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.
Options for Reforming Disability Insurance
We have said before that the Disability Insurance (DI) portion of Social Security is too often overlooked, even though it has a more immediate funding...
CRFB Dives Deeper Into the Fiscal Cliff
After the report we released in March, the topic of the fiscal cliff has risen in prominence as CBO and others have attempted to estimate the size of...
Judd Gregg: Five keys to a better budget
A line-by-line budget submission simply allows Congress to distract everyone, including itself, into debates over high visibility-but-small return...
How Does the Fiscal Cliff Compare to Past Deficit Reduction in the U.S.?
In evaluating the fiscal cliff, it is interesting to see how it compares to past cases where the federal government has rapidly reduced deficits. The...
Fiscal Fact Checker: What Caused the Swing From Surplus to Deficit?
The Hill points to a press release by Senator (and former OMB director) Rob Portman (R-OH) that claims the upper-income portion of the 2001/2003/2010...
Bowles and Simpson Announce Campaign to Fix the Debt on CNBC's Squawkbox
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson appeared alongside Warren Buffett on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning, discussing the need for Congress to pass a...
Bill Frenzel: The Fiscal Cliff--A Hard Landing Becomes More Likely
Today on the Brookings Institution website, CRFB co-chair and former Congressman Bill Frenzel (R-MN) wrote an op-ed about the looming fiscal cliff. In...
University Presidents Call for Balanced and Smart Deficit Reduction
The defense portion of the sequester that will hit on January 2 of next year has garnered a lot of attention, but it is not the only part of the...
CBO Projects DoD's Plans Will Cost More Than Their Estimates
Today, CBO has released yearly estimates of the long-term budget projections for the Department of Defense. The DoD provides a plan to Congress called...
How Does Simpson-Bowles Compare to What Europe Is Doing?
As Senator Mark Warner pointed out last week in the Christian Science Monitor, the United States is still in a position where long-term debt reduction...
CRFB Scores Warren and Brown Campaign Plans
Much of the focus on budget plans has revolved around the two presidential candidates, but Members of Congress have a tremendous impact on the federal...
The Tradeoffs of Tax Reform
Often when tax reform is discussed these days, policymakers are gleeful to detail the ways in which they will cut tax rates or otherwise lower tax...