In a discussion with myself and Aaron Zitzelsberger (WEDC), at UW Madison, Thursday 2 October 2025, sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Society at UW Madison .
Location Sewell Social Sciences 5102 [new]
Douglas Holtz-Eakin was formerly Director of the Congressional Budget Office (2003-05), Chief Economist of the CEA (2001-02), and currently President of the American Action Forum.
A recent evaluation by Dr. Holtz-Eakin of the US macroeconomy, here.
Addendum:
Four pictures:
the president and republican controlled house and senate has chosen to shut down the us government for the foreseeable future. well done, republicans. at what point do you think you will decide enough damage has been done, and reopen the government?
and to top it off, trump has threatened to fire the government after he shut it down. don’t negotiate with him to save those firings, as he is intent on doing that anyways. if he does not fire folks today, he will simply use it as a negotiating ploy to fire them later, or continue to use the immoral threat to gain more leverage in future negotiations.
Off topic – More U.S. bombing in the Middle East?:
https://www.newsweek.com/us-deploys-military-assets-middle-east-10809727
A bunch of U.S. Airforce flying tankers have flown to Al Udeid in Qatar. As the article notes, the same thing happened right before U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear sites in June.
The recent re-imposition of UN sanctions on Iran may serve as a pretext for another round of bombings:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/united-nations-hits-iran-snapback-sanctions-nuclear-program/
Netanyahu has also suggested that Iraq deserves a good bombing:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-netanyahus-speech-we-wont-let-the-world-shove-a-terror-state-down-our-throat/
An operation of the size suggested by the presence of a dozen or so U.S. tankers looks like overkill for non-state militias, but who knows? Everything Netanyahu does looks like overkill to me.
This earlier report identified U.S. tankers headed for the UK, suggesting they were on the way to join NATO war games:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2115131/us-air-tankers-fly-to-uk
I doubt we’d commit a bunch of tankers to training at the same time another bunch were headed elsewhere, so these are probably the same aircraft. The UK government is just about as Netanyahu-aligned as is the U.S. government, so it makes sense that this is the same operation.