If the debt ceiling debate did nothing else, it plainly demonstrated Washington’s unhealthy tendency to punt tough fiscal decisions down the line. It was remarkable then, when on April 5, 2011, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, released a long-term budget with a serious and potentially unpopular plan to reduce … Read more
Over the past two years, the Bank Bailout saved the American financial system from collapse while turning a profit of $25 billion—enough to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for 20 years. Yet Americans across the political spectrum despised the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $700 billion bailout that seemingly epitomized Wall Street’s leverage … Read more
Dear Fellow Americans, Welcome to the Annual Report of the United States of America. ARUSA is dedicated to explaining and analyzing the federal budget and proposing sustainable fiscal solutions. We hope you use this tool to first learn about the challenges facing American spending policy and then engage your fellow citizens and legislators to enact … Read more
Meet Sam. He’s pretty young, as far as these things go, a good guy, fairly well-liked by his peers, and very, very rich. But he’s made some questionable decisions lately, and money problems are very much on his mind: he’s been borrowing profusely to finance a nasty spending habit, and most of his financial commitments—taking … Read more
Health care spending in the United States has been growing significantly faster than the national economy for several years, posing serious threats to the solvency of Medicare and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that federal spending to support Medicare and Medicaid will rise to 12% of the GDP in 2050 and 19% of … Read more
In 1969, a softspoken protestant minister with a manner too gentle for Washington appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications. The question was whether the federal government would grant the recently created Corporation for Public Broadcasting the 20 million dollars it needed to get off the ground. Asked to testify on behalf of educational children’s … Read more
The recent debt-ceiling crisis was more contentious than a Texas football game, as Democrats and Republicans rejected each others’ budget cut proposals. But this rivalry characterizes the current partisan political season. In April, the US prepared for a potential government shutdown while Democrats and Republicans struggled up until the last moment to agree on a … Read more
Debt and Interest If financial institutions are taken in absolute values, the United States’s debt has nearly overtaken the nation’s annual GDP. In fact, the cumulative total of the federal government’s outstanding debt, at $14.294 trillion, is equal to the GDP of just about the next three largest economies, combined. On a smaller scale, the … Read more
Before signing the historic Social Security Act of 1965 that would create modern-day Medicare and Medicaid, President Lyndon Johnson took a moment to reflect on tradition. “It calls upon us never to be indifferent toward despair,” Johnson said. “It commands us never to turn away from helplessness. It directs us never to ignore or to … Read more
On December 14, 1972, the voice of astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, came through the loudspeaker at NASA Houston: “I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come…God-willing we will return.” The Apollo missions, of which Apollo 17 was the last, were by … Read more