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.
Congress Approves Debt Ceiling Deal
Update: President Obama has signed the deal into law. Washington took the debt limit to the edge as the Senate voted today, 74-26, to enact the...
Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson, and Maya MacGuineas: Who Won and Lost in the Debt Deal?
In today's Washington Post, several contributors offered their thoughts on the recent debt deal reached by leaders in Washington to raise the debt...
Agreement on Debt Limit Increase
We have a deal (pending votes, of course). ( UPDATE: CRFB has a press release on this deal here) Last night, the leaders from both parties announced a...
‘Line’ Items: Deadlines, Deadlock and Deals Edition
Breakthrough? – There were tough negotiations. Deals were made. Big names were moved. It wasn’t just the MLB and NFL that saw frenetic action ahead of...
CBO Scores the Reid and Boehner Plans
Update: CBO has just released its own comparison table of the Reid and Boehner plans, where it now breaks out the war and non-war interest savings...
MY VIEW: Alan Simpson, David Stockman and Bill Frenzel
CNN recently invited several former Washington leaders to offer their thoughts on Washington's debt-ceiling gridlock, and we are proud to say that...
What the Ratings Agencies Have Said
During the debt ceiling debate, what the credit ratings agencies have said can get lost in the shuffle. So, a summation of what each of the three...
Low GDP Growth and Stalemate in the Congress
With the Bureau of Economic Analysis releasing tepid GDP numbers of only 1.3 percent growth and last night's failure of the House of Representatives...
If You’re Going to Rely on Savings Targets, Specify the Baseline
As CRFB has certainly been making clear, we would prefer a "big deal" that dealt with all areas of the budget and reduced debt as a share of the...
CBO on Selling Excess Federal Property
Many of the fiscal plans produced over the last several months -- including the Gang of Six plan and the President’s budget -- propose selling excess...
Fed's Beige Book Points to Slowing Economy
Fed’s latest Beige Book, released yesterday, pointed to slowing growth (but still positive growth) across many economic sectors and regions. On a...
Updated Boehner Proposal
Speaker of the House John Boehner has released an updated version of his debt ceiling proposal which, according to a new CBO score, achieves an extra...