National Journal's Clive Crook deftly devalues "starving the beast" as a political tactic, which asserts that tax cuts can put pressure on lawmakers to reduce the size of the government. "Starve the beast" exponents are not demanding packages of lower taxes and lower spending. They are saying that lower taxes will sooner or later wear spending down anyway. When you look at those cases -- instances where taxes have been cut independently, with no connection to new spending plans -- spending does not fall, say the Romers. In fact, it rises a bit. "Starve the beast" does not work.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that the Senate will vote on the nomination of Jim Nussle to be the new Director of the Office of Management and Budget on Monday, September 4 - the first day back from the August recess. Reid announced there will be three hours of debate on the nomination beginning at 2:30 pm. One hour each for the chairman and ranking member of the budget committee, and one hour controlled by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Sanders has announced a hold on Nussle's nomination because he has serious concerns about the nominee and his philosophical differences with the administration's fiscal policies. Sanders said: President Bush is completely out of touch with the economic realities facing working families in America. Bush needs to hear the truth, not an echo. He needs a budget director who will make him face the facts, not fan his fantasies.

According to comments by senior Treasury Department officials yesterday, the Senate's failure to raise the statutory national debt limit -- the House has done so -- threatens to constrain the nation's ability to meet its financing obligations. Treasury says the U.S. will reach its debt ceiling, currently $8.933 trillion, in early October.

Ezra Klein points us to a study appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine indicating that Medicare costs are lower for people who had health insurance before enrolling in Medicare. It underscores the fact that in order to address the long term fiscal imbalance, we need to address health care in America. More evidence for the importance of health coverage comes from a study in The New England Journal of Medicine this month, which tracks what happens when the previously uninsured become eligible for Medicare. It turns out that they -- surprise! -- need a whole lot more care than their demographically similar, but previously insured, brethren!