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.

2025 Reconciliation Resources
The 119th Congress is expected to use the reconciliation process to pass legislation with a significant fiscal impact, such as extending the expiring...

2025 Reconciliation Tracker
Updated 5/22/25: The House passed the reconciliation package, officially titled the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," on May 22 by a vote of 215 to 214...

Senate FY 2025 Reconciliation Tally
Now that the House of Representatives has passed its version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 reconciliation bill – the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)...

Maya MacGuineas: Trump’s Bill is Big, But Definitely Not Beautiful
Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She recently wrote an opinion piece for U.S. News and World Report, an...

How Much Would OBBBA Pay For Itself?
The House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) would add about $3 trillion to the debt, including interest, on a conventional basis. However...

Leon Panetta and Bill Gradison Jr.: Bipartisanship Is Key to Fiscal Responsibility
Leon Panetta and Bill Gradison Jr. are former Members of Congress and a Co-Chair and a Director, respectively, of the Committee for a Responsible...

Senate HELP Committee Proposes $355 Billion in Offsets
Yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee released its part of the Senate reconciliation package, which we...

Mike Murphy: What's your plan to save Social Security?
Mike Murphy is senior vice president and chief of staff at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He recently wrote an opinion piece for NC...

Maya MacGuineas: National debt is a crisis. Congress must take it seriously
Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She recently wrote an opinion piece for the Dallas Morning News , an...

Keith Hall: Congress’ Scorekeeper Is Under Attack. It Deserves Our Trust.
Keith Hall is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and former chief economist...

12-Month Rolling Deficit is $2.0 Trillion in May 2025
The federal government borrowed $2.0 trillion over the past year – June 2024 to May 2025 – based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office...

Medicare Waste is Rightly Back on the Table
The Senate is reportedly exploring options to reduce Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse as they consider changes to the House-passed One Big Beautiful...