Papers
View our recurring reports, which summarize and analyze the most important regular federal budget releases and reports.
Analysis of the 2021 Medicare Trustees' Report
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual reports on the long-term financial state of those programs. The reports are the first...
Analysis of the 2021 Social Security Trustees' Report
Today, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual reports on the long-term financial state of the Social Security and Medicare...
Q&A: Everything You Should Know About the Debt Ceiling
This paper has been updated here. The federal debt ceiling will be reinstated on August 1, 2021, at around $28.5 trillion. At that point, the Treasury...
Injecting Price Competition into Medicare Part B Drugs
Medicare Part B, which covers outpatient physician services, pays for physician-administered drugs by reimbursing physicians the average cost for each...
Limiting Evergreening for Name-Brand Prescription Drugs
To encourage medical innovation, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grants temporary market exclusivities to new brand name drugs. These...
Five Reasons to Pay for New Investments
Congress and the Administration are currently negotiating and developing legislation to invest in physical infrastructure, education, and other areas...
Chartbook: Reducing the Tax Gap
One of the most fair and efficient ways for policymakers to raise revenue would be to close some portion of the “ tax gap.” The tax gap is the...
Analysis of CBO's July 2021 Budget and Economic Outlook
Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released initial details of its updated Budget and Economic Outlook, accounting for enactment of the...
ARCHIVE: Appropriations 101
What are appropriations? How does Congress determine the total level of appropriations? How will this year's appropriations process be different? How...
President Biden's Full FY 2022 Budget
The Biden Administration today released its first full budget, laying out its proposals for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 and the subsequent decade. The...
Interest Payments in the Federal Budget
At a projected cost of over $300 billion this fiscal year, interest payments are a significant part of the federal budget. Net interest is currently...
The Nation's Upcoming Fiscal Challenges
President Joe Biden and the nation face perhaps the most daunting fiscal situation on record. One hundred days into his presidency, President Biden...