To be sure, the government is ultimately responsible for determining the appropriate scale of defense power in line with fiscal considerations.

While the right medicine needed to avoid fiscal train wrecks is well known, the main constraint to fiscal consolidation and discipline is that weak governments around the world lack the political power and willingness to implement austerity.

One challenge is the need to arrest the erosion of America s relative power, which in turn requires comprehensive domestic renewal, including fiscal consolidation.

The kind of fiscal integration and centralized power that they would require do not even remotely resemble those in place in the US.

Since Krugman and I began debating fiscal and monetary policy back in 2009, I have become increasingly alarmed by the way he abuses his power.

But as the storm clouds gather in the coming year, the political coalition that put Bush in power will stifle progress in undoing the fiscal mess.

Meanwhile, the state lurches from fiscal tragedy to fiscal farce.

The main conditions for success of decentralization include secure tenure and secure fiscal, revenue and taxation power, as well as control over decision making, resources, products and markets.

Fiscal consolidation was not, however, the result of formal fiscal rules.

Fiscal Follies

Fiscal stimulus is turning into fiscal austerity and a drag on growth.

Once in power, the DPJ will immediately confront the massive bureaucracy and entrenched mandarins, which usually sabotage any efforts at administrative reform that threatens their power and vested interests. Indeed, immediately after the election, the budget estimates for the next fiscal year are due.

Europe s Fiscal Wormhole

America s Fiscal Isolationism

Fiscal Closing Time?

Fiscal Child Abuse

Germany s Fiscal Follies

India s Fiscal Follies

Shorting Fiscal Consolidation

Alternative Fiscal Medicine?

The Social Democrats returned to power in 1994, but they accepted Bildt s new fiscal policies, and even carried out a revolutionary pension reform in 1998 that properly tied benefits to payments.

The impact was greater in countries that had a history of structural fiscal problems, maintained loose fiscal policies, and ignored fiscal reforms during the boom years.

America s Exceptional Fiscal Conservatism

Europe s Empty Fiscal Compact

Fiscal Fibs and Follies

Gaming US Fiscal Reform

America s Fiscal Cliff Dwellers

Is Fiscal Stimulus Pointless?

Obama s Difficult Fiscal Summer

Fiscal policy was required.

Threading the Fiscal Needle

Fixing America s Fiscal Problem

e. Special fiscal policies

What is needed are constraints on fiscal policy by each country, not a supranational fiscal authority.

In contrast, QE3 will be associated with a fiscal contraction, possibly even a large fiscal cliff.

And, unaccompanied by a credible medium term fiscal strategy, it unnecessarily excited the apostles of fiscal doom.

Fiscal Austerity Versus European Society

Fiscal Discipline and Educational Quality

Lessons from the Fiscal Cliff

The Birth of Fiscal Unions

Ireland s Moment of Fiscal Decision

Consider monetary and fiscal policies.

The Bogey of Fiscal Stimulus

The Case for Fiscal Stimulus

The Crisis of Fiscal Imagination