Benjamin Studebaker

Yet Another Attempt to Make the World a Better Place by Writing Things

Tag: Sequestration

Biden Edges Toward Repeating Obama’s Worst Mistake

President Biden is negotiating with congressional Republicans to raise the debt ceiling, and there are reports that progress is being made on a deal that involves “cutting spending.” There has been talk that Biden might try to avoid a deal by minting the coin or invoking the 14th amendment. But Biden has always emphasized that he values consensus and compromise. The conservative Supreme Court might not go along with an attempt to use the 14th amendment, and shoving the coin down his opponents’ throats has never really been Biden’s style. It all reminds me of the debate from a decade ago. This blog was young back then, and I wrote a lot about Obama’s negotiations. Let’s revisit that period, shall we?

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Remember When Obama and Biden Tried to Cut Social Security by $230 Billion?

Videos have emerged in which Joe Biden speaks in favor of entitlement reform. Biden disputes the claims:

The thing is, Joe Biden and Barack Obama did try to cut Social Security. It’s one of the forgotten pieces of Obama’s legacy. It was called the ‘Grand Bargain’. Let me tell you the story.

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Hillary Clinton Still Doesn’t Get It

A few excerpts have leaked from Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book, What Happened. They contain a series of attacks on Bernie Sanders and his supporters. You can find lots of people criticizing Clinton for re-litigating the primaries, but today I want to draw attention to just how bad Clinton’s arguments are.

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Americans Still Don’t Know What Sequestration Is

I haven’t been doing much writing about the US economy lately, in part because there’s been no substantive movement on the issue politically since sequestration went through. All we’ve gotten lately are some retread hopey changey speeches from Obama and threats of future government shutdowns from congressional republicans. Nonetheless, these are the first signs that we will soon be having more unproductive fights about the economy with potentially devastating consequences for growth, so I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled. And, lo and behold, I stumbled on a little poll from Gallup.

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