Blogs

The President’s bipartisan fiscal commission faces a high hurdle. It must find consensus among 14 of its 18 members to send a package of recommendations to Congress for an up-or-down vote in December.The difficulty of achieving such consensus in Washington’s…

Over the next few weeks, we will hear a lot about "emergency spending" as Congress turns to a major supplemental spending bill that will likely include funding for the war effort and other priorities. Supplemental appropriations bills provide funding in addition…

New health care legislation will increase national health spending by an estimated $311 billion over the next decade, according to a report by Richard Foster, chief actuary of the federal agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. He cautioned, however, that…

President Obama handed his bipartisan fiscal commission two very ambitious assignments: Find ways to balance the budget excluding interest payments by 2015 and to “meaningfully improve” the long-term fiscal outlook. (more…)

In the weeks ahead, climate change and energy issues are likely to be in the news again. Recently there has been much discussion on Capitol Hill about a potential bipartisan climate change proposal in the Senate. Energy issues were also…

The Senate Budget Committee has approved a budget resolution that calls for deficits to be reduced $671 billion below the levels in the President’s budget over five years. The resolution envisions that deficits will be reduced to 3% of GDP…

Prior to the April recess, the Senate failed to approve a month-long extension of unemployment and COBRA health insurance benefits. Upon returning, however, the Senate reached agreement on a two-month extension of the benefits. The House then approved the measure,…

One of the first post-recess priorities for the Appropriations Committees in Congress will likely be considering legislation for “supplemental” spending in the current fiscal year. Supplemental spending bills are usually considered each spring and are intended to provide funding for…