And a quantitative comparison to previous reconciliation measures.
The CBO and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have updated cost estimates for H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as it was passed by the Senate on December 24, 2009. The figures are here. I’ve incorporated the new estimates into the bar chart first reported in this March 1st post.
The Financial Report of the United States Government, 2009 was released last week. Perusing the tables, one encounters the gigantic new, unfunded entitlement enacted in 2003, namely Medicare Part D.
The December trade release surprised some observers in terms of the rise in imports. [0] I think there are some other interesting implications. First, the implied downward revision in GDP is minimal. Second, the drop was less pronounced in the ex-oil trade balance. Third, although real trade flows are rising from their troughs, they have not re-attained pre-Lehman levels. Fourth, the US-China goods trade balance continues to improve.
Or, what would happen if we “Let Bush Be Bush”. Recall the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were written to expire, for the most part, in FY2011. The impact of extending those cuts (along with some others) is strikingly depicted in this Figure from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (h/t Brad Delong).
Augmenting my previous post, here are two additional graphs, motivated respectively by comments by Econbrowser readers Eric Swanson (for Figure 1) and Cedric Regula and tim kemper (for Figure 2).
Here is a graph of Federal debt held by the public, as a share of GDP, 1990-09.
Or, the end of the consumption follows a random walk view.
Following up this post last week on Lee et al., here is another analysis of consumption behavior, but this one is cross-country. From the abstract to “After the Crisis: Lower Consumption Growth but Narrower Global Imbalances?” by Ashoka Mody and Franziska Ohnsorge:
Here I offer some thoughts on President Obama’s new proposal.
Is it reasonable to worry about inflation in the current environment?
EconTalk hosts a podcast of a conversation I had with
George Mason Professor Russ Roberts on deficits and the debt. At the end we also get to a discussion of oil markets. You can participate in the discussion with your own comments either here or over at EconTalk.