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.
Social Security in Even Worse Shape than Before
Over the course of this week, we have been discussing CBO's recent Budget and Economic Outlook. On Tuesday, we summarized the report and released a...
Bernanke 'Supportive of Going Big'
Supporters of enacting a comprehensive deficit reduction plan got a boost yesterday from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. At a hearing with the...
It's About How and When, Not Just How Much
We noted earlier this week that CBO's current law economic assumptions in the near-term do not look very stellar, especially in 2013 when the economy...
Taking a Hatchet to Tax Expenditures
The good folks at the Tax Policy Center have written yet another enlightening report on tax expenditures. This one, titled, " Curbing Tax Expenditures...
Rudolph Penner: Controlling the Deficit--The Debate Continues
CRFB board member Rudolph Penner recently co-authored a paper that is essentially a retrospective on the 2011 deficit debate. He and Urban Institute...
Watch the Extenders Conference Committee's Third Meeting
The conference committee that is tasked with extending various provisions that are set to expire at the end of this month will meet for the third time...
CRFB's New Realistic Baseline
Yesterday, CRFB released its analysis of the latest budget projections from CBO, discussing debt, deficits, spending, and revenues. We also updated...
Fiscal Fact Checker: Has the 'Doc Fix' Actually Become More Expensive?
A claim that has been popping up in some news circles over the past day is that the doc fix -- which freezes Medicare payments to physicians, instead...
CBO Releases January 2012 Outlook
CBO released its new budget and economic outlook, showing slightly higher ten-year deficit and debt projections from 2012-2021 than the last ten-year...
Federal versus Private Compensation: A Closer Look
CBO has a new report out, comparing federal and private-sector compensation for employees. The report shows that, on average, federal employees are...
'Line' Items: Super Bowl Edition
Super Not So Duper – The word “super” has lost its luster lately. The failure of the Super Committee and the need for a super majority in the Senate...
An Update on TARP
The report by the Inspector General of TARP drew some attention for showing that some of its programs would not end until 2017. That in itself is no...