Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit last week to the United States underscored the important relationship between the U.S. and Britain, both politically and economically.

Britain’s new coalition government faces tremendous challenges, many of which are similar to the United States’ problems.  Britain’s public debt was 68 percent of GDP at the end of 2009; the comparable figure for the U.S. was 53 percent.

Cameron’s coalition aims to slash government spending over the next five years.  The eventual goal is to cut Britain’s annual budget deficits in half over five years, which will mean some ministries will face funding reductions of up to 40 percent.  Even the popular National Health Service (NHS) will be ordered to make personnel cuts, although overall it will face much lighter cuts than other ministries.  About 75 percent of deficit reduction will be achieved with budget cuts while the other quarter presumably will come from raising revenues.

The proposed cuts in Britain stand in stark contrast to the three-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending President Obama has proposed.  Although broad generalizations cannot—and, indeed, should not—be drawn from these figures, it is clear that both the U.S...

Imagine if Congress held a vote in the next few months on a bill that cut nearly $3.7 trillion in income taxes, added $350 billion worth of loopholes and deductions to the tax code, and increased Medicare spending by $236 billion.

There might be quite an uproar. After all, we are experiencing the largest deficits in history with increasing awareness of our clearly unsustainable long-term outlook.

Yet, this bill is effectively being passed by Congress, sometimes in decisions made on a month-to-month basis and sometimes annually, through multiple bills that contain Medicare doctor payment "fixes," extenders, Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patches, and through the big upcoming push to extend some or all of the Bush tax cuts. Members from both parties have voted time and again over the last 10 years for this bill.

Today's release of the Congessional Budget Office (CBO) long-term outlook highlights the deleterious effect of these decisions on the budget outlook both over the short term and the long term. In it, CBO constructs a baseline of where current law would take us and a baseline of...

Debate on the so-called “extenders” bill has focused on the size and duration of unemployment benefits, health insurance assistance for those who recently lost their jobs, Medicare physician payments, state aid for health care and various offsets to mitigate the overall effect on the deficit.

Conspicuously missing from the debate is any scrutiny of the extenders themselves. It’s a missed opportunity to raise needed revenue while simplifying the tax code and broadening the tax base -- goals that economists of all ideological stripes have long advocated. 

Both the House and Senate versions of the extenders bill contain more than 60 narrowly targeted tax breaks that expired last year. Extending them just through this year will cost about $32 billion. The long-term cost runs to over $350 billion. That cost will add to the debt unless it is offset by corresponding tax increases or spending cuts that may prove more harmful to the economy than failing to renew some, or all, of the extenders. 

At a time when the President is commendably urging all federal agencies to identify their lowest priority and least effective items, Congress should devote the same level of scrutiny to the tax code. The extenders would be a good place to...

The Obama administration has announced a very small effort to reduce deficit spending, and yet liberal groups are attacking them for promoting a policy that will kill the economy – or at least prolong the recession. And conservatives continue to argue that any “stimulus” spending is by definition “wasteful” – especially if they don’t get how a less-idle economy might benefit themselves personally.

But “fiscal hawks” can walk and chew gum at the same time. It’s possible to argue for more and better stimulus at the same time that you call for greater fiscal responsibility. Here are two prime examples, starting with Concord's executive director, Bob Bixby. He was quoted in a CQ Weekly story by Clea Benson (subscription required):

Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, is at the forefront of the effort to publicize the dangers of uncontrolled federal spending. But even he worries that the economy is not yet at a point where it makes sense to forgo extending...