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.
Senate Should Post Information on Spending
UPDATE: The Coburn amendment was agreed to on a 100-0 vote. The Senate today will consider a proposal from Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) to post...
‘Line’ Items: Oscars Edition
Temporary Tax Extensions Avoid “The Hurt Locker” – The Senate passed H.R. 4691, a 30-day extension of several expired tax breaks and unemployment and...
Are Social Security Surpluses Gone for Good?
Along with their analysis of the President's Budget, on Friday, CBO updated its Social Security projections. And as it turns out, the surpluses are...
Four More FDIC Bank Closings
On Friday evening, the FDIC reported that it has taken over an additional four banks ( Centennial Bank, Waterfield Bank, Bank of Illinois, Sun...
Weekend Editorial Roundup
Here are the highlights from this weekend’s editorials on fiscal and budget policy: The New York Times called on Congress to do more to create jobs...
Past Uses of Reconciliation
In last week's backgrounder blog post on budget reconciliation, we said that the process has been used 22 times in the past, with the President having...
CBO Releases its Preliminary Analysis of the President's Budget
This afternoon CBO released its preliminary analysis of the President’s Budget, projecting a significantly worse fiscal situation than the...
No Gimmicks? Really?
In a blog yesterday and op-ed today, OMB Director Peter Orszag defended the President's health care plan as reducing "deficits by roughly $100 billion...
Monthly Budget Review Reports $655 billion deficit in FY 2010 Thus Far
The Congressional Budget Office issued its Monthly Budget Review yesterday. It estimates that the federal government incurred a deficit of $655...
Health Reform by Reconciliation: Maligned, Misunderstood, but Misused Is Up for Debate
Unable to pass health care reform using “regular order,” Congressional Democrats now are turning to much-misunderstood process known as “budget...
Senate Falls One Vote Shy of Considering Sessions-McCaskill Spending Caps Amendment
The Senate has just voted to not waive a Budget Act point of order raised against the Sessions-McCaskill amendment (#3337) to the Senate jobs bill...
Don't Circumvent PAYGO on Jobs Bill
The CBO released an updated cost estimate* of the Senate jobs bill yesterday. This larger bill calls for further increased funding for unemployment...