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 on MSNBC's "Ana Cabrera Reports"
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget president Maya MacGuineas recently appeared on MSNBC's "Ana Cabrera Reports" to discuss the latest...
Retirees Face an $18,100 Benefit Cut in 7 Years
The Social Security and Medicare trust funds are only a little more than seven years from insolvency, based on projections from the programs’ own...
Congress Should Extend Caps on Discretionary Spending
The discretionary spending caps put in place under the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) are scheduled to expire on October 1. As lawmakers work to...
Bipartisan Lawmakers Introduce Fiscal Contingency Preparedness Act
Representatives Ben Cline (R-VA) and Jared Golden (D-ME) introduced the Fiscal Contingency Preparedness Act (FCPA) today. This bill was also...
What's In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act?
Note: This blog was updated on 8/4/25 to reflect CBO's newly-released estimates of the permanent cost of certain expiring tax provisions in OBBBA. The...
Marc Goldwein and Anthony Colavito: OBBBA Didn't End Taxes on Social Security Benefits; Here's What We Could Do Now
Marc Goldwein is Senior Vice President and Senior Policy Director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Anthony Colavito is a Social...
2025 Reconciliation Resources
The 119th Congress is expected to use the reconciliation process to pass legislation with a significant fiscal impact, such as extending the expiring...
The 30-Year Cost of OBBBA
The recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) would add an estimated $4.1 trillion to the debt through Fiscal Year (FY) 2034, based on...
CMS Rule Would Close Medicaid Loophole
The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed a rule to limit some of the most egregious provider taxes used by states to...
2025 Reconciliation Tracker
Updated 7/11/25: On July 1, 2025, the Senate passed its version of the OBBBA by a narrow 51–50 vote —Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaker...
Event Recap: Checking in on the 2025 Social Security & Medicare Trust Funds
On June 24, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget hosted a virtual event following the release of the 2025 Social Security and Medicare...
12-Month Rolling Deficit is $1.9 Trillion in June 2025
The federal government borrowed $1.9 trillion over the past year – July 2024 to June 2025 – based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office...