Today in The Hill, former Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) penned an Op-Ed analyzing the French elections (where France yesterday elected Mr. Hollande of the French Socialist Party) and notes what America can learn from France and their current employment situation. Gregg says that the United States should not model itself after France's labor laws or retirement system. Sen. Gregg writes:

CRFB's Senior Policy Director Marc Goldwein has a message to policymakers in an op-ed in The Hill: don't overlook the disability insurance (DI) program. The latest Trustees report projecting the DI trust fund to run out in only four years, but people often overlook that deadline, since they assume money would be transferred from the old age portion of the program. 

Today, two of CRFB's co-chairman, former Representatives Charlie Stenholm (D-TX) and Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), penned an op-ed in The Hill, saying that the new Trustees report should give lawmakers a new sense of urgency over Social Security reform.

Bill Frenzel, CRFB co-chairman and former ranking member on the House Budget Committee, made a convincing case for a Presidential debate on specific steps the candidates would take to reduce the debt.

In an op-ed in The Roanoke Times, CRFB president Maya MacGuineas calls for policymakers and citizens to put fiscal responsibility at the forefront of the national debate this year, rather than waiting. She noted while conventional wisdom may say that nothing will get done this year, the state of our fiscal affairs says otherwise.

Today is Tax Day and Financial Literacy Day, and just as we examine our own finances, our federal government should do the same. In The Hill, CRFB's own Senior Policy Director Marc Goldwein and Research Director Jason Peuquet write that this year will be critical for our nation's future finances. In laying out the problem, they say:

In the latest post in his ongoing "The Government We Deserve" series, CRFB board member Eugene Steuerle stated that regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, we would still have a problem with health care costs and a "math-less debate" on the issue.

Below is an excerpt from the post:

Despite all the political gridlock and other developments that have people worried about our fiscal future, Fiscal Commission co-chair Erskine Bowles sees reason to be optimistic. In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, he said that the result of last year's debt ceiling brinkmanship and the resulting law (the Budget Control Act), "deficit reduction now has the upper hand."

In a blog post entitled "Don't Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good" on the Committee for Economic Development's new blog Back in the Black, Fiscal Commission co-chair Erskine Bowles states that shared sacrifice will have to be an integral part of any budget plan. Both political parties will have to give ground and citizens across the country will need to give up some things they like to get it done. As he says:

In an op-ed in Roll Call, David Walker lamented the lack of a "feasible" debt plan among the Presidential candidates, including President Obama. While fiscal policy has been a focus during the 2012 presidential campaign, the plans put forward concern Walker on questions of specificity, sufficiency, and political practicality.