#Congress

As mentioned in the last post, the Senate dramatically weakened the Independent Medicare Advisory Board in the health care legislation currently being debated. (more…)

The Concord Coalition today praised Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Ranking Member Judd Gregg (R-NH) for reintroducing legislation to create a bipartisan task force charged with developing legislative solutions to the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalance. (more…)

For the last few weeks, members of Congress have been increasingly pushing for a bipartisan commission to tackle the nation's fiscal challenges. The impetus has been the need to raise the debt limit as the national debt rapidly approaches the…

The news from Thursday’s Washington Post:The Senate voted Wednesday to renew the government’s $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers through the first six months of next year as part of a broader bill designed to extend unemployment benefits.For the…

I have written a lot in this blog about the Congressional Budget Office and their estimates (here is the latest example). Today, the Washington Post has another great article explaining the process. (more…)

WASHINGTON – The Concord Coalition said today that if Congress raises physician reimbursement rates in Medicare, it should spell out how to pay for the changes. (more…)

Well, it took a couple months, but those with a stake in health care reform have finally figured out that the idea of an excise tax on insurance companies instead of an any alternative tax on “real people” was no…

The big news this week on the health care front was the release of the Senate Finance Committee's initial draft of its health care legislation. The big interest in the budget world with this development is that it marked the…