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.
Maya MacGuineas and Adam A. Millsap: What the federal budget says about America
Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Adam A. Millsap, Ph.D., is a senior economist and program officer at...
Proposed EV Fee Could Raise $30 Billion
A new bipartisan highway reauthorization bill proposes, among many other changes, new annual registration fees on electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in...
Rising Interest Rates Could Push Debt Higher
The 10-year Treasury yield is currently 4.5% – the highest rate in over a year – while 30-year Treasuries now carry a 5.0% interest rate. In fact...
Mitch Daniels: Debt disaster denialists think America has a new magic bullet
Mitch Daniels is a former Governor of Indiana and former President of Purdue University. He is also a Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the...
Ways & Means Zeroes in on Hospital Costs
Last week, the Committee on Ways and Means held a hearing on the high cost of hospital care with leaders of various health systems. Over the course of...
12-Month Rolling Deficit is $1.7 Trillion in April 2026
The federal government borrowed $1.7 trillion over the past year – May 2025 to April 2026 – based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office...
Maya MacGuineas: Social Security is Broken. Benefits Cuts for the Rich Are the Fix.
Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She recently wrote an opinion piece for Barron's, an excerpt of which...
Maya MacGuineas and Rob Portman: It's time for urgency and hard choices as US debt soars
Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Rob Portman is a former Senator from Ohio. They recently wrote an...
CBO Scores FY 2026 Reconciliation at $72 Billion
The Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) Committees released draft reconciliation legislation for Fiscal Year (FY)...
Debt Surpasses Size of the Economy
The national debt exceeded 100% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last month, based on new economic data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis...
Waiting To Rescue Social Security Has Weakened Our Options
Social Security’s retirement trust fund is less than seven years from insolvency, at which point beneficiaries face the prospect of a 24% benefit cut...
What’s in the Senate FY 2026 Budget Resolution?
The Senate adopted its Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget resolution last night, kicking off the reconciliation process. Unfortunately, the budget is about...