https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2013/01/04/the-troubling-similarities-between-the-fiscal-mismanagement-in-washington-and-the-mess-in-the-euro-zone/feed/HotAir is the leading conservative blog for breaking news and commentary covering the Biden administration, politics, media, culture, and current elections.en-usTue, 09 Jun 2026 03:29:02 -0400<![CDATA[And the temporary fix ignored America’s underlying fiscal problems. It did nothing to control the unsustainable path of “entitlement” spending on pensions and health care (the latter is on track to double as a share of GDP over the next 25 years); nothing to rationalise America’s hideously complex and distorting tax code, which includes more than $1 trillion of deductions; and virtually nothing to close America’s big structural budget deficit. (Putting up tax rates at the very top simply does not raise much money.) Viewed through anything other than a two-month prism, it was an abject failure. The final deal raised less tax revenue than John Boehner, the Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, once offered during the negotiations, and it included none of the entitlement reforms that President Barack Obama was once prepared to contemplate.]]>Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:55:51 -0500<![CDATA[Allahpundit]]>https://hotair.com/headlines/2013/01/04/the-troubling-similarities-between-the-fiscal-mismanagement-in-washington-and-the-mess-in-the-euro-zone-n98904