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Last January, members of Congress paired up with colleagues of the opposite party for the State of the Union Address. It was a welcome, if symbolic, display of political civility. In the ensuing months, Congress and the Obama administration have…

The Department of the Treasury has released final budget numbers for Fiscal Year 2011, which show that it ended with a deficit of $1.3 trillion -- about the same as the previous year.This marked the third fiscal year in a…

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is receiving an earful of advice as congressional committees and individual lawmakers offered a wide variety of recommendations, many of them at odds with each other.Congressional committees were asked to submit their suggestions…

WASHINGTON – The Concord Coalition said today that a new ad campaign by AARP is misleading, divisive and an abdication of responsible leadership. At a critical moment, when hard decisions must be made about our nation’s future, AARP is demanding…

The Congressional Budget Office has provided an estimate of what the deficit would be if the economy were operating at total capacity. With full utilization of capital and labor resources in the economy, CBO says, the deficit for fiscal year…

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is urging Congress to focus on achieving long-run fiscal sustainability in the federal budget while avoiding action that could “impede the ongoing recovery.”These two objectives are compatible, Bernanke assured the Joint Economic Committee in his…

NOTE: an earlier version of this post appears on EconomistMom.com (more…)

Iowa residents were urged last week to help focus the 2012 election on fixing the federal government’s long-term budget problems. Two prominent experts on the federal budget emphasized that point to college students, business and civic leaders, journalists and others…