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.

New Report Shows Student Debt Cancellation is Regressive
Recently, Adam Looney, Executive Director of the Marriner S. Eccles Institute at the University of Utah and a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Economic...

Policymakers Shouldn't Weaken Build Back Better Surtax
To help finance new spending and tax breaks, the House-passed Build Back Better Act (and the Senate Finance Committee’s version) includes a high...

Build Back Better Drug Reforms Would Lower Costs
The House-passed Build Back Better Act includes several reforms to reduce prescription drug costs for the federal government, seniors, and the public...

What Does Student Debt Cancellation Mean for Federal Finances?
We've previously estimated that cancelling all federal student debt would cost the same as the outstanding value of the loans, which is currently $1.6...

2021 Inflation Totaled 6.7 Percent
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today released Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data for December 2021. Based on BLS’s data, we estimate CPI...

Addressing Tax Expenditures Could Raise Substantial Revenue
While the House and Senate each has put forth its own version of the Build Back Better Act reconciliation legislation, the offsets that will be...

Build Your Own Child Tax Credit 2.0
As lawmakers continue to debate if and how to address the recently-expired Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion from the American Rescue Plan, our newly...

Student Debt Cancellation Resources Page
Overview Student debt cancellation has gained attention in recent years as a policy proposal to address rising student debt levels in the United...

Our Top 21 Fiscal Charts of 2021
2021 was a busy year for fiscal policy, which gave us ample opportunities to conduct substantive policy analyses using charts and tables. This year...

Build Your Own Child Tax Credit
As the year comes to a close, lawmakers continue to discuss if and how to extend the American Rescue Plan's one-year Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion...

CBO Scores the Build Back Better Act
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released cost estimates for every title of the House-passed Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376). Without...

New SALT Proposals Would Improve House Bill
So far, nearly every proposal introduced or suggested to change the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap would be unnecessarily costly and...