#National Debt

The federal budget consists of three broad categories: discretionary spending, mandatory spending, and interest payments on the public debt. Congress decides each year how much funding it will provide for discretionary programs. Mandatory spending, on the other hand, is generally…

New federal budget projections paint an alarming picture of the need for Washington to set better priorities and resist the temptation to dig the government into even deeper trouble with more deficit-financed spending and tax cuts. (more…)

Despite important political and economic ties, Britain and the United States are pursuing very different policies to deal with the tremendous fiscal challenges they face. Prime Minister David Cameron, who visited the U.S. last week, hopes to cut Britain’s budget…

New projections released on Friday afternoon by the Obama administration show that the nation’s finances remain in a deep deficit ditch. This was hardly “news,” but it served as a pointed reminder that much hard work needs to be done…

In recent weeks the congressional Appropriations Committees made considerable progress on bills for the coming fiscal year. But the limited number of legislative days left and an increasingly partisan atmosphere have led to speculation that few of the bills will…

Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit last week to the United States underscored the important relationship between the U.S. and Britain, both politically and economically.Britain’s new coalition government faces tremendous challenges, many of which are similar to the United States’ problems. …

The International Monetary Fund has given Americans a tough-minded analysis of the challenges we face in putting the country on a more responsible fiscal course. While a recent IMF report points to some bright spots in the U.S. economy and…

We can’t keep this up. That’s the central message in a new report from the Congressional Budget Office that looks out over the next few decades and explains why the federal government is on an unsustainable course.The CBO report presents…