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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Obama Partial Discretionary Spending Freeze : A Small First Step
President Obama will propose freezing "non-security" discretionary spending for the next three years (FY2011-13) when he unveils his new budget next...
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Budget Commission Falls Short
A proposal to form a bipartisan commission to address the nation’s mounting long-term debt just fell short of the 60 votes needed for approval in the...
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Disgraceful
Senate vote on Baucus amendment (97-0 vote to exempt changes to Social Security from a statutory budget commission from fast-track vote in Congress).
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Deficit Falls Slightly, Debt Will Continue to Soar, CBO Warns
The federal deficit in FY10 is expected to be $1.35 billion--a slight drop from the $1.41 trillion in FY09--but still the second largest in our nation...
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Budget Concepts Do Matter
Budgeteers have long argued that baselines matter. You have to know where you are going before you decide where you should be. We use baselines as...
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Senate Faces Key Fiscal Votes This Week
The Senate will vote this week on key fiscal measures as it attempts to increase the nation’s debt ceiling. The debt limit is expected to be reached...
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Five More FDIC Bank Closings
On Friday evening, the FDIC reported that it has taken over an additional five banks ( Columbia River Bank, Evergreen Bank, Charter Bank, Bank of...
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TPC Takes the Tax Challenge with Income Tax Rates
We recently invited folks to take the spending challenge and show how they would close the budget gap without raising taxes (or alternatively, take...
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President Obama Voices Support for Deficit Commission
Here is the statement: The serious fiscal situation that our country faces reflects not only the severe economic downturn we inherited, but also years...
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Stiglitz, Stimulus, the Financial Sector and the Genie
Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz stopped by New America this week to discuss his new book "Freefall", about our economic and financial crisis. For the...
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The Goldilocks Fiscal Goal: 60%?
Picking a “fiscal goal” would be a great way to get the discussion started about what policies to enact to close the budget gap. It allows...
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Live Tweeting the Debate on the Federal Debt
Update: The debate between Maya MacGuineas and Brad Delong is about to begin. See the live tweets here: https://twitter.com/BudgetHawks Maya...