Blogs

Rising interest rates have an impact on the federal budget as well as household budgets. With $32.5 trillion in outstanding national debt, net interest costs are now the fastest growing category of federal spending. When interest rates rise, so too…

On May 17, 2023, America lost a pioneering champion of fiscal responsibility, and The Concord Coalition lost a very good friend: former U.S. Representative Charlie Stenholm (D-TX).  Charlie was…

For just the second time in history, a divided federal government narrowly escaped certain (yet self-inflicted) financial and economic calamity when a Democratic President of the United States and a Republican Speaker of the House joined together to ink a…

Although anxiety over the debt limit impasse is practically all-consuming in Washington right now, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided a temporary distraction this week by publishing its long-awaited “alternative assumptions” about spending and tax policy. The figures were bleak…

As Wall Street economists and federal budget analysts began pouring over the April tax returns last week, looking for clues to when the government might run out of borrowing authority, there was a significant development on the political front. House…

This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released inflation data for March 2023 and in general the news was good: inflation is slowing. March inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose 0.1% compared to February, and 5%…

This year’s reports from the Social Security and Medicare trustees demonstrate an urgent need for action to avoid severe cuts that would threaten retirement income and access to medical care for beneficiaries. Unfortunately, the political will to remedy this situation…

A key deadline in the annual Congressional budget process is fast approaching: the April 15th deadline for Congress to adopt its annual budget resolution. Unfortunately, neither the Republican-controlled House nor the Democrat-controlled Senate seem interested in completing this most basic…