October 10 - Gene Steuerle released an opinion piece
yesterday arguing that the United
States is due for a new "fiscal turning," or
a fundamental reorientation of the government's approach to economic
policy. Steuerle identified a first fiscal turn in the period after the
Revolutionary War, when the young country expanded the financial powers
available to the federal government. The second fiscal turn came at the
beginning of the 20th century, when the country modernized its
banking system and created an income tax. Now, Steuerle declares, the
country is in need of a third fiscal turning. He writes that:

"The third fiscal turning, like the first two, is about far more than fixing
programs we know need to be fixed. It's about creating flexibility and slack
for government. It's about making possible the resources necessary to modernize
and meet new needs, many of which we cannot yet identify. It's about removing
automatic and eternal built-in growth in programs - not so much because they
failed or succeeded in meeting past needs, but because their constant claim for
more and more automatically means less and less for other, potentially more
worthwhile endeavors, both public and private."