Stan Collender

OK…I’ll admit that saying the agreement will be gone by this Christmas is likely (but not necessarily) an overstatement. But saying that the “Budget Control Act” — the debt ceiling increase/deficit reduction deal signed into law on August 2 — isn’t likely to be in place on January 1, 2013, or to have it’s projected impact […]

I continue to be astounded at how many people…including a number of supposed insiders who should know much better…continue to believe that the debt ceiling increase/deficit reduction deal agreed to just before Congress left town for the summer recess is going to have as big of a positive impact on the budget outlook as we […]

Maya MacGuineas, who heads the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, is one of the smartest budget people I know.  So when Maya says (at least, as I’ve been told she has said) that the membership of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is in a great position to sell a comprehensive deficit reduction […]

Readers may recall that My Beautiful and Talented Wife (The BTW) is a professional actor who tends to think of the world in theater terms. As I continued to describe the events of the past few weeks to her, she kept saying that it reminded her of the plot of something by William Shakespeare (or […]

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (PL 93-344) passed the House and Senate in 1974 with almost no dissenting votes — 75 to 0 in the Senate and 401 to 6 in the House. By today’s hyperpartisan standards, the fact that a law dealing with the budget passed with virtually no opposition seems  miraculous.  It […]

Think the federal budget can be cut without actually affecting what the government does? As my column from this morning’s Roll Call explains, tell that to all those who have been working on the space shuttle. News Flash: Budget Cuts Have Consequences We interrupt the steady barrage of news and analysis on the latest developments […]

I have no doubt at this point that much of the talk about a 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution strategy to deal with the debt ceiling impasse is just being used for leverage. After all, we’re still a month away from August 2 — the date the Treasury currently says the finances of the […]

What was  Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) doing last week when he announced…proudly…that he would not allow an increase in the debt ceiling without significant cuts in Medicare? At first blush this may not seem like that big of a deal given the continuing demands from the GOP leadership in the House for substantial spending […]