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.
Did the Last Farm Bill Really Save $100 Billion?
The 2014 farm bill is set to expire on September 30, at which point lawmakers will need to renew and perhaps reform farm subsidy and nutrition...
The Omnibus Spent More than Either Side Asked For
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA) increased this year's discretionary spending caps by a whopping $143 billion, paving the way for a 13 percent...
Omnibus Spends $110 Billion Above New Budget Caps
Last week's omnibus spending bill enacted a 13 percent increase in base appropriations, spending virtually all of the additional $143 billion allowed...
House Budget Committee Concludes CBO Oversight Series
The House Budget Committee held its final hearing in its series on oversight of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on March 14. Committee for a...
William Hoagland: Congress Faces Challenging Times for American Fiscal Responsibility
G. William Hoagland is Senior Vice President at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He...
Appropriations Watch: FY 2018
Congress has completed action on omnibus appropriations legislation. The House and Senate passed the omnibus bill, and President Trump signed the...
Rudolph Penner: Instead Of Seeking Budget Process Reforms, Congress Should Cut Spending And Raise Taxes
Dr. Rudolph Penner was the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987, and he is an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute and a...
Where Does the Higher Spending in the Omnibus Go?
Policymakers recently announced an omnibus appropriations bill to fund the government for the remaining six months of Fiscal Year 2018. The bill funds...
Rising Rates Could Further Balloon Interest Spending
Note (5/15/2018): This blog was published before CBO's April 2018 baseline, which provides official estimates of the amount of interest that will be...
Maya MacGuineas: America's Debt Crisis is Coming – Interest Payments Will Hit a Trillion Dollars a Year
Maya MacGuineas is president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and head of the Campaign to Fix the Debt. She recently...
Budget Process Reform Options
With the appointment of the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform, focus is rightfully on how to fix our broken budget...
Interest Spending Is On Course to Quadruple
The fastest growing part of the federal budget is interest on the debt – payments made to service previous borrowing. While interest had already been...