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.
As the Fed Cuts Rates, Treasury Yields Are Rising
With last week’s rate decision, the Federal Reserve has now cut the federal funds rate by 75 basis points over the past eight weeks. Over that same...
12-Month Rolling Deficit Totals $2.0 Trillion in October 2024
The federal budget deficit totaled $2.0 trillion between November 2023 and October 2024 according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office's...
FY 2024 Ends with $1.8 Trillion Deficit
The U.S. Department of the Treasury recently released its final Monthly Treasury Statement for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, showing a $1.8 trillion deficit...
Recent Student Loan Actions Forgo $5 Billion in Repayments
The Department of Education announced last week a six-month extension of automatic forbearance to all borrowers enrolled in the SAVE income-driven...
The Impact of the Trump and Harris Plans on Spending and Revenue
In our recent analysis, The Fiscal Impact of the Harris and Trump Campaign Plans, we found that the campaign policy plans from both Vice President...
Bipartisan Senate Group Introduces the RESILIENCE Act
Senators Joe Manchin (I-WV), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Mark Warner (D-VA), and Mike Braun (R-IN) recently introduced the Reassuring Economic Stability In...
IRS Estimates a $606 Billion Tax Gap for 2022
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently published its projections of the “ tax gap” – the difference between taxes owed to and collected by the...
Tim Penny and Maya MacGuineas: What if they held an election and a budget process broke out?
Tim Penny is co-chair of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and a former representative from Minnesota and Maya MacGuineas is president of...
CBO Estimates Medicare Coverage of Weight-Loss Drugs
In a much-anticipated release, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published projections estimating it would cost Medicare an additional $35 billion...
PBM Reform on the Horizon
In recent years, lawmakers have increasingly focused on reforms to Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) — the intermediaries owned or hired by insurance...
What Would the Trump Campaign Plans Mean for Social Security?
The Trump campaign plans would increase Social Security's ten-year cash shortfall by $2.3 trillion, make the program insolvent by 2031, increase...
House Lawmakers Reintroduce Debt Ceiling Reform Legislation
On September 20, Representatives Scott Peters (D-CA) and Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Co-Chairs of the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum, reintroduced the Responsible...