Washington has given up on fundamental tax reform. That leaves it up to the states to experiment with better ways of funding government operations.
Tax revenue in 2013 will be lower (despite the just passed tax increase), and government spending will be higher than forecast. It's an easy prediction -- and this is why.
In times past, political leaders would lay out their domestic and foreign policies in clear, coherent terms. President Obama talks about getting our fiscal house in order but fails to propose any meaningful spending cuts.
The national debt vaulted past the $16 trillion mark two weeks ago, but there's no sign of a slowdown. The federal government is entering the fourth straight year in which it has spent $1 trillion more than it collected in revenue. An imbalance so large can't continue without threatening America's future.
President Obama's policies are, it can also be said at long last, a dismal failure. He has been in office for 30 months, so his agenda, with the help of a sympathetic Senate, has been, for the most part, enacted. And things have gotten worse.
Something unexpected happened along the president's breezy cruise to re-election. "No drama" Obama is suddenly looking about as calm as Jerry Lewis in a French film, about as brave as Ted Kennedy after an evening drive through Chappaquiddick. Witness Team Obama's recent panicky behavior.
The likelihood that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner may resign from his post later this summer is the latest sign that President Obama's team of economic advisors is disintegrating as the economy grows weaker.
One indicator of additional economic disaster looming over the land of the free and the home of the brave is the number of highfalutin economists who are deserting the Obama administration ("Goolsbee exit comes at tough time for Obama, economy," Web, June 7).
President Obama's chief economist is departing as the administration's nearly trillion-dollar recovery is losing steam and Mr. Obama concedes that lackluster job growth could become a trend.
