The federal budget consists of three broad categories: discretionary spending, mandatory spending, and interest payments on the public debt. Congress decides each year how much funding it will provide for discretionary programs. Mandatory spending, on the other hand, is generally…
One of my Concord colleagues recently relayed the following "old joke" to me, remarking that a fiscal policy issue we had been discussing reminded him of it. But when he said it, it reminded me instead of a different fiscal…
Since Medicare will put far more pressure on the federal budget than Social Security will in the future, some people question whether the country really needs to worry about Social Security reform. Yes, we do. As Diane Lim Rogers, Concord’s…
Returning briefly from its summer recess, the House of Representatives today approved a bill that would spend $26 billion to ease state budgetary woes. The Senate passed the measure last week. This money would be used to prevent budget cuts…
