debt limit deal. NASDAQ even gained a few points. The market may be pricing in the fact that Treasury has more cash on [...]

The strategy by Republicans to force the President to take a position on deficit cuts, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is more transparent than one of Lady Gaga’s outfits. Tom Coburn, supposedly a personal friend of the President, describes it as a leadership deficit. Because the only person who is able to lead on these [...]

OMB Director Jack Lew offered a preview of the Obama Administration budget for fiscal year 2012, which highlights small, unimportant trims to the budget in an effort to tease out Republican aims. Lew rightly highlights two large tax cuts and the recession as the culprit for the deficits the nation faces in the long term; [...]

The President’s 2012 budget will be delayed a week, as new OMB Director Jack Lew struggles to put things together after being confirmed late. But the still-looming fight over the 2011 budget will begin right after the State of the Union address, with Republicans in the House likely to hold out for major spending cuts. [...]