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The House today registered its disapproval of a bill that won strong bipartisan support in the Senate to extend long-term unemployment benefits and a Social Security payroll tax cut. The Senate legislation would continue the tax cut and unemployment benefits…

With Iowa residents making up their minds on the GOP presidential hopefuls before the state’s Jan. 3 caucuses, it is important for voters to focus on what the candidates say – or don’t say – about their plans to meet…

The federal government might escape some of its widely anticipated fiscal problems over the next few years, but only if it follows the budget path laid out in current law. At a forum last Friday Mark Zandi, chief economist for…

Congressional debate continues this week on plans to extend the Social Security tax cut, unemployment benefits and other expensive provisions that are about to expire. Last week the Senate again voted down earlier Democratic and Republican proposals that would have…

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Senate Democrats have released a revised plan to extend and expand a temporary cut in the Social Security payroll tax after competing proposals on the issue from the two parties both failed in the Senate last week. The Democrats want…

Last December a bipartisan majority of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform surprised skeptics with a comprehensive plan that called for shared sacrifices to reduce projected deficits over the coming decade by $4 trillion. Unfortunately, elected officials have…

The current debate over extending the payroll tax cut well demonstrates that policymakers often mean different things when referring to policies that “help” or “expand” the economy. I often hear the words “stimulus” and “growth” used interchangeably, but when economists…