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The battle over this year's budget, including the growing possibility of a government shutdown, has temporarily overshadowed the larger, long-term fiscal picture. But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently updated its January report on the long-term outlook with numbers that…

The temper tantrums, blame-throwing and unrealistic thinking in Washington sometimes resemble an unruly elementary school classroom rather than a mature, deliberative national government.That’s particularly true when the subject is the federal budget, where the political debate often degenerates into an…

Updated April 3, 2012 (more…)

Budget-watchers in Washington are quite interested in how Republican Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, will write a budget that will achieve the numerous and sometimes conflicting aims of his conference. (more…)

Alice Rivlin of the Brookings Institution focused on the importance of Medicare reform in testimony to both the Senate and House budget committees last week, suggesting that the program should shift to a "premium support" model beginning in 2018.Under such…

With unsustainable deficits projected over the coming decade, President Obama and the House of Representatives should embrace a call from 64 senators of both parties to “engage in a broader discussion about a comprehensive deficit reduction package.”The need for such…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a useful report presenting more than 100 spending and revenue options for deficit reduction.Of the 38 options discussed for discretionary spending, about a third involve defense. With mandatory programs, the CBO said, policymakers…

Six senators and the co-chairs of President Obama’s fiscal commission have put a spotlight on the country's big fiscal challenges – a welcome contrast to the tussles in Congress over domestic spending programs that make up only a slice of…