Word: washington
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...This does not mean that Japan needs to turn away from its old friend, commercial partner and provider of military security, the U.S. Hatoyama's recent call for a "more equal" relationship with Washington raised concerns that the DPJ might tinker with sensitive issues like the relocation of American military bases in Japan, affecting the two nations' longstanding security pact. But DPJ leaders, who have little experience in international diplomacy, know they can't afford to upset the alliance, the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy...
...power of Congress and its individual members goes to a larger truth. With power distributed between three branches of government, and between Washington and the states, the U.S. has a distinctly fragmented political system, one that has many pressure points available for those with an ax to grind or a proposal to advance. (Think health-care reform.) By comparison with other democracies, that can make for a messy system of government, in which you can never be quite sure how things will get done, or what players hold strong hands. Moreover, because the U.S. is so powerful, its national system...
Even when crisis came, in 2008, it wasn't a crisis of government finances, as some pessimists had feared, but one of mortgages and Wall Street. As Washington battled the troubles, the deficit grew to an estimated $1.6 trillion in the fiscal year that ends this month. That's by far the biggest shortfall ever, in dollar terms. The government will have spent $3.7 trillion and taken in $2.1 trillion. Even by the more forgiving yardstick of percentage of gross domestic product, the shortfall is, at 11.2%, the biggest since World War II. It will be smaller next year...
...debt - the accumulated product of those years of deficits - approached 50% of GDP, and bond investors abroad and at home seemed to shy away from Treasuries, driving interest rates up. Also, billionaire Ross Perot spent a good part of his fortune making deficits into a political issue. In response, Washington focused for a few years on getting rid of the shortfall. With a lot of help from the late-1990s tech boom, it succeeded. As already noted, this deficit-fighting consensus disintegrated in the early Bush years. This time around, China joined Japan as a big buyer of Treasuries, interest...
Then came the Panic of '08. Investors saw Treasuries as a safe haven and poured money into them, driving down interest rates. Officials in Washington spared no expense in battling the crisis. The result is a deficit of unprecedented size but with no perceptible pressure from financial markets to reduce it. No pressure so far, at least. The federal debt, at $7.6 trillion, is now above 50% of GDP and rising. The government faces commitments to Social Security and Medicare that dwarf that figure. Republican congressional leaders have decided they care about deficits again - and seem to be making headway...