#Congress

The punch line of an old joke aptly describes the status of budget negotiations in Washington: you can’t get there from here. It’s not the “there” that is the problem; it’s the “here.”Broad bipartisan consensus exists on two points. The…

Elected officials often approach discussions about deficit reduction as a zero-sum game in which compromise amounts to defeat. But as various experts and bipartisan groups have demonstrated, certain policy options could bring results that should please both parties.“The best ideas…

Later today House Republicans plan to vote down an initial request from the administration to approve an increase in the federal debt limit without spending reductions. The vote will be largely symbolic, coming after several weeks of negotiations between the…

The leaders of two prominent deficit-reduction panels worry that elected officials this year will lack “the courage to forge a comprehensive, multi-year debt reduction plan.” In a guest column last week in Politico, the panel leaders warned against delay and…

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) announced last week that the committee would not consider the FY 2012 budget resolution until the bipartisan negotiations led by Vice President Joe Biden are complete. Conrad said “The results of those negotiations…

Negotiations to raise the federal debt limit are resuming today between the administration and lawmakers as partisan bickering over the budget continues and newly released projections have underscored worries about Medicare's finances.The government hit its debt ceiling a week ago…

The federal government hit its debt ceiling Monday, forcing the administration to turn to what Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner calls “extraordinary measures” to pay the government’s bills and avoid default.Although Geithner has estimated the government can get by without a…

WASHINGTON -- The Concord Coalition said that today’s release of the annual Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report is a timely reminder of how important cost-saving reform of these two vital programs is to the nation’s fiscal outlook. Concord urged…