Blogs

Holding up Dwight D. Eisenhower as a model, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is urging the American military to cut bureaucracy, improve its efficiency and “make every dollar count” as the country struggles with its fiscal challenges. Pentagon reform is critical, Gates…

Over the next few weeks, we will be hearing a lot about supplemental appropriations and emergency spending as Congress turns to a major supplemental spending bill that will likely include funding for the war effort and other priorities. As discussed…

The federal government ran an estimated budget deficit last month of $85 billion, marking the second year in a row that there has been an April deficit. The government usually runs large surpluses in April as income taxes pour into…

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…

The BP oil spill reveals the risks associated with oil production, risks that translate into large social costs that are not priced into the oil market. Diane Lim Rogers, Concord’s chief economist, notes that this is a classic case of…

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…

A pediatrician with a reputation for improving both the quality and efficiency of health care has been tapped to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a job that will play a central role in implementing the new health…

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…