#Federal Budget

Congress and the White House are accelerating their budget and debt limit negotiations amid growing concerns about the economic recovery and the possibility that a political stalemate could trigger turmoil in the financial markets.After only one meeting so far this…

Two budget experts who are part of The Concord Coalition’s Fiscal Solutions Tour emphasize the importance of Medicare reform in separate blog postings on The American Square.Joe Antos of the American Enterprise Institute criticizes elected officials who downplay Medicare’s impact…

Transportation spending will likely return to the agenda on Capitol Hill in the months ahead. The highway authorization bill expired in 2009 and an extension expires at the end of September. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the U.S. spends…

Elected officials still seem locked into their negotiating positions on the federal debt limit, leading Moody’s to warn that it could soon consider downgrading the government’s credit rating “due to the very small but rising risk of a short-lived default.”The…

With only 1 percent of the federal budget, foreign aid makes up a much smaller part of the country’s fiscal problems than many people believe, according to Rebecca Williams of the Henry L. Stimson Center.In a guest blog posting for…

Elected officials often approach discussions about deficit reduction as a zero-sum game in which compromise amounts to defeat. But as various experts and bipartisan groups have demonstrated, certain policy options could bring results that should please both parties.“The best ideas…

Last week the Senate rejected motions to proceed to four budget proposals. Like this week’s scheduled House vote on the debt limit, the votes were largely symbolic and expected to fail. The Senate considered budgets proposed by President Obama and…

Later today House Republicans plan to vote down an initial request from the administration to approve an increase in the federal debt limit without spending reductions. The vote will be largely symbolic, coming after several weeks of negotiations between the…