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.
CBO Estimates the Effects of the Stimulus
CBO recently put out its quarterly estimate of the macroeconomic effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). They found that...
Senate Will Vote Today on War Supplemental -- and Paying for It
A close vote is expected today to end debate in the senate on a $59 billion supplemental that includes funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan...
Spending Cuts Make Good Offsets Too
The extenders bill the House is considering would cost $190 billion between 2010-2020. Only $56 billion of that would be offset. Emergency...
Live Webcast: Fiscal Commission's Second Meeting
The President's Fiscal Commission is holding its second public meeting, which is being webcast live on the White House's website. We've embedded the...
The Budgetary Impacts of Fed Actions
Yesterday CBO issued a very interesting report on the budgetary impact of the Federal Reserve's actions to address the economic and financial crisis...
Estimates of the Wyden-Gregg Tax Reform Bill
A few months back, we discussed a comprehensive proposal by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Judd Gregg (R-NH), the Bipartisan Tax Fairness and...
Aging and Entitlements
The U.S. Census Bureau came out with with a report this month on aging in the United States. Not to anyone's surprise, the report found that between...
Will Congress Embrace Spending Restraints?
As Congress debates hundreds of billion of dollars of new deficit-spending this week, they may also begin considering two proposals which can actually...
Safety Net and Tax Extender Proposals Are Still Not Paid For
CBO and JCT have released updated cost estimates of the most recent version of the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (H.R. 4213), a bill...
‘Line’ Items: Getting Out of Town Edition
Heavy Congressional Workload Before Break – Congress has a busy week ahead before it leaves town for next week’s Memorial Day recess. Lawmakers want...
Market Watch: More Spillover from Greece
Throughout the week, U.S. financial markets continued to be dominated by a global market “flight to quality” in response to perceived EU policy...
Alan Blinder Joins the Announcement Effect Club, Calls for Social Security Reform
Princeton's Alan Blinder says the bond market vigilantes are back; in Europe for now, but they'll be coming here soon. The bond vigilantes, for those...