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.
Better Targeting in Reconciliation
As lawmakers negotiate the details of their reconciliation package, they will need to scale back some of their ambitions to prevent arbitrary policy...
Ways and Means Proposes $1.3 Trillion of Tax Breaks, $2.3 Trillion of Tax Hikes
UPDATE (9/13/2021): The Joint Committee on Taxation has released a full score of the revenue proposals, including the revenue-raising items. The table...
SALT Cap Repeal Would Be a Costly Mistake
Recent reports indicate Congress may repeal the $10,000 cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction in its $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, with...
Closing the Stepped-Up Basis Loophole
Reconciliation should not add a penny to the national debt. As lawmakers work to craft a package with $3.5 trillion of new spending and tax breaks...
Representatives Murphy and Cuellar Push for Fiscally Responsible Reconciliation
Representatives Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) recently sent a letter to House majority leadership outlining principles for the...
Biden Administration’s SNAP Increase Could Add $180 Billion to Deficits
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced it will be revising the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), used for the calculation of Supplemental...
Event Recap: What's Going on With the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds?
On September 1, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget hosted “What’s Going on With the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.” The event...
CBO Estimates $120 Billion from IRS Funding Boost
Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published an estimate of the revenue effects of President Biden’s proposal to increase Internal Revenue...
Trustees: Social Security & Medicare Approaching Insolvency
The Social Security (our analysis here) and Medicare (our analysis here) Trustees just released their annual reports for 2021 on the financial status...
Comparing the Cost of Build Back Better to Other Recent Legislation
Lawmakers are preparing to consider both portions of President Biden's Build Back Better agenda – the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill and...
It’s Time to Wind Down the Student Loan Moratorium
The Biden administration recently extended the federal student loan moratorium through January 2022. Under the moratorium, most federal student loan...
The Budgetary Implications of the Senate Budget Resolution
The recently released fiscal year (FY) 2022 Senate budget resolution provides reconciliation instructions allowing for deficit increases of up to $1...