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.
Reports Question Effectiveness of New Markets Tax Credit
Both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Senator Tom Coburn's (R-OK) office have released new reports on a tax credit that rewards banks...
MY VIEW: Maya MacGuineas August 12 2014
Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, wrote an op-ed distributed via McCatchy wire service that appeared in...
Updating the Cost of Delay for Social Security
Click here to read the original paper on the cost of delay for Social Security. Click here to see an updated version of this analysis for 2015. The...
2014 Medicare Spending Growth Picking Up But Still Low
CBO's July Monthly Budget Review brings us ten months into the fiscal year, and it's time to update our tracking of the slow growth of Medicare so far...
Fiscal Speed Bumps Will Force Action Later This Year
Before leaving town for August recess, Congress passed additional VA funding and a short-term patch to the Highway Trust Fund. However, more deadlines...
Same Sex Marriage Won’t Alter Social Security Predictions Much
In the recent Social Security Trustees report, the issue of same sex marriage made a surprising appearance. Without calling much attention to it, the...
JCT Identifies $1.2 Trillion in Tax Breaks This Year
As lawmakers fight over whether to extend and expand expired tax breaks or create new ones, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) this week updated...
Rep. Larson Proposes Social Security Reform
Rep. John Larson (D-CT) earlier in the summer unveiled his plan to reform Social Security, a plan that has now been evaluated by the Social Security...
MacGuineas Rebuts Krugman on Long-Term Debt
In a letter to the editor submitted to The New York Times, CRFB president Maya MacGuineas rebutted NYT columnist Paul Krugman on his criticism of Sen...
Concord Coalition Calls for Social Security Reform
As we have discussed numerous times, the Social Security program is on an unsustainable path, and its combined trust fund will be depleted within the...
How the Trustees and CBO Differ on Social Security
The release of the Social Security Trustees Report just two weeks after CBO released its long-term outlook gives us a good opportunity to compare how...
Resources to Help Paul Krugman Understand the Cost of Delay
In his blog this weekend, Paul Krugman suggested the cost of waiting to address our mounting national debt is relatively minor. He asks “why, exactly...