Government Spending

Massachusetts' economy grew at more than double the pace of the US economy in the first three months of this year, largely due to the renewed strength of the state's high-tech sector, according to two reports issued Friday. Massachusetts saw gains in consumer confidence, spending, and business sales, particularly in the global semiconductor market, a bellwether for the state economy, while growth in the US economy eased largely due to declines in federal government and military spending.

Figures on government spending and debt (last six digits are eliminated). The government's fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. Total public debt subject to limit May 24 15,670,038 Statutory debt limit 16,394,000 Total public debt outstanding May 24 15,712,446 Operating balance May 24 71,897 Interest fiscal year 2012 through April 145,702 Interest same period 2011 139,241 Deficit fiscal year 2012 through April 719,859 Deficit same period 2011...

President Barack Obama says his goal of defeating al-Qaida is within reach and that it's time to turn the country's attention to domestic concerns. Just four days after his trip to Afghanistan, Obama said that money saved from ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should help pay down the national debt and go to health care, education and infrastructure. "After more than a decade of war, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home," he said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.

The White House is aggressively pushing the idea that, contrary to widespread belief, President Barack Obama is tightfisted with taxpayer dollars. To back it up, the administration cites a media report that claims federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since the Eisenhower years. "Federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years," Obama said at a campaign rally Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. The problem with that rosy claim is that the Wall Street bailout is part of the calculation.

It's still about the economy, stupid. In this election year, polls have consistently shown that one thing is clear in the minds of Americans: The most important issues are the economy and unemployment. What is less clear is how we got into this mess and what can be done about it. Enter Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, two public policy writer-analysts who helped start the nonpartisan website PublicAgenda.org. In "Where Did the Jobs Go and How Do We Get Them Back," Bittle and Johnson have produced an enlightening guide to help people come to...

Austerity has been the main prescription across Europe for dealing with the continent's nearly 3-year-old debt crisis, brought on by too much government spending. But what does it mean for the average European? Imagine paying sales tax of 23 percent or more. Or having your wages cut by 15 percent. Or, if you're in Ireland, both. Austerity comes in many forms: higher taxes, fewer state benefits, more job cuts, working longer until retirement, you name it. Here's a look at some of Europe's austerity pain: GREECE: Greece, one of three eurozone nations to need an...

A TAX holiday on overseas profits has been tried before, with disappointing results. Now, proponents say it's time to experiment again with giving US corporations a big tax break for bringing home the money they hold overseas. And they're right. Why does that make sense, you ask? Simply put, because of the dismal economic times and our limited options to address them. The economic recovery has slowed to the point where distant worries about a double-dip recession are now imminent concerns.

WASHINGTON -- Terrorism has replaced weak employment growth and the ballooning budget deficit as the biggest immediate threat to the economy, the National Association for Business Economics said yesterday. The group said that terrorism and defense issues were picked by 40 percent of its survey panel as the biggest short-term threat facing the economy, well ahead of government spending and the deficit, which was selected by 23 percent of the 117 members surveyed. "Terrorism produces the greatest short-term risk to the economy, and that's where NABE's members believe...

French President-elect Francois Hollande suggested Friday that the government of outgoing leader Nicolas Sarkozy underestimated the country's budget problems and wants a new audit of France's books. But Hollande, a Socialist elected Sunday to lead the world's fifth-biggest economy, said that wouldn't hurt his ability to fulfill campaign pledges. Those include higher taxes on the rich, thousands of new teaching jobs and freezes on some government spending. And Hollande stuck to his own deficit reduction goals despite new European Union figures released Friday...

WASHINGTON - Finance officials from the world's top economic powers pledged yesterday to move swiftly on efforts to lift nations out of the worst recession since the 1930s. The major goal: Get banks in every country to start lending again. The finance ministers did not put forward any sweeping proposals but stressed the need for individual countries to carry through on commitments. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his counterparts from the world's top seven industrialized democracies, promised in a joint statement to provide the necessary fiscal tonic -...

Britain is in a deeper recession than previously thought, official figures showed Thursday, in another downbeat development that will likely heap the pressure on the government and the central bank to do more to boost the flagging economy. The Office for National Statistics said the British economy contracted by 0.3 percent in both the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, as against the 0.2 percent rates previously reported. The declines mean Britain is back in recession, officially defined as two straight quarters of negative growth.

Teachers and students from every level of Spain's education system went on strike Tuesday to protest wide-ranging government spending cuts, erecting makeshift tombs at university campuses to symbolize what they claim will be the death of the country's schooling system. Union officials said on average 80 percent of the country's teachers took part. All but three of Spain's 17 regions participated in the stoppage, the biggest in a series of strikes so far this year that had until now been scattered around the country.

When other Group of 8 nations pressed Angela Merkel to support measures to stimulate euro-area economies at a summit over the weekend, it wasn't because of a mere philosophical difference between the German chancellor and other G-8 leaders. Since 2008, the United States and Europe have put into practice two radically different theories of how indebted governments should respond to economic duress. On this side of the Atlantic, the Obama administration relied on stimulus to keep a deep recession from turning into a long depression.

Austerity has been the main prescription across Europe for dealing with the continent's nearly 3-year-old debt crisis, brought on by too much government spending. But what does it mean for the average European? Imagine paying sales tax of 23 percent or more. Or having your wages cut by 15 percent. Or, if you're in Ireland, both. Austerity comes in many forms: higher taxes, fewer state benefits, more job cuts, working longer until retirement, you name it. Here's a look at some of Europe's austerity pain: GREECE: Greece, one of three eurozone nations to need an international...

SARKOZY DOWNPLAYED: French President-elect Francois Hollande suggested Friday that the government of outgoing leader Nicolas Sarkozy underestimated the country's budget problems. STICKING TO PLANS: Hollande said he wants a new audit of France's books. But he said that would not necessarily mean he has less room to maneuver after he takes office Tuesday. His plans include higher taxes on the rich, thousands of new teaching jobs and freezes on some government spending. BLEAK OUTLOOK: New EU figures paint a bleak picture for France, with debt next year at 4.2...

French President-elect Francois Hollande suggested Friday that the government of outgoing leader Nicolas Sarkozy underestimated the country's budget problems and wants a new audit of France's books. But Hollande, a Socialist elected Sunday to lead the world's fifth-biggest economy, said that wouldn't hurt his ability to fulfill campaign pledges. Those include higher taxes on the rich, thousands of new teaching jobs and freezes on some government spending. And Hollande stuck to his own deficit reduction goals despite new European Union figures released...

When other Group of 8 nations pressed Angela Merkel to support measures to stimulate euro-area economies at a summit over the weekend, it wasn't because of a mere philosophical difference between the German chancellor and other G-8 leaders. Since 2008, the United States and Europe have put into practice two radically different theories of how indebted governments should respond to economic duress. On this side of the Atlantic, the Obama administration relied on stimulus to keep a deep recession from turning into a long depression.

IN JEFF Jacoby’s June 8 op-ed column “Shocking the economy,’’ he justifies a slash in government spending by quoting a Cato Policy Report that compared the abrupt cessation of spending at the end of World War II to a theoretical comparable slash in spending today. By 1947, according to the report, the government was running a surplus of 6 percent of gross domestic product. Implicit in the column is that if we were to slash government spending today, the same would happen.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave little ground to those hoping she would temper her demands for austerity, telling the country's Parliament Thursday that the only way Europe can recover from its debt crisis is if it perseveres with structural reforms alongside tough measures to bring borrowing levels down. Merkel dismissed calls to abandon or scale back austerity measures, which involve lower government spending and higher taxes, within the European Union. She insisted that the combination of debt reduction and growth were the "two pillars" of the strategy needed to bring the trade bloc...

Queen Elizabeth II was scheduled Wednesday to set out the British government's annual legislative program in traditionally opulent style — an agenda focused on kick-starting stalled economic growth amid painful austerity measures and a slide back into recession. Hundreds of people are expected to crowd along the streets outside Parliament to see the monarch's horse-drawn carriage parade from Buckingham Palace in a lavish ceremony featuring glittering carriages, sparkling diamonds and canon fire.