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.
Domenici and Rivlin Testify to Senate Finance Committee
Former Director of the CBO Alice Rivlin and Former Sen. Pete Domenici testified today to the Senate Finance Committee on the long-term debt problem...
How the Supreme Court's Decision on Health Care Reform Could Affect the Budget
It is no secret to those following the news that the Supreme Court will soon make a decision on the constitutionality of pieces of the Affordable Care...
Line Items: Deadlines and Deadlock Edition
Playing Dead – Lawmakers face several deadlines in coming weeks as the number of days that Congress will be in session dwindles. Deadlines loom at the...
Debating Social Security Fixes
The AARP has just released a helpful new paper considering the pros and cons of different options to reform Social Security. Our fiscal outlook in the...
MY VIEW: Judd Gregg June 18 2012
Former Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) has an op-ed in The Hill this morning titled, "Lawmakers Haven't Run Out of Time to Craft a Bipartisan Deficit Deal."...
Options for Reforming the Charitable Deduction
The Urban Institute has a new report on the charitable deduction (co-authored by CRFB board member Eugene Steuerle) that details some options for...
MedPAC's Prescriptions for Medicare
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has released its June 2012 report, detailing ways in which Congress can improve Medicare to better...
Note to Congress: Pay for the Extenders, or Let Them Expire
A POLITICO article reports on an effort underway at the Senate Finance Committee to negotiate an extension of the "tax extenders," narrow temporary...
Targeting Tobacco: The Budgetary Effects of a Cigarette Tax Increase
CBO's latest report details the full effects on the federal budget of raising the federal excise tax on cigarettes. As they would when analyzing any...
Deficit On Track to Shrink Compared to Last Year
Although budget projections had already been showing this, we now have more definitive numbers from the Treasury Department that this year's deficit...
Good News for Health Spending?
Actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services have published a new report detailing their projections for health care spending growth...
Line Items: Zombie Edition
Undead Ends – Recent reports of disturbing behavior have raised the specter of a zombie apocalypse, where the undead overrun civilization. Flesh/brain...