Facing the Future

This week on Facing the Future, host Bob Bixby shares excerpts from a recent Concord Action webinar on defense spending featuring Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute and Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. They discuss how defense dollars are allocated, whether the proposed increase to $1.5 trillion reflects an actual strategy, what drone warfare means for the cost of conflict, and whether the U.S. military is overstretched.

This week on Facing the Future, Capitol Hill budget experts Bill Hoagland of the Bipartisan Policy Center and Tom Kahn of American University join Concord Coalition executive director Dr. Carolyn Bourdeaux and host Bob Bixby to discuss how the midterm elections could affect the budget and the economy.

This week on Facing the Future Dr. Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, describes various reform options from differing political perspectives that can maintain trust fund solvency, improve the budget outlook and grow the economy.

This week on Facing the Future, Dr. Phillip Joyce of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy describes the substantive, procedural and Constitutional fiscal challenges that Congress has repeatedly kicked down the road.

This week on Facing the Future, former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum, explains why problems in France's bond market carry a warning for the U.S. He also argues that the Federal Reserve should keep raising interest rates to fight inflation.