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.
MarketWatch: July 19-23
As of mid-morning Friday, U.S. and overseas markets await the results of the stress tests conducted on European banks, to be released at noon. Based...
The Social Security Retirement Age
At a time when Social Security is increasingly getting lawmakers' attention for the possibility of reform, raising the retirement age is starting to...
Reducing Improper Payments
Today, President Obama signed the Improper Payment Elimination and Recovery Act, hoping to make a dent in wasteful spending. Improper payments are...
All Talk, No Game on Discretionary Limits
There have been a lot of numbers thrown around with regards budget resolutions, deeming resolutions, and discretionary spending limits. To keep it...
The OECD Weighs In
The OECD recently published a great report on possible fiscal scenarios, and the results are exactly as expected: if the advanced countries of the...
Senate To Pass Unemployment Benefits Extension
The Senate essentially voted to pass an extension of unemployment benefits yesterday, invoking cloture on the measure with the requisite sixty votes...
Should We Pay for Tax Cuts?
The blogosphere exploded last week (see here and here) when a number of Republicans suggested that Congress need not offset the costs of tax cuts...
Waiting for the Chairman to Speak
Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, will present his twice-yearly testimony to Congress tomorrow (the Senate) and then again on...
REDUCE Legislation Aims to Cut Deficit by $70 Billion
Today, four Democratic congressmen—Reps. Gary Peters, John Adler, Jim Himes, and Peter Welch—introduced four-pronged legislation, called the REDUCE...
It's Summerstime in the Fiscal Policy World
Larry Summers, the Administration's top economist (and former CRFB board member), has an op-ed in the Financial Times today, looking at why the...
‘Line’ Items: International Sports Edition
Opens and Tours – Americans did not fare well in sporting events across the pond this weekend; leaving us Yanks to rely on past memories of success at...
Steuerle Joins the Announcement Effect Club
CRFB board member Eugene Steuerle joined the Announcement Effect Club in a post on the Urban Institute's website. In the post, he talked about the...