#Discretionary Spending

President Obama offered his deficit-reduction recommendations to the congressional super committee on Monday, urging the panel to find both spending cuts and additional tax revenue to far exceed its assigned goal.Obama put Medicare and Medicaid on the negotiating table, giving…

With less than three weeks remaining in the fiscal year, Congress is heading towards another failure to complete the budget process. None of the twelve FY 2012 appropriations bills have been enacted. The House has passed six bills, and the…

President Obama yesterday sent Congress the American Jobs Act, a set of proposals that he says will provide both a short-term boost for the economy and a basis for bipartisan cooperation that could help restore public confidence in Washington.The President…

Speculation continues over whether congressional Democrats and Republicans might be able to reach some sort of agreement on tax reform this fall. In her most recent column in Tax Notes, Concord Chief Economist Diane Lim Rogers reviews some of the…

After Republicans and Democrats on the new super committee held separate discussions last week, the co-chairs announced that the full panel would hold its first meeting this Thursday. It is expected to focus on organizational issues and opening statements from…

The administration has lowered its deficit projections from last February but cautions that further action is needed to invigorate the economy in the short term and hold down deficits in the long run.Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management…

Although the new congressional super committee has not yet met, its co-chairs say panel members are busy “reviewing the deficit reduction work that many others have engaged in over the past several years.”The committee’s leaders, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and…

New projections from the Congressional Budget Office show a potential path to significantly reduce federal deficits over the next decade. But it would require elected officials to either stick to current law or find ways to offset any deviation from…