Blogs

Congress appears once again to have botched one of its key responsibilities: Approving a dozen spending bills for the coming fiscal year in a timely fashion. Many lawmakers, particularly in the GOP leadership, had hoped to put the budget process…

The Medicare and Social Security trustees sent a blunt message in their latest annual reports: The programs’ long-term costs “are not sustainable with currently scheduled financing and will require legislative action to avoid disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers.” In…

There is a sense of deja vu as lawmakers again struggle with short-term measures for the Highway Trust Fund rather than finding a permanent solution to its chronic financial shortfalls. In a 312-119 vote, the House last week passed an…

The White House has released its mid-year budget projections, saying they confirm that President Obama’s fiscal plan would stabilize the deficit within a few years without short-changing important, growth-oriented investments. The Mid-Session Review, which adjusts budget estimates for recent legislative…

Last year the IRS hung up 544,000 times on taxpayers because the agency could not deal with everyone who needed information -- a practice it bafflingly describes as “courtesy disconnects.” That statistic was troubling enough. But this year the number…

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a mandatory change in the way Medicare will pay providers of hip and knee replacements. The change will bundle such payments so that one fee pays for the doctor,…

The country needs a revitalized bipartisan discussion about the national debt and related fiscal challenges, according to Phil LaRue, a former senior advisor on Capitol Hill who recently joined The Concord Coalition as its director of government relations. “The Congressional…

With less than three weeks until the Highway Trust Fund can no longer make payments to states, a bipartisan congressional group is trying to galvanize other lawmakers to find a solution to the trust fund’s structural problems. Led by Rep.…