Blogs

Some House lawmakers are attempting to increase defense funding above the caps set by a recent bipartisan agreement through questionable alterations in a special fund for war spending. When approving the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act last month, the House…

Experts from across the political spectrum warned of the harmful consequences of unsustainable budget policies at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s annual fiscal summit Wednesday in Washington. Those consequences include the risks of slower economic growth, lower living standards, inadequate…

Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has stirred up considerable controversy by suggesting that the federal government might be able to “make a deal” with its creditors to pay less than they were owed. Many economists and fiscal experts…

In a bipartisan program on Capitol Hill last week, two fiscal experts pointed to several factors that are driving long-term federal borrowing and called for a renewed focus on deficit reduction. Alan Viard of the American Enterprise Institute and Joe…

The most notable cost-related changes in the health care system over the past decade have attacked some of the misaligned incentives in the system, and those efforts have helped slow health-care cost growth in recent years. (more…)

Health care cost-control efforts in the United States can often be described simply as “changing incentives.” The focus on incentives can be traced to two main circumstances: 1) The majority of politicians have opposed efforts to reduce costs simply through…

Military operations against the terrorist organization ISIS in Iraq and Syria have cost $7 billion, according to a recent Pentagon report. The report measured the cost of the campaign from its start in August 2014 until last month. Almost half…

With the federal budget deficit on the rise again and the nation’s debt still on an unsustainable long-term path, The Concord Coalition has released this year’s “Key Questions” that voters should ask candidates for federal office. “Voters should expect candidates…