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WASHINGTON -- With a partial shutdown of the federal government apparently taking effect at midnight, Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert L. Bixby issued the following statement: This is absurd. Government shutdowns have become “regular order.” Apparently, no policy or dollar…

The federal government’s chief health care actuaries have released their wrap-up of 2017 National Health Expenditures, showing that health care spending remained nearly the same percentage of the economy as in 2016: 17.9 percent. The actuaries saw 2017 as a…

Recent reports on U.S. defense spending have raised questions about whether it is too much or too little, as discussed in a recent blog post. In response to a reader’s suggestion, we are presenting some information on how what the…

A last-minute Republican plan to extend certain tax breaks and create some new ones appears to face dim prospects this month. Time is running short for the lame-duck Congress, and a scheduled House vote was postponed on Friday. Senate passage…

Amid bipartisan frustration over the federal budget process, Congress early this year created a special committee to develop reforms that could enable lawmakers to pass spending bills on schedule and in a more effective and thoughtful manner. There were high…

Returning to Washington this week, Congress and President Trump face a pile of leftover budget work that they should try to complete with a greater sense of fiscal responsibility than they have shown in the recent past. Even if the…

Since 2001 the Defense Department has received $2.2 trillion in special funding that has been on top of the basic defense budgets that Congress has approved through regular annual appropriations. That amounts to 20 percent of total defense appropriations over…

The Treasury Department’s final report for Fiscal Year 2018, showing a 17 percent ($113 billion) jump in the deficit, has drawn new attention to the nation’s worsening fiscal position and injected the issue into the midterm congressional campaigns. The sobering…