Courtesy of our Republican government, the deficit is back up in 2006. The federal budget is akin the classic MIT dilemma of of grades, sleep, and social life: choose two.
State-side, score a victory for the good guys as pro-Health Care legislation passes the Maryland legislature, overriding the Governor's veto (no thanks to the Washington Post). The legislation mandates that companies with over 10,000 employees in Maryland spend at least eight percent of their payroll budget on health care. Four companies are affected: Johns Hopkins University, Northrop Grumman Corp., Giant Food Inc., and Walmart: guess which one doesn't yet pay that eight percent!
Personally, I've been banging out code for the last week and only yesterday came up for air Thankfully, both projects are at a state where the professor is fine with the amount of work I've done. Now, I just have to actually write the papers!
I love how Cheney et. al. dismiss fiscal responsibility by channeling The Gipper: "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. This is our due."
Their economic grounding reminds me a lot of the business plans of several high flying dot com companies, none of which are anything more than Chapter 11 salvage these days.
Well, as I just finished Advanced Macro (with hopefully an A), I do have to concede that the GOP is correct in that it's the deficit/GDP ratio that really matters. The problem is that we've got a time bomb on our hands (our 'rents, the baby boomers), and if we start out behind, things are going to look really ugly come 2030.
As for Reagan and deficits, I think it's undeniable that the Reagan/Bush I deficits were the reason that long-term interest rates were so high in 1990 and thus the reason for the first Bush recession.