This is Part II of a two-part series of posts on the presidential candidates' fiscal policies. Part I examines Governor Romney's plans.

The first part of this blog post series looked at the unanswered questions in Governor Romney’s overall fiscal policy, tax reform plans and health care reform plans. This second part will look at President Obama’s budget plans in addition to some areas of uncertainty.

Simply by virtue of being the President, with the requirement to submit an annual budget, Obama has had to provide more details about his fiscal plans. Yet, what those details clearly show is an inadequate long-term fiscal goal. Over ten years, federal debt held by the public would only stabilize temporarily, and at a higher level than it is today.

To the President’s credit, he supports negotiating a long-term, bipartisan “grand bargain” on fiscal issues with both spending cuts and new revenues. Yet, such explicit support has come only after his initial tepid reaction to the Simpson-Bowles report when it was released. Nevertheless, if Obama is re-elected, the upcoming...

Watching the recent Strengthening of America forums online from my office in Wyoming, I was encouraged by how former Democratic and Republican members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries and other national experts could find such so much common ground on a course for fixing the national debt.

As the western states regional director for The Concord Coalition, I was struck by how this matches what Concord has found working with local leaders and the public here in the West and across America.

It also matches recent statements by national associations of mayors and state officials. While there remain some differences on details, it became evident that there is a much more bipartisan agreement than one sees from watching the 2012 political campaigns.

Four public forums were presented in Washington and New York City between September 12 and October 1 by Strengthening of America – Our Children’s Future, a bipartisan initiative co-sponsored by The Concord Coalition.

These forums featured a diverse collection of business leaders, former members of Congress and former government officials. They identified the key components to a comprehensive fiscal solution: tax reform that generates more revenue for deficit reduction, slower growth in health care costs, sustainable Social Security and Medicare programs,...

Updated 8/17 with "History of Debt" infographic below

The Concord Coalition is proud to be partnering with a new effort called "Face the Facts USA." This nonpartisan initiative is a project of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs and will be providing a new fact every day until the election (for 100 total).

The exciting part of the project is that along with their facts, they are producing great infographics and video content that make it easier to understand significant issues and trends that are (or should be) part of the national discussion as we approach election day.

They have also solicited involvement from some important organizations in the policy community to shed further light on the information in their facts -- and that is where The Concord Concord fits in. Many of the facts the project will be presenting falls into categories that Concord writes about and discusses, which allows us to add supplemental material to go along with the fact of the day.

Already, there have been two debt related facts. On...

The problem with campaign rhetoric is that you’re stuck with it if you win.

The danger is that people might just believe you can really do all the wondrous things you promise and if you don’t deliver, they get angry. That, in part, helps to explain what happened to President Obama and congressional Democrats last week.

Now, it’s the Republicans’ turn to see if they can live up to their campaign rhetoric. On the fiscal front, they have set a very high bar for themselves.

Republicans campaigned on a written pledge to put the nation on a path to a balanced budget by cutting spending and not raising taxes.

It is easy to see the political appeal in that promise. Most people think the deficit is too big and that the federal government spends too much. Very few want to see their taxes go up.

The problem with the Republicans’ pledge is that the numbers don’t add up.

Forget ideology and just look at the projections. Last year’s deficit came in at $1.3 trillion. This year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects a deficit of $1.1 trillion. Beyond then, CBO projects 10-year deficits totaling $6.2 trillion.   

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