#Federal Budget

The House Budget Committee last week approved a bill on a bipartisan 22-10 vote that would switch the annual congressional budget process to a biennial (two-year) cycle.The legislation, introduced by Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.), a committee member, has attracted 100…

Although Congress finally took action on the debt limit last week, the legislative hypocrisy on display fed public cynicism and underscored the need for debt limit reforms.The fundamental problem is that Congress only considers a debt limit increase after it…

As the Treasury resorts to “extraordinary measures” to avoid defaulting on some financial obligations, Congress has continued to struggle with the necessary but embarrassing task of raising the federal debt limit.Today the House finally took action, narrowly passing a year-long…

The Senate is moving forward on a troubling bill that would add roughly $6.8 billion to the deficit over the next decade by repealing a modest reform in cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for working-age military retirees.The legislation, which passed a procedural…

Although President Obama’s State of the Union Address last week covered a wide array of topics, it failed to focus on the critical topic of fiscal sustainability.“When the President did mention fiscal issues in his speech it was mostly to…

“Like Frankenstein’s monster, the statutory debt limit will soon come back to life,” says Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert L. Bixby. But while swift congressional action to raise the limit is necessary, he writes in a recent blog post, it…

The Senate passed a 5-year farm bill Tuesday 68-32, after nearly 3 years of congressional conflict over future agriculture policy. The House passed the legislation last week with a 251-166 vote, and the President is expected to sign the bill…

WASHINGTON -- Although the federal deficit is currently dropping, The Concord Coalition said today that new projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show that Washington cannot afford to put fiscal reform on the back burner. (more…)