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.
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Fed Purchases of Fannie/Freddie Assets Pass $1 Trillion Mark
For the first time since it began purchasing mortgage-backed securities, the Fed's holdings of federal agency MBS's passed the $1 trillion mark last...
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What About Education Cuts?
Deficit Challenge suggestions continue to pour in. Recently, one commenter suggested we cancel all new Education programs proposed or started under...
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Financial Report of U.S. Government
The Treasury Department recently released its annual Financial Report of the U.S. Government, reporting on the budget deficit, net operating costs...
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‘Line’ Items: A Lonely Road, Paying for Jobs
Highway to Nowhere – Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) has blocked a vote on temporarily extending unemployment and COBRA benefits, the Medicare “doc fix” as...
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“Painful, Unglamorous, and Indispensible Work of Fiscal Discipline”
Those were some of the words uttered by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) today at the Brookings Institution as the latest political leader to...
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The Ever-Growing Announcement Effect Club
EPI's Lawrence Mishel joined the Announcement Effect Club with an article co-written with David Walker (already a member) in Politico last week. In...
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Weekend Editorial Roundup
Here are the highlights from this weekend’s editorials on fiscal and budget policy: The New York Times chided Jim Bunning for holding up a bill that...
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Two More FDIC Bank Closings
On Friday evening, the FDIC reported that it has taken over an additional two banks ( Rainier Pacific Bank, Carson River Community Bank) for a cost to...
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So What Does "Current Policy" Look Like?
Here at CRFB, we love constructing baselines. Whenever CBO constructs its own budget baseline, in fact, we rush to adjust it. CBO's projections, as...
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CBO/JCT Reports Roundup
A number of very interesting and relevant government reports came out the week of February 22, 2010.
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Bunning is Right on Unemployment: “We Should Pay For It”
Last night, Senator Jim Bunning blocked an effort to pass a one-month “extenders” bill by unanimous consent. The bill includes temporary extensions of...
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Obama Appoints Four More to the Deficit Commission
President Obama has named his remaining appointees to the Commission, including David Cote (CEO for Honeywell International), Alice Rivlin (former CBO...