Blog
Welcome to our blog – The Bottom Line, where you’ll find up-to-date commentary and analysis on the most important news in the fiscal world. Below is a list of our blog posts.
Bipartisan House Group Sends Letter Calling for Budget Reforms
Today, a bipartisan group of 24 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to House leadership calling for the inclusion of budget process...
Event Recap: Trust Fund Solutions
On February 17, Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) joined the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and panel of experts to...
Gas Tax Holiday Would Cost $20 Billion
This week, a group of senators introduced legislation to suspend the federal gas tax through December 2022 amid rising inflation. We estimate the...
How Would Higher Interest Rates Affect Interest Payments?
Interest on the national debt is projected to be the fastest growing part of the federal budget. We estimate, based on the Congressional Budget Office...
Senate Finance Subcommittee Holds Hearing on the Medicare Trust Fund
The Senate Finance Committee's Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth Subcommittee held a hearing on February 2, 2022, regarding the Medicare...
Ten Options to Secure the Social Security Trust Fund
The Social Security trust funds are expected to be insolvent by 2033 according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and by 2035 according to the...
Ten Options to Secure the Highway Trust Fund
Accounting for the enactment of the bipartisan infrastructure law (formally, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), we estimate the Highway...
The Infrastructure Bill’s Impact on the Highway Trust Fund
In addition to new investments in surface transportation, transit, broadband, energy, water, tax breaks, and other transportation spending, the...
New Report Shows Student Debt Cancellation is Regressive
Recently, Adam Looney, Executive Director of the Marriner S. Eccles Institute at the University of Utah and a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Economic...
Policymakers Shouldn't Weaken Build Back Better Surtax
To help finance new spending and tax breaks, the House-passed Build Back Better Act (and the Senate Finance Committee’s version) includes a high...
Build Back Better Drug Reforms Would Lower Costs
The House-passed Build Back Better Act includes several reforms to reduce prescription drug costs for the federal government, seniors, and the public...
What Does Student Debt Cancellation Mean for Federal Finances?
We've previously estimated that cancelling all federal student debt would cost the same as the outstanding value of the loans, which is currently $1.6...