One might think, given all the debate over tax increases and spending cuts and averting a “fiscal cliff” at year’s end, that the White House’s pursuit of a $4-trillion, 10-year solution suggests the government’s habit of deficit spending could be...
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Photograph by Roger Wollenberg/Getty Images
Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell emerge from the White House on Nov. 16, 2012.
Fiscal Cliff Deal No Deficit Solution
Photograph by Jay Reiter/MCT via Getty Images
Instead of costly institutional care, Medicaid pays for a nurse's aide, a speech therapist and a registered nurse for home visits.
Romney’s Dependence: Health Care?
Mitt Romney’s remarks about the 47 percent of Americans whom he says are dependent on government services revealed a gaping hole in his logic of dependence. Absent from Romney’s remarks, and from the reaction to them, is an acknowledgement of...
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Photograph by Jose Cabezas/AFP/Getty Images
Soldiers of the 4th brigade combat team 4th infantry division of the U.S. Army dispose of waste left by mortar rounds at the Forward Operating Base Joyce, in the Kunar province in Afghanistan on August 20, 2012.
Deficit Reality: Not DC Talking Point
To solve a problem requires knowing that problem: analyzing it, diagnosing it and then treating it. Yet when it comes to the deficit, Washington is woefully ignorant. A Bloomberg Government study, “What Really Caused the Mounting Federal Deficit”, provides a...
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Photograph by Ty Wright/Bloomberg
Corn production in the U.S. will drop 13 percent to a six-year low after the hottest July since 1936.
Washington Daybook: Clearing Skies
The severity of the worst U.S. drought in 56 years may be peaking, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an interview with Bloomberg News. Steadying weather conditions may limit food inflation next year and ease pressure to relax federal...
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Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan at a campaign rally at the Waukesha County Expo Center on August 12, 2012 in Wisconsin.
Ryan Not Necessarily Gift to Obama
A narrative is quickly developing in Washington that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s pick of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate is a gift to President Obama. Ryan’s proposal to “end Medicare as we know it” seems...
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Photograph by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
A rally at the Supreme Court to mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court.
Super-PACs: Little From Corporations
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission may have overturned a century-old ban on corporations spending money on federal elections. Yet that 2010 ruling, which also spawned the creation of independent expenditure-only committees known as super-PACs...
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Photograph by Pete Marovich/Zuma Press
After the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the health care reform law's individual mandate in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Intrade Bettors Lost on Health Care
Bloomberg Government’s David Ellis has a line on something here: “Turns out that crowds might not be so wise after all,” Ellis writes today. His story: The BGOV Barometer shows how subscribers at Intrade.com placed increasing wagers that the U.S....
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Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team/National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center facility in Arlington, Virginia.
Cybersecurity Gov’t Spending Boom
Hackers, crackers and script kiddies take note: The federal government is spending to keep your prying fingers out of places they don’t belong. Cybersecurity contractors should pay attention as well. A Bloomberg Government study finds that cybersecurity spending during the...
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Photograph by Jim Wilson/The New York Times via Redux
Skateboarders in a pool behind a house in foreclosure in Fresno, California.
Housing Relief Holds `Wiggle Room’
What do public universities and litigation over faulty drywall have in common? Both have been deemed appropriate uses of money set aside for the states to help their citizens recover from the housing crises, according to a study by Bloomberg...
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Photograph by Sandy Huffaker/Corbis
Joblessness and the accompanying loss of health benefits drove an additional 3.7 million people into the Medicaid program in 2009, the largest single-year increase since the early days of the government insurance plan, according to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Debt-Drivers: Baby Boom, Recession
There’s a lot of election-year finger-pointing over blame for the explosion of U.S. debt. It misses some of the biggest culprits: The aging of the Baby Boom generation and sluggish recovery from the deepest recession since the 1930s. The BGOV...
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Contributors
-
Al Hunt
is a columnist for Bloomberg View and host of the weekly show "Political Capital with Al Hunt" on Bloomberg TV. -
Mark Silva
is deputy managing editor for government news in Washington and editor of Political Capital. He has covered the White House and national politics. -
Emma Fidel
is political editor for Bloomberg.com in Washington. She previously covered financial regulation as a Bloomberg intern. -
Don Frederick
edits political and government coverage for Bloomberg News. He previously worked for more than a decade at the Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau. -
Gregory Giroux
analyzes elections, financing of congressional and presidential elections, political advertising and demographics in Bloomberg's Washington Bureau. -
Julie Bykowicz
covers the influence of money and lobbying in Washington, and covered the state legislature and city crime for the Baltimore Sun for 10 years. -
Jonathan Salant
covers campaign finance and lobbying in Washington. He was president of the National Press Club and started in Washington in 1987. -
Richard Rubin
covers federal tax policy. He worked at Congressional Quarterly and The Charlotte Observer before joining Bloomberg News in 2010. -
Julie Hirschfeld Davis
is a senior political reporter for the Washington Bureau. She covered the 2012 campaign for Bloomberg News and previously covered the White House for the Baltimore Sun. -
Lisa Lerer
covers the White House and covered the 2012 campaign for Bloomberg News. She covered Congress, lobbying and the 2008 campaign for Politico. -
John McCormick
is a national political reporter looking forward to the 2016 presidential campaign, which will be the fifth he's covered. He's also reported for The Des Moines Register and Chicago Tribune. -
Julianna Goldman
covers the White House for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television. -
Hans Nichols
covers the White House for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television. -
Margaret Talev
covers the White House for Bloomberg News and covered the White House for McClatchy Newspapers. She has covered California and Florida politics. -
Cary O'Reilly
is Editor at Large at Bloomberg First Word and is Washington Daybook columnist for Bloomberg Government and Bloomberg News.
