Blogs

Democrats in Washington are working furiously to put the finishing touches on the President’s Build Back Better (BBB) social safety net spending bill. Trying to shoehorn their legislative priorities into the fiscal parameters of the measure while nodding to…

The Biden Administration released this week a revised Build Back Better framework (BBBF) that reflects the president’s negotiations with Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV), Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), and Bernie Sanders (D-VT). Although significantly scaled back from the initial $3.5 trillion target,…

This week the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published its final monthly budget review for FY 2021. While the Treasury Department will publish the official numbers in its next Monthly Report, CBO’s end-of-year report provides an accurate preview of…

Earlier this week the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for next year (2022) would be 5.9 percent. That’s slightly more than the 5.8 percent increase in 2008, and the biggest increase since 1982.[1] Under current…

As Democrats in Congress continue to meet with President Biden to determine the ultimate size and scope of their social spending plan, it’s worth taking a minute to step back and consider the monumental dilemma they face – they have…

Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent her fourth letter to Congress, urging lawmakers “to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting [on the debt limit] as soon as possible.” This time, she…

Despite a pending government shutdown and looming debt default, this week federal lawmakers in Washington were hyper-focused on the House reconciliation legislation, the second installment of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Although the legislation is far from finished,…

The United States Armed Forces uses an alert system called the “defense readiness condition” (DEFCON) to describe different levels of readiness, or states of alert, for military personnel. It increases in severity from DEFCON 5 (least severe) to DEFCON…