VIPS ARRIVE FOR CONGRESS

Another important feature of the new Congress will be heightened polarization.

Avazz Stop the Torture of Children in Syria!

Write your congressman. Catch me a pigeon, and I will

But, rather than producing a specific proposal, he left it to Congress to design the legislation.

Digital technology is the opportunity for the revival of these vocal chords that he spoke so passionately to Congress about.

BEIJING The exchange rate of the renminbi has once again become a target of the United States Congress.

President Bill Clinton s administration ignored the overtures and allowed the US Congress to take the initiative.

And I said time and time and time again to Congress that send me the DREAM Act, put it on my desk, and I will sign it right away.

The Congressional Budget Office is assuming 3.4 average growth in real GDP over the 2013 to 2016 period.

As part of America s system of checks and balances, Congress gets to do more than just approve the annual federal budget.

Candidates for Congress and members of Congress spend between 30 and 70 percent of their time raising money to get back to Congress or to get their party back into power, and the question we need to ask is, what does it do to them, these humans, as they spend their time behind the telephone, calling people they've never met, but calling the tiniest slice of the one percent?

A recent (admittedly partisan) study by the US Congress s Joint Economic Committee documents the relative weakness of the current recovery.

No US president can unilaterally agree to alter the pattern of government support and spending that is a decision for Congress.

The voter anger expressed in the US mid term elections could prove to be only the tip of the iceberg.

President Barack Obama relied on that power when he told both Congress and the American people that he had the authority to order limited strikes on Syria without going to Congress.

It has become clear that the House Republicans will steadfastly refuse to vote for any increases in tax rates during the current lame duck congressional session.

The non partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the Senate Finance Committee plan would cost about 800 billion between now and 2019.

Unfortunately, as the financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated, it would have been better if Congressional committees had pressed him to communicate more clearly.

BEIJING The exchange rate of the renminbi has once again become a target of the United States Congress. China bashing, it seems, is back in fashion in America.

This would entail reinstating pay as you go rules and establishing an independent commission to submit to Congress amendment proof (and filibuster proof) recommendations for tax and expenditure reform.

Senator Barbara Boxer railed continually against Carly Fiorina, a former CEO of Hewlett Packard, that she had exported 35,000 jobs. The obvious reply should have been Yes, I outsourced 30,000 jobs.

The shift in thinking was triggered by the revised deficit forecasts recently published by the Congressional Budget Office, the independent technical agency responsible for advising Congress on budget issues.

(I serve on the CBO s Panel of Economic Advisers, which comments on the draft forecast twice a year, but does not assess budget proposals or anything else.)

Fortunately, the US has the Congressional Budget Office, which scores legislation in terms of its budgetary impact, assesses official budget proposals, and formulates its own economic projections.

The official non partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that the policies that now seem most likely could push the debt to 100 of GDP by the end of the decade.

Our analysis starts with the 500 billion that the Congressional Budget Office openly talks about, which is still ten times higher than what the administration said the war would cost.

Little wonder that, with mid term congressional elections coming in November, Americans are angrily asking why the government s hyper aggressive stimulus policies have not turned things around.

According to the CBO s alternative fiscal scenario, growth in Social Security is comparatively modest, from 4.8 of GDP in 2010 to 6.2 in 2035.

Elected in the midst of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, President Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership of Congress seemed surprised when the public rejected their stimulus, health care reform, and energy policies by large margins.

The CBO study also made clear that December s tax cut agreement between Obama and the Republican opposition willfully and deliberately increased the budget deficit sharply. Various tax cuts initiated by George W. Bush were set to expire at the end of 2010.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the US government s budget deficit will average 5.2 of GDP over the next decade, and be 5.5 of GDP a decade from now.

Indeed, a CBO rule of thumb equates a sustained one percentage point shortfall in real GDP growth with budget deficits that are roughly 3 trillion larger over a ten year period.

But she has also been engaged with all of the other practical details of financial reform for as long as anyone in part due to her experience as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.

Congress can admit more states, but it cannot create a new state from territory of an existing state or merge two or more states into one without the consent of all states involved.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO, the leading nonpartisan experts), Social Security, together with Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care programs, will grow to consume almost all tax revenues by 2035.

Reforms to alter the boundaries of Congressional districts to make them more competitive would help alleviate this problem, but few incumbent Congressmen will vote for changes that might increase their risk of defeat.

As part of America s system of checks and balances, Congress gets to do more than just approve the annual federal budget. It also sets a limit on how much debt the US Treasury is allowed to issue.

TOKYO On April 29, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will address a joint session of the United States Congress. The Japan US alliance is now 63 years old, but this will be the first time that a Japanese leader will be accorded this high honor from the American government and people.

Although it has not indicated just when rates will rise or how high they will go, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the rate on ten year Treasuries will rise above 5 by 2019 and remain above that level for the next five years.

But how large must such a stimulus be? The United States Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that American output will be roughly 7 below its potential in the next two years, making this the worst recession since World War II.

SEOUL In his State of the Union address to the US Congress in 2002, President George W. Bush famously described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an axis of evil. In the years since, however, America has not treated each in the same way.

Although US congressional investigators found no evidence of kickbacks in the contracts, they did find instances of dishonesty and negligence that at the very least point to the US government s willingness to overlook questionable practices. The fuel for the air base came mostly from Russia, and the main Pentagon contractor s local dealers falsely claimed that it was intended for domestic civilian consumption, thereby benefiting from lower import tariffs.