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.
Why the 40-Year Average is a Poor Benchmark
In response to Howard Gleckman's piece on the FY 2014 deficit where he noted that the budget had returned to "normal," Donald Marron wrote that the...
SSDI Hearings Running Behind
Although the Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Patent Office are infamous among federal agencies for the long wait times and lines, their backlogs pale in...
CAP Report Warns Against Turning War Spending Into a Slush Fund
The Center for American Progress' Katherine Blakeley and Lawrence Korb recently issued a report recommending how lawmakers should wind down war...
Coburn Publishes Wastebook 2014
Year after year, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) refuses to simply give lip service to "wasteful government spending" and has instead called out...
Medicare's Slowdown: A Story About Part D
In a Health Affairs blog post, CRFB's Loren Adler and Adam Rosenberg find that most of the recent slowdown in Medicare's costs is attributable to the...
Maya MacGuineas: Yes, the Deficit Is Smaller. But That Wasn’t the Main Problem.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, wrote a commentary that appeared in the Wall Street Journal Washington...
How CBO Accounts for Anti-Fraud Efforts
Fraud -- along with the closely related waste and abuse -- is too often cited as a big factor affecting our high deficits, even though this is not the...
My View: Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles
Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles are the former chairs of the Simpson-Bowles Fiscal Commission and members of the Committee for a Responsible Federal...
The More the Budget Changes, the More Things Stay the Same
With FY 2014 officially in the book, it’s time to look back at how spending and revenues have changed since the FY 2009’s highest nominal deficit of...
Gleckman: A Return to Fiscal Normalcy but Not For Long
In response to the release of final FY 2014 deficit numbers, Tax Policy Center's Howard Gleckman writes that this year's outcome just returns the...
Why Has the Deficit Come Down Faster Than Expected?
We noted in our discussion of the final Monthly Treasury Statement for 2014 that the deficit has fallen by two-thirds since 2009 after rising by...
Could Arbitration Help Control Medicare Part D Costs?
Medicare Part D costs have leveled off in recent years as pharmaceutical innovation has slowed and a number of blockbuster drugs lost patent...