Washington Times

"Absent some scandal, absent something bad, I wouldn't be surprised if all of them get confirmed," said James Pinkerton of the New America Foundation, ...

Advocates for early childhood education are understandably excited about their prospects under President-elect Barack Obama's administration. During the campaign, Mr. Obama pledged to increase federal early education spending by $10 billion annually.

Currently, the two largest federal early childhood programs, Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, spend about $12 billion annually combined. A $10 billion increase would almost double that investment.

Michael A. Cohen, a foreign policy senior research fellow at the centrist New America Foundation, said shopping malls are quite vulnerable to such attacks..."I think one of the reasons why it hasn't happened here is al Qaeda seems to prefer larger operations - 9/11 is a good example," he said. "I don't think [a mall] has enough symbolism for them." ...

Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, fears the "next big bubble" will be a "government debt bubble." ... Outside Article

Tough love, in the form of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, may well be the best course for the automotive Big Three. But the catastrophic ripple effect of Ford, Chrysler and GM's insolvency would threaten the economies of several states and the jobs of millions of Americans, including many who have never spent a day in the employ of the woefully mismanaged trio.

It is hard to imagine any incoming administration, never mind one that rode to power on the promise of hope and change, allowing this… more

The U.S. government needs to do a better job of embracing technology to promote transparency, making more information available online and soliciting public opinion on policy, the head of Google Inc. said Tuesday in Washington.

"Waiting until the eleventh hour to solicit input on the bills -- it's crazy," Eric Schmidt said in his speech hosted by the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. "Let's deal with [the economic crisis] as an opportunity to get the structure right." more

"There was this incredible liquidity" flooding onto Wall Street from oil exporters, China and other emerging nations during the years when revenues were booming earlier this decade, said Doug Rediker, co-director of the Global Strategic Finance Initiative at the New America Foundation.

Through lopsided trade deficits with China and oil-exporting nations, "the U.S. was exporting [dollars] to other countries, and they needed to do something with them. They had to put the money to work" by investing in U.S. markets, Mr.… more

Regardless of who is elected president, the budget deficit for fiscal 2009, which began Oct. 1, "will in fact reach $1 trillion," predicted Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, whose US Budget Watch affiliate issued the report Monday.

She noted that her deficit prediction was based on a moderate use of the $700 billion in bailout funds Congress approved Oct. 2.

"There probably should be a stimulus plan, and there inevitably will be," Ms. MacGuineas said in an interview. "But anybody… more

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan research group, said both candidates must put together a credible long-term plan to deal with the exploding deficit, but that the government should be priming the pump in the short term. "These economic times are so foreign to what we're used to that nobody really knows whether we need a stimulus plan or not," she said. "But we should probably err on the side of caution… more

"Unfortunately, winning is more important than governing."

That's the conclusion of Leon Panetta, co-chairman of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, who sent a message Wednesday to both presidential candidates - Barack Obama and John McCain -- that they can forget their costly campaign promises to the American people.

The former California congressman and White House chief of staff under President Clinton added up approximately $400 billion worth of new initiatives promised by the two candidates (the majority, more than $300… more