Blahous & Capretta, Wall St. Journal
One of the enduring mysteries of President Obama's health law is how its spending constraints and payroll tax hikes on high earners can be used to shore up Medicare finances and at the same time pay for a massive new entitlement program. Isn't this double counting?The short answer is: Yes, it is. You can't spend the same money twice. And so, thanks to the new health law, federal deficits and debt will be hundreds of billions of dollars higher in the next decade alone. 

Sen. Tom Coburn is leaving virtually no one unscathed in a blistering new book in which he accuses both parties of hypocrisy and failed leadership in dealing with the country’s mounting debt problems.

Wade Gilley, Richmond TD
Higher education in America is receiving increased attention as student debt soars into the trillions of dollars, and institutional debt (which future students must pay) is not far behind. Further, business and political leaders are now saying that college graduates do not have the skills for today's economy, and most states, including Virginia, talk up the need for reform in our system of post-secondary education.

Rush Limbaugh
Rick Santorum has just suspended his campaign.  I think the reason for suspending the campaign is it allows you to continue to raise money to pay off your debt, but Santorum's campaign has been suspended.  God bless him.  I don't know why.  I don't know if he had internal polling numbers that looked bad in Pennsylvania. I don't know if it's money. I don't know if it's the accumulation of pressure on him from the establishment.  It's probably a combination, some people say unprecedented, in a Republican primary. 

Former GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has whittled his campaign debt down to $17,500.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Quebec will balance its budget by 2013-14 after running a deficit of C$1.5 billion ($1.5 billion) in 2012-13, the government of the Canada's second most populous province said in its budget on Tuesday. Quebec Finance Minister Raymond Bachand told the provincial legislature that the deficit for the fiscal year 2011-12 would come in at C$3.3 billion, or C$500 million less than forecast a year ago. The deficit includes an C$850 million contribution to the Generations Fund, which was established in 2006 to repay the gross debt. ...

Mark Knoller, CBS News
The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama's three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.

Mitt Romney today outlined a plan that he said would restore “freedom” to the American economy, dramatically cutting taxes and spending to “deliver more jobs, less debt, and smaller government.” “I am running for President because I have the experience and the vision to get...

ROME (Reuters) - Mario Monti will walk into a meeting with Italy's trade union bosses on Tuesday, knowing it can help make, or break, his brief tenure as prime minister - and hopes of dragging the economy out of the mire. Four months after he was summoned from an academic semi-retirement to rescue Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis, the former European Commissioner sits down at 3:30 p.m. to try and weaken labor leaders' defense of long-cherished legal protections for employees which he argues have contributed to chronically low employment rates and minimal economic growth. ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's Evangelos Venizelos quit as finance minister on Monday to lead the Socialists into a general election, a day after taking over the helm of the party, which is trailing far behind its rival conservatives in opinion polls. The socialist PASOK party, which came to power in October 2009 on a platform to tax the rich and help the poor but had to change course when the debt crisis exploded weeks later, has been weakened by over two years of unpopular austerity. ...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's banking regulator wants lenders to be more transparent about their mortgage businesses as it seeks to minimize the risk to the economy from record-high levels of household debt. Draft guidelines from the regulator released on Monday called for increased disclosure by banks on their exposure to certain mortgage products and markets, enhanced risk-management practices and treating home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) the same way as mortgages. ...

Republicans in the House of Representatives will try this week to seize control of the election-year spending debate by rolling out a plan to slash trillion-dollar deficits and revive controversial reforms to the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly. The effort from influential House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan aims to portray Republicans as unafraid to face the tough decisions needed to avoid what they warn is a looming debt crisis. ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Socialists elected Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos as their leader on Sunday, with a mandate to revive a party weakened by unpopular austerity policies ahead of parliamentary polls expected by early May. Venizelos, who has spearheaded the country's marathon debt talks, is set to resign from his post this week to focus on the general election, with all surveys showing the PASOK socialists badly trailing the conservative New Democracy party. ...

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority and Israel are holding economic talks despite frozen peace negotiations in a bid to revamp revenue collection and help relieve the Palestinian government's deepening debt crisis, officials said on Sunday. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and interim peace deals have tasked it with levying taxes and customs duties on the Palestinian Authority's behalf, amounting to around $100 million a month, on goods imported into the territories. ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek banks hard-hit by the country's debt swap might not need all the aid earmarked by the EU and IMF to help them weather the crisis, central bank chief George Provopoulos was quoted as saying on Saturday. The European Union and International Monetary Fund have set aside some 50 billion euros to recapitalise and support the lenders, the biggest private holders of Greece's debt. The banks all took part in the largest debt restructuring in history this month that saw bondholders lose as much as 74 percent on their investments. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a new Internet video previewing his upcoming budget plan that aims to slash spending and overhaul the Medicare healthcare program for the elderly, Republican lawmaker Paul Ryan warns of a coming debt crisis if U.S. lawmakers fail to act. It is part of the latest effort by Ryan, the influential chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, to project bold ideas for reining in huge budget deficits. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Thursday approved a 28 billion euro ($36.7 billion) bailout for Greece and warned Athens there was no room for missteps in implementing the economic program. The IMF said it would immediately disburse 1.65 billion euros to the Greek government, part of a broader 130 billion euro international rescue package to keep Greece funded through 2014 and avoid a messy debt default. The IMF board approval ends months of financial uncertainty for Greece. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There was no room for slippage in Greece's economic rescue package and failure to implement agreed policies could trigger an "unsustainable debt dynamic," a senior International Monetary Fund official said on Thursday. The biggest risk to implementation of Greece's new IMF-EU program is that Athens delays needed economic reforms to address large competitiveness gaps, Poul Thomsen, the IMF mission chief to Greece, told a conference call with reporters. ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's said on Thursday it would keep its long-term foreign sovereign credit rating for Greece at selective default until the country's bond swap is fully concluded. Earlier this week, Fitch became the first ratings agency to move Greece out of default territory, assigning the country a speculative B- rating. But S&P said it would likely raise its rating to CCC - extremely speculative - only once Greece's debt restructuring is completed next month, with an exchange of bonds governed by international law. ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's jobless rate rose to a fresh quarterly record of 20.7 percent in the last three months of 2011, reflecting the country's deep economic malaise, exacerbated by austerity to repair public finances and emerge from a debt crisis. Greece secured a new 130 billion euro bailout from its euro zone partners and the IMF this week, after agreeing further painful budget cuts. But the labor market's sharp deterioration is feeding public discontent and hurting consumer confidence. ...

David Leonhardt, NYT
The final major economic turning point of President Obama’s first term seems to have arrived. The question is which way the economy will turn. Job growth has picked up nicely in the last few months, raising the prospect that the American economy is finally in the early stages of a recovery that will gather strength over time.But with gas prices rising, the government cutting workers and consumers still deep in debt, some forecasters predict that economic growth — and with it, job growth — will slow in coming months. 

PELEAS DE ABAJO, Spain (Reuters) - Fifty years ago Peleas de Abajo was a centre of farming innovation. Now it is famous for claiming to be Spain's most indebted municipality after investments made during the country's boom years went sour. The small town in the northwestern region of Castilla y Leon is struggling to pay its bills and service a pile of debt that accumulated from an investment in a rest home 15 years ago when cheap loans were plentiful. The riches to rags story is typical of towns and regions across the country. ...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has reached a $500 million agreement with Kuwait to resolve a standoff over Gulf War-era debts that had prevented Iraqi Airways from flying to destinations in the West, an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday. Under the deal, Iraq will pay Kuwait $300 million in cash and will invest another $200 million in a joint Iraqi-Kuwaiti airline venture, Maliki's media adviser Ali al-Moussawi told Reuters by telephone from Kuwait where Maliki was on a visit. In return, Kuwait would lift legal actions against Iraqi Airways, he said. ...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China must embrace slower growth and bolder political reform to keep its economy from faltering and to spread wealth more evenly, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Wednesday, vowing to use his last year in power to attack mounting discontent that he warned could end in chaos. Wen pledged to make growth more resilient to external pressures, deflate domestic property and inflation risks and deal with 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) in debt racked up by local governments, while also promoting political change. "Reform has reached a critical stage. ...