Lost (so far) in the debate over the federal deficit and debt ceiling is perhaps the most basic question: What is the goal of federal deficit reduction? That is a key point for Congress to keep in mind as it goes about putting together a long-term deficit reduction plan in the next two months. Is the goal to achieve balanced spending first and let the debt situation catch up, or is it to reduce the federal debt to a certain goal and let spending adjust? According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):
Balancing the federal budget by 2020 would require policy changes that save roughly $1 trillion in that year relative to the baseline (with interest savings contributing the remaining deficit reduction). Maintaining a balanced budget in...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
What You Need to Know Today: Harvest pressure in the U.S. sent corn and soybeans lower as supplies increased and there were signs USDA’s upward revisions to yields in the October WASDE could be close to right. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend, with Ukrai...
Developer's Note 24 August 2026: WPI recently completed an exercise that updated the codebase for this app and solved some of the discrepancies between our five-year average calculation and USDA's. There are a few lingering cases where early (late) starts (finishes) to the crop cycle resu...
