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.
We Still Need Postal Reform
Today, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported that the U.S. Postal Service will again raise the price on first-class postage stamps...
Camp Offers New Ideas on Financial Products Tax Reform
Yesterday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) released a Discussion Draft on reforming the tax treatment of financial products...
Coburn: Reasons to Raise the Medicare Age
Adding to the conversation around reforming federal health spending, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has released a short report on why the Medicare age...
A Closer Look at Refundable Tax Credits
Yesterday, CBO issued a report on refundable tax credits, examining many issues involved with the credits. The first refundable credit, the Earned...
Hatch's Five Ideas to Reduce Federal Health Spending
Today, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) spoke on the floor of the Senate about the need for health entitlement reforms to be part of a deficit reduction...
IPAB is Still Necessary
Last Congress, H.R. 452 was introduced in the House to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a 15 member board of Senate-confirmed...
Why We Can't Wait to Act on the Debt
Last week, Paul Krugman took issue with Tom Friedman's comparison between climate change and the debt situation, but unfortunately missed the mark...
House Passes Short-Term Debt Limit Extension
Update: The Bipartisian Policy Center has created an interactive debt ceiling timeline, which can be found here. Today the House passed a temporary...
MY VIEW: Gene Steuerle January 2013
Urban Institute Fellow and CRFB board member Gene Steuerle suggests that the greatest challenge for today's lawmakers is not action, but realizing...
How the Sequester Looks After the Fiscal Cliff Deal
Along with a two month delay until March 1, the fiscal cliff deal reduced the across-the-board cuts under sequestration for 2013 by $24 billion...
Line Items: Inauguration Edition
New Term of Office, New Terms of Debate? – President Obama kicked-off his second term on Monday with the official inauguration ceremonies in...
New Developments with the Debt Ceiling
The House is pressing forward this week on debt ceiling legislation that contains a few different moving parts. The bill would buy lawmakers some more...