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.
Kaiser Compares Premium Support Proposals
For those of you who have had trouble keeping track of the many premium support proposals that have come out over the past year, the Kaiser Family...
How Has the Tax Code Changed Since 1986?
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 is often hailed as a major bipartisan achievement, a reform that simplified the tax code and lowered marginal tax rates. Of...
The Limits of An All-Tax Solution
Tax Policy Center has a new paper out showing what tax rates would have to be in order to stabilize the debt at 60 percent of GDP in 2020, 2025, and...
The War Gimmick Simplified
With CBO recently having scored President Obama's 2013 Budget Request, included within the total score is a score of a policy known as capping...
Vote to Repeal IPAB Shows Why It's Necessary
Update: CBO has estimated that the IPAB repeal bill (HR 452) would increase spending and deficits by $3 billion from 2013-2022. On Wednesday, the...
Tim Penny: Presidential Candidates Must Address our Debt
Note: This op-ed was originally published in The Hill. After a year in which the country was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy and the federal...
GAO Highlights Inefficiencies in the Federal Government
On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on possible duplication and overlap by government agencies. This is the...
Explaining the Three Scenarios in "Primary Numbers"
Last week, we released our in-depth analysis of the debt impact of the four Republican candidates’ budget proposals, a report that received a...
Steny Hoyer Says "Go Big"
On Monday, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) gave a speech calling for Congress to "Go Big" on deficit reduction. Hoyer opened by making the...
‘Line’ Items: Big Events Edition
(Go) Big Events – The Academy Awards and the NBA All-Star Game competed for attention Sunday night. Both events are more about showmanship than...
Not Out of the Woods Yet: State Fiscal Issues in FY 2013
Last year, our Spotlight on the States series highlighted many contentious battles to eliminate budget shortfalls in state capitals across the country...
The Chained CPI and the Advantages of Going Big
CBPP released a paper last week re-affirming their support for switching to the chained CPI for calculation inflation adjustments for benefit programs...