Budgets and Deficits

Hosted by Charlie Sykes

The recent news that government revenues are down, combined with the Treasury Department’s announcement that federal borrowing is up, has evoked howls of we-told-you-so from our friends on the left.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Americans work hard for their money and expect their tax dollars to be spent wisely. Yet most Americans would be rightly upset to learn that Washington has allocated billions of dollars to be spent on autopilot for programs that are no longer necessary or even in use.

But at least Paul Ryan told some hard truths about entitlements.

President Trump threw a potential wrench into congressional budget discussions Friday morning, threatening to veto the omnibus package that Republican leaders pushed to his desk just hours before to avoid a government shutdown.

Paul Ryan, of all people, was in a defensive posture about his commitment to fiscal discipline. Speaking on February 13 to Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network, the speaker of the House insisted that the two-year budget deal Republicans in Congress had just brokered was a necessary…

After a brief hiatus, the Daily Standard Podcast has returned with a new host: Charlie Sykes. A longtime journalist, author, commentator, and radio host, Charlie brings his decades of experience and insight to our daily podcast.

It is remarkable that the January 20-22 government shutdown was greeted with a collective shrug from the public. Compared to Newt Gingrich’s epic 1995-96 tussle with Bill Clinton and Ted Cruz’s showdown with Barack Obama in October 2013, this one barely registered on the national radar.

As Washington stares down the barrel of a government shutdown, the White House is refusing to back down from its budget terms. Appearing on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, press secretary Sarah Sanders said Congress must pass a continuing resolution now, then try to find a bipartisan deal on…

Having failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, congressional Republicans have turned their attention to tax reform. Given the disappointing track record of the 115th Congress, a victory on taxes is a political must-win. However, the history of tax reform is mostly one of failure and suggests that…

The House of Representatives narrowly approved a Senate budget proposal on Thursday, paving the way for the long-anticipated tax reform package Republicans hope to pass by the end of the year.

President Donald Trump kicked off his party’s major push for tax reform with a speech in Springfield, Missouri, Wednesday, pledging to reduce the burden of taxation on America’s companies and workers and calling for Democratic support.

President Trump has made no secret of his plans to dramatically reduce both the budget of the State Department and the size of its workforce. The department is now preparing for those eventualities with some innovative and unconventional ideas, including "crowd sourcing... via the Internet" and…

The Illinois legislature responded to the state’s ongoing fiscal crisis by—what else?—voting to hike the state income tax by a third, from over 3-and-a-half percent to nearly 5 percent. Republican governor Bruce Rauner fought against the budget, denouncing what he accurately described as a 32…

Rolling out the Trump administration's formal 2018 budget, acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth confessed that Defense secretary James Mattis "hasn't spent one moment" looking beyond the coming budget year. But even a cursory glance at the plan makes one wonder whether he paid much attention to…

President Trump is no dummy. He chose to exchange gifts with the pope in Rome while leaving his budget director and Treasury secretary in Washington to respond to critics of his budget. Let them take the heat while he takes the bows for a successful trip.

Rolling out the Trump administration's formal 2018 budget, acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth confessed that Defense secretary James Mattis "hasn't spent one moment" looking beyond the coming budget year. But even a cursory glance at the plan makes one wonder whether he paid much attention to…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren breaks down President Trump's budget proposal.

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, will defend the White House's budget request in front of the respective congressional committees Wednesday and Thursday. The administration's goal on Capitol Hill this week, according to a White House source, is two-fold: to make a…

Several Republican senators reacted to President Trump's budget request Tuesday by highlighting just 0.0001 percent of its spending.

Committee chairs in Congress look at White House budget proposals with something between indifference and disdain. Congress, not the White House, writes the budget, or so the thinking goes. So why, besides the law mandating he submit one, does a president spend so much time and energy crafting a…

President Trump's defense budget proposal for 2018 essentially follows Obama administration plans and adds only slightly more funding, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Monday.

Lawmakers may be coming to an agreement to fund defense through September after a frenetic week of debate and negotiations, but any deal will only bring them out of the budgetary woods and into the political fire.

President Trump and the boys from Goldman Sachs have put together a dazzling tax reform plan. It has enough pro-growth incentives to energize the economy even after Congress eliminates some of them. But there's a problem: paying for it.

On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office released a report projecting that federal budget deficits will more than triple over the next thirty years. That will lead to record levels of debt for the U.S. federal government.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Michael Warren on President Trump's "America First" budget proposal.

During last year's budget deal (The Bipartisan Budget Act or BBA), Republicans secured more defense spending in a compromise measure for a trade of more general spending and a suspension of the debt limit. But things have grown more complicated, as the Foreign Policy Initiative's David Adesnik…

When is a tax break really just government spending? When it's a "refundable tax credit."