Blogs

A recent Congressional Budget Office report warns that interest payments on the national debt could swell to unprecedented levels unless lawmakers act to curb the growing imbalance between revenues and spending.Although total interest costs will depend on a variety of…

With the ink barely dry on a $858 billion tax cut and spending bill, Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert L. Bixby says, Washington has been hit with an official reminder that steps to rein in the nation’s debt cannot be…

American adults have turned traditional holiday values on their heads by buying gifts for ourselves and putting it on the national credit card for our children to pay. That’s how Sara Imhof, The Concord Coalition’s Midwest regional director, views the…

A federal judge put a cloud over this year's health care reform legislation by ruling last week that a key provision – the individual mandate to buy insurance – was unconstitutional. But the judge declared the mandate “severable” from the…

This week Congress is expected to act on a continuing resolution (CR) that will fund most federal agencies at last year's levels through March 4. Action is necessary because neither the $1.09 trillion full-year CR passed by the House nor…

The legal term severable normally gets little notice outside the world of constitutional law -- yet now it has become a big buzzword amongst health care analysts and federal budget wonks. The reason has to do with the numerous legal challenges to the Accountable Care Act's individual mandate to purchase…

Last week the House voted 212-206 to pass a continuing resolution to fund federal agencies for the rest of the fiscal year. According to the Appropriations Committee, the $1.1 trillion bill freezes discretionary spending at the FY 2010 level and…

Deficit hawks have long warned that unnecessary delays in deficit reduction carry risks and high costs that will only make the job harder down the road. A new study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) underscores that point. It analyzes…