Blogs

Congress last week again failed to address the structural challenges facing the Highway Trust Fund. Instead lawmakers approved a 5-year bill that increases spending on highway and transit projects but relies on unrelated revenue sources and budget gimmicks. Supporters say…

With stopgap legislation set to expire on Friday, lawmakers are continuing to work on overdue spending plans for the rest of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. There had been hopes that a proposed agreement might be announced Monday,…

In Washington, a new holiday tradition is forming: Congress passing large tax breaks without paying for them. At the end of last year, lawmakers retroactively extended 50 temporary provisions -- known as tax extenders -- for 2014. Now reports indicate…

The federal debt is already at a post-World War II high as a share of the economy, and heading higher on an unsustainable path that Washington is unlikely to fundamentally change in the coming year. That’s why Concord Coalition Executive…

Dealing with the federal debt should be a top priority for the presidential candidates, according to a new paper by Robert L. Bixby, executive director of The Concord Coalition, and Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal…

Congress continues to work on overdue spending legislation for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, with Republicans discussing the addition of policy measures that Democrats have opposed or are likely to resist. Several weeks ago Democrats and some Republicans…

After reauthorizing transportation programs for three weeks late last month, lawmakers are once again poised to pass another short-term extension to give themselves more time to negotiate an agreement on a multi-year bill. Lawmakers say they do not have enough…

Republican presidential candidate George Pataki said in a Fiscal Fridays interview last week that he would substantially reduce government overall and cut tax rates even as he boosted defense spending sharply. “We have to shrink the size, the power, the…