#Federal Budget

In a 74-22 vote last week, the Senate passed a two-year highway bill authorizing about $109 billion in spending. The previous authorization bill was enacted in 2005 and expired in 2009. Since then Congress has approved several extensions, and the…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that under President Obama’s proposed budget for 2013 deficits would drop for a few years but then rise again, totaling $6.4 trillion over the coming decade. Federal debt held by domestic and foreign investors…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today updated the baseline projections for federal spending and revenue that it put out in January, saying that the “fundamental story” about the federal budget had not changed.CBO said its current estimate of the budget…

Serious financial management problems in some departments and agencies continue to hinder efforts by auditors to assess the government’s books. That in turn hurts the government’s ability to measure the cost and performance of certain programs and to make necessary…

As elected officials and political candidates continue to debate the nation’s fiscal problems, The Concord Coalition this week emphasized the need for Washington to deal with long-term “structural” deficits in the federal budget even as short-term measures are used to…

Administration officials defended the President’s budget at committee hearings last week that followed an all-too-familiar script: Democrats supported the budget, Republicans condemned it, and there appeared to be little room for bipartisan compromise in the near future. At House and…

President Obama is expected to quickly sign legislation to extend the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits and the “doc fix” on Medicare reimbursements through the end of the year, but unfortunately without an adequate financing plan.After months of partisan jousting…

President Obama’s new budget calls for substantial tax reform, higher taxes on the wealthy, cuts in some programs and additional spending in others. The plan drew heavy criticism from Republicans and mixed reviews from The Concord Coalition and other non-partisan…