Weekly Recap‏

Hi there,

 

Happy Saturday morning! The day you’ve been holding out for all week long has finally arrived. And to celebrate, here’s a recap of the top fiscal and spending news, just for you. No need to thank us. It’s what we do.  

1) This week, President Barack Obama nominated Jack Lew, his current Chief of Staff and close advisor to become the next Treasury secretary. Lew’s main tasks will be working on a deficit reduction plan with Congress and then tax-reform later this year, the Wall Street Journal reports.  

Lew’s loopy signature is coming in for criticism as it would grace all of America’s dollar bills. Even the president quipped that he considered nixing Lew’s nomination when he found out how bad the man’s penmanship was. For more facts on Lew, check out our blog post here.  

2) We launched a new video as part of our “Talk is Cheap, Overspending is Not” campaign that features speeches from former President Ronald Reagan, former Vice President Al Gore and President Obama each promising to address the government’s overspending. Watch and share the video here.  

3) Can minting a trillion dollar coin solve our debt limit woes? The Washington Post explains:

Thanks to an odd loophole in current law, the U.S. Treasury is technically allowed to mint as many coins made of platinum as it wants and can assign them whatever value it pleases.  

Under this scenario, the U.S. Mint would produce (say) a pair of trillion-dollar platinum coins. The president orders the coins to be deposited at the Federal Reserve. The Fed then moves this money into Treasury’s accounts. And just like that, Treasury suddenly has an extra $2 trillion to pay off its obligations for the next two years — without needing to issue new debt. The ceiling is no longer an issue.

In a press conference this week, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, did not explicitly rule out the idea, and while most experts don’t think a trillion dollar coin will actually be minted, businesses like CoinStar are freaking out.
 

4) The president’s budget proposal is likely to be late for the third year running -- this time because of the lengthy fiscal cliff negotiations at the end of 2012. The budget for fiscal year 2014 is expected to arrive on Capitol Hill sometime in March, at least a month after the legal deadline.
 

5) We are still on track for an annual budget deficit of $1 trillion, with the Treasury Department reporting on Friday that our federal deficit grew by $260 million in December. This will be the fifth straight year of trillion dollar deficits.
 

6) A new Gallup Poll shows 77 percent of Americans think politics in Washington, D.C. is hurting the nation. 87 percent of Republicans think this, along with 79 percent of independents and 68 percent of Democrats, reports POLITICO.
 

7) Meanwhile, the Pentagon is spending $247,000 to sponsor its first-ever float in the Rose Bowl while facing deep budget cuts due to sequestration. As the Washington Guardian dryly notes, “The festive spending sat in uncomfortable contrast with the Pentagon's sober assessment that planned budget cuts in 2013 -- part of the so-called fiscal cliff debt deal -- were so severe that they would require it to crimp its mission and jeopardize national security.”
 

8) Finally, for dessert enjoy an unfortunate video of a poor man getting knocked out by a rogue soccer ball. The video is a profound metaphor for our current fiscal situation. Watch and you’ll understand.