#Congress

Because sweeping government reforms will be politically difficult, the active involvement of the American public is essential. We need a national dialogue about the country’s huge fiscal challenges, the possible options, and the trade-offs among those options.In a guest column…

With an eye on the need to raise the federal debt limit soon, administration officials and six congressional representatives began deficit-reduction negotiations last week. Some of those involved in the talks, chaired by Vice President Joe Biden, have offered hopeful…

Elected officials in both parties have made what I call “magical, mystery tax pledges” that are at odds with bipartisan approaches to serious deficit reduction:Republicans: Don’t raise revenue above the 40-year historical average of around 18-19 percent of GDP.Democrats, including…

The Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC's) Debt Reduction Task Force, led by former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and former White House Budget Director Alice Rivlin, proposed a budget enforcement process last week to attempt to rein in growing federal…

Projected federal deficits are so large that Congress should look far beyond the non-defense spending on which it has heavily focused in recent weeks.In a guest commentary on ABC.com, Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert L. Bixby notes that bipartisan groups…

"Where is all of the money going?" While filling out tax returns and writing checks to the federal government, people often ask this question. Finding answers became easier last week when the White House released an online federal tax receipt.By…

President Obama has jumped into the debate over long-term fiscal responsibility with a plan that differs sharply from the one unveiled earlier this month by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee. In a welcome move, Obama…

Here is a trivia question: Under which scenario would Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid make up the larger share of non-interest (i.e. “primary”) federal government spending?A. President Obama’s budgetB. Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget (House Budget Committee)The answer is B.Under Ryan’s…