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.
MY VIEW: Gene Steuerle June 2013
At times, the fiscal debate can be confusing, as it is often set up as a simplistic contest between an argument for austerity against an argument for...
Senate Finance Looks at Types of Income and Entities
The Senate Finance Committee has been busy churning out options papers on various tax reform topics (we wrote previously about their economic security...
MY VIEW: Bill Frenzel June 2013
The recent revisions to the CBO projections improved our short-run outlook, a welcomed development, but they have also triggered a wave of...
MY VIEW: Jim Kolbe June 2013
One of the most important truths to remember is that today's budget will not only define the decisions of today, but also to some extent determine the...
TPC Finds Little Price Shock for Reforming the Mortgage Interest Deduction
Tax expenditures in theory promote specific policy goals by subsidizing that behavior through tax benefits. However, in comprehensive tax reform...
No, the New Simpson-Bowles Plan Does Not Call for More Austerity Than the Old One
We have already responded twice to a wrong-headed call from the Center for American Progress to abandon pursuit of a debt bargain in favor of...
The Structural Dove vs. The Structural Hawk
Economist Jared Bernstein often refers to himself on his blog as a CDSH, standing for a cyclical dove and a structural hawk. In other words, Bernstein...
CBO's Alternatives for Student Loans
After the deadlock last Thursday in the Senate over student loan interest rates, there still appears to be a gap between Democrats and Republicans on...
A Bipartisan Plan to SAVE
Recently, a bipartisan duo in the House -- Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-FL) and Rep. David Joyce (R-OH) -- introduced the SAVE Act, a bill to reduce federal...
NYT Gets It Wrong on Social Security (Again)
This weekend, The New York Times (NYT) editorial board laid out an argument for why they believe Social Security’s long-term gap is relatively...
Washington Post Makes the Case for Fiscal Space
When the financial crisis began at the end of 2007, it soon became clear that the government would need to run higher deficits in response. Tax...
S&P Revises Current Outlook
Standard and Poor's Ratings Services confirmed today its AA+ long-term sovereign credit rating on US debt, where it has been since the August 2011...