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.
Market Watch Update: April 19-23
As of mid-day Friday, April 23, the yield curve looked steeper for the week (that is, interest rates rose on Treasury instruments at the longer end of...
Chairman's Mark Reduces Deficit More Than President's Budget
Yesterday the Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) released some highlights of his FY2011 budget blueprint, or Chairman's Mark...
A Preventable Crisis: Exploring Fiscal Crisis Scenarios for the United States
In this policy paper released by CRFB's Fiscal Roadmap Project, CRFB argues that unless we change course, "a fiscal crisis in one form or another will...
Iceland Ash Blanket Settles Over World Economy
Airline traffic may not be the only thing slowed by Iceland’s volcanic eruptions. The slow-moving, fragile economic recovery may take a hit as well...
Senator Kent Conrad Joins the Announcement Effect Club
From the Chairman's Mark of the FY2011 Senate Budget Resolution (emphasis added): Certainly, the need to return to fiscal discipline and the costs of...
The Need for Reducing Sovereign Debt Risk, according to the IMF
With global recovery underway but still fragile, reducing government (sovereign) debt risk is important, so that global economic recovery can be...
IMF Says our Economies are Looking Better, but the Outlook is still Fragile
According to the IMF, we are entering a new phase of the economic and financial crisis: the world has averted a depression, a recovery is taking hold...
The All-Important Deficit Targets
Japan is considering legislation to impose deficit-targets, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. With their debt nearing 200% of GDP...
Dealing With The Debt
In today's Financial Times, Roger Altman asked " whether the credit standing and currency stability of the world's biggest borrower, the US, will be...
Taxes, Taxes, Taxes
With the April 15 deadline having just passed, it seems that taxes are on everyone's mind. The Washington Post ran an editorial and an op-ed by Robert...
‘Line’ Items: Offsets and Coming to a Resolution on the Budget
Congress Extends Unemployment Benefits, Along With the Deficit – Last week Congress extended expanded unemployment benefits, COBRA subsidies, the...
Weekend Editorial Roundup
Here are the highlights from this weekend’s editorials on fiscal and budget policy: Taking off on Ben Bernanke's testimony before Congress last week...