Blogs

Since the early 1990s, public pension reforms in countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have reduced future benefits by an average of 20 percent.But a new O.E.C.D. report says further reforms will be necessary for these national…

Updated April 3, 2012 (more…)

With the aging of the population expected to strain government resources in the coming decades, it is crucial for Americans to save substantial amounts of money for retirement. Unfortunately, many fail to do so.Only about six in 10 workers report…

Alice Rivlin of the Brookings Institution focused on the importance of Medicare reform in testimony to both the Senate and House budget committees last week, suggesting that the program should shift to a "premium support" model beginning in 2018.Under such…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a useful report presenting more than 100 spending and revenue options for deficit reduction.Of the 38 options discussed for discretionary spending, about a third involve defense. With mandatory programs, the CBO said, policymakers…

Six senators and the co-chairs of President Obama’s fiscal commission have put a spotlight on the country's big fiscal challenges – a welcome contrast to the tussles in Congress over domestic spending programs that make up only a slice of…

Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf laid out four simple observations about the federal budget in a recent presentation to the National Association for Business Economics.First, on the government’s current path the gap between spending and revenues would persist even…

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identifies billions of dollars in potential savings that could come from eliminating federal programs with duplicative goals. GAO recommends that Congress consider 81 separate areas -- 34 where duplication exists and…