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.
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How Medicare Part D's Low-Income Subsidy Could Work Better
During the recent slowdown in Medicare spending, the prescription drug portion of the program, Part D, has been the lead actor in the story. The...
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Delayed Action on Extenders Might Add to FY 2015 Deficit
While explaining why deficits have fallen from their historically large peak in 2009, we noted the main source of this tumble is a 43 percent rise in...
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Falling Deficit is Not a Sign of Fiscal Sustainability
With the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) year-end Monthly Budget Review having been released, we published a report today showing what the 2014...
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Medicare Registers Fourth-Lowest Growth Rate in Program History in 2014
With today's release of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) final Monthly Budget Review for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014, many will be focused on the...
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NCHC Gives 113th Congress A Failing Grade On Health Care Cost Control...So Far
It is no secret that the 113th Congress has had little success reaching agreement on major policy changes, so its lackluster results on a report card...
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Concord: Key Questions to Ask Candidates About Our Fiscal Future
The national debt is currently twice the historical average, and will grow unsustainably until Congress makes responsible changes. Voters should be...
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Hiatt: There Hasn't Been a Deficit Victory
In an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday, editor Fred Hiatt pushed back on assertions by the Obama Administration that they have won over the...
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Maya MacGuineas: A Social Security ‘Fix’ That Falls Short
Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, wrote a commentary that appeared in the Wall Street Journal Washington...
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Fed and Treasury 'rowing in opposite directions'
The Federal Reserve's efforts to help the economy recover through quantitative easing (QE), twisting, and tapering have made front page news without...
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Senate Switch Could Boost Chances for Dynamic Scoring
If Republicans win a majority in the U.S. Senate this November, they may push to have the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on...
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A New Approach to Federal Lending Program Accounting
A new paper by Donald Marron of the Urban Institute brings a new idea to the table in the debate over accounting methods for federal lending programs...
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How a Bipartisan Bill Could Improve ACOs
Two weeks ago, we discussed results from two different Accountable Care Organization (ACO) programs in Medicare, which showed an improvement in...