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Congress and the White House are accelerating their budget and debt limit negotiations amid growing concerns about the economic recovery and the possibility that a political stalemate could trigger turmoil in the financial markets.After only one meeting so far this…

A shorter version of this column is featured on CNNMoney.com.It is often said that the most expensive piece of medical equipment is the doctor’s pen. Unfortunately, after more than two years of intense debate about health care costs in Washington,…

Two budget experts who are part of The Concord Coalition’s Fiscal Solutions Tour emphasize the importance of Medicare reform in separate blog postings on The American Square.Joe Antos of the American Enterprise Institute criticizes elected officials who downplay Medicare’s impact…

Last week, the House continued to make progress on appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2012. The House passed the Homeland Security bill by a vote of 231-188 -- the first of the 2012 bills to clear the House. The House…

Elected officials still seem locked into their negotiating positions on the federal debt limit, leading Moody’s to warn that it could soon consider downgrading the government’s credit rating “due to the very small but rising risk of a short-lived default.”The…

The punch line of an old joke aptly describes the status of budget negotiations in Washington: you can’t get there from here. It’s not the “there” that is the problem; it’s the “here.”Broad bipartisan consensus exists on two points. The…

Elected officials often approach discussions about deficit reduction as a zero-sum game in which compromise amounts to defeat. But as various experts and bipartisan groups have demonstrated, certain policy options could bring results that should please both parties.“The best ideas…

Six diverse organizations offered proposals for broad fiscal reform last week at the second annual “Fiscal Summit” in Washington hosted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.Although the plans differed in a variety of ways, all called for substantial changes in…