Moving rapidly to pass the next installment of COVID-19 pandemic relief, on May 15 the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.6800, the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, or the HEROES Act. Although the Congressional Budget Office has…
Federal Reserve Board chairs do not often comment on U.S. fiscal policy, so it was unusual last week when the current chair, Jerome Powell, said in a press conference, “This is the time to use the great fiscal power of…
The federal fiscal response to the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. has properly focused on two objectives: fight the virus and stabilize the domestic economy. To date, Congress and the president have enacted three pieces of emergency legislation, each one…
It seems likely that when Phil Swagel took over as director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last June he did not think he would need to include assumptions about “social distancing” as part of the cost estimates the agency…