#Federal Budget

By Rebecca Williams A viable plan to reduce our country’s mounting deficits and debt will be built on painful choices that include revenue increases and cuts to all government spending, including entitlements and defense. With such thorny issues at stake, it…

The leaders of two prominent deficit-reduction panels worry that elected officials this year will lack “the courage to forge a comprehensive, multi-year debt reduction plan.” In a guest column last week in Politico, the panel leaders warned against delay and…

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) announced last week that the committee would not consider the FY 2012 budget resolution until the bipartisan negotiations led by Vice President Joe Biden are complete. Conrad said “The results of those negotiations…

Negotiations to raise the federal debt limit are resuming today between the administration and lawmakers as partisan bickering over the budget continues and newly released projections have underscored worries about Medicare's finances.The government hit its debt ceiling a week ago…

The federal government hit its debt ceiling Monday, forcing the administration to turn to what Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner calls “extraordinary measures” to pay the government’s bills and avoid default.Although Geithner has estimated the government can get by without a…

Anyone wondering why Social Security and Medicare should be “on the table” in budget negotiations need look no further than the 2011 Trustees’ Report issued on May 13.As is usually the case, media accounts of the trustees’ report tended to…

Last week Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mt.) said "A debt reduction trigger could be an important part of passing legislation to reduce our debt and move our economy in a positive direction toward growth and job creation." He…

Because sweeping government reforms will be politically difficult, the active involvement of the American public is essential. We need a national dialogue about the country’s huge fiscal challenges, the possible options, and the trade-offs among those options.In a guest column…