The Heritage Foundation offers a detailed plan to redesign entitlement programs, guarantee assistance to those who need it, and save the American dream for future generations. Read More.
Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that risks disaster for America. Runaway spending has increased annual federal budget deficits to unprecedented levels, adding $2.7 trillion to the national debt in the past two years alone. Read More.
The Obama Administration has used the recession as an excuse for a historic and permanent expansion of government and deficits. Only during the height of World War II has Washington matched current levels of spending (25% of GDP) and deficits (10% of GDP). Read More.
See the web’s best visual presentation of federal spending, taxes, debt, and entitlements. Read More.
The President’s post-debt-ceiling, election-year budget will provide a good test of whether he is serious about facing up to the country’s looming fiscal crisis and driving spending down. At this critical moment for the nation’s fiscal and economic health, he should seize the opportunity to change the course of fiscal… Read more
As House appropriators begin hearings on fiscal year (FY) 2013 spending,[1] a second look at last week’s Congressional Budget Office report shows they already have exceeded their official Budget Control Act limits for the current year by a stunning $156 billion. Although some of this overrun reflects justifiable… Read more
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its baseline budget outlook through fiscal year 2022 on January 31. The analysis is as creditable to the CBO as its message is daunting to the nation. After squandering three years in which the signal consequences have been persistent high unemployment coupled with an… Read more
Today marks the 1,000th day since the United States Senate has passed a budget. While the House has put forth (and passed) its own budget, the Senate has failed to do the same. To help illustrate how extraordinary this failure has been, our new video highlights a few of impressive… Read more
After a year of unproductive brinksmanship, Congress and the President enter 2012 facing the same intractable budget problems as before: a fourth consecutive deficit expected to be $1 trillion or higher, spending that consumes nearly one-fourth of the economy’s total output, and an entitlement-driven fiscal disaster that has drawn… Read more
Following the enactment of the Budget Control Act earlier this year, the budget for the core defense program is already operating under stringent spending caps. At the same time, per capita expenditures for paying military personnel and operating the force are high and growing rapidly. Under these circumstances, funding for… Read more
To say “the budget process is broken,” as many Members of Congress like to complain, is a little misleading. The regular order of the budget process has not been employed for the past several years[1]—and mostly because of Congress’s inability or unwillingness to use it. But if not… Read more
With the collapse of the deficit reduction “super committee,” a year that began with promise is degenerating into another late-December budgetary scramble on Capitol Hill. Along with certain necessary decisions by Congress on tax policies, unemployment insurance, and the “doc fix,” nine of the 12 annual spending bills are still… Read more
Abstract: The Budget Control Act, which ended the impasse over the debt ceiling and created a Super Committee to identify more deficit reduction proposals, cuts the defense budget by $1 trillion and paves the way for further reductions next year. These cuts come on top of successive rounds of deep… Read more
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) spoke at Heritage about the importance of enacting the strongest possible Balanced Budget Amendment, one that caps federal spending at 18 percent of the economy and requires a super-majority vote in Congress to increase taxes. Cornyn also addressed the botched gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious.… Read more
For more on government spending, read Brian Reidl's new paper "Why Government Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth" ------ … Read more
The 2010 edition of “Federal Spending by the Numbers” shows spending and deficits continuing to grow at a pace not seen since World War II. Washington will spend $30,543 per household in 2010—$5,000 per household more than just two years ago. While some of this spending is a temporary… Read more
Today, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) will offer an amendment to the Senate's appropriation bill to transfer the $223 million that Congress had previously approved for a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, to fund reconstruction of a hurricane-damaged bridge in Louisiana. Dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere," the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900)… Read more
President George W. Bush has proposed terminating or strongly reducing the budgets of over 150 inefficient or ineffective programs. This is a step in the right direction to pare back the runaway spending that has pushed the budget deficit over $400 billion. In less than three years,… Read more
Abstract: Despite decades of repeated failure, President Obama and Congress continue to promote the myth that government can spend its way out of recession. Heritage Foundation economic policy expert Brian Riedl dispels the stimulus myth, lays out the evidence that government spending does not end recessions--and… Read more
Revised and Updated on January 12, 2012 Download a PDF version with hyperlinks to House and Senate Appropriations Committee documents: Appropriations Tracker: FY 2012 Designed to inform American policymakers and citizens, the… Read more
As the “super committee,” created by the contentious Budget Control Act (BCA), grapples with its mandate to find $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction savings, many are urging it to “go big.” And no wonder. Since July 31, the eve of the BCA’s enactment, the federal government has continued to hemorrhage… Read more
While most attention is focused on the congressional “super committee,” House and Senate appropriators have been moving legislation aimed at meeting their own fiscal year (FY) 2012 spending limits under the debt reduction agreement enacted earlier this year. So far, the appropriators are close to that modest goal. But they… Read more
It is bad enough that, after more than 1,000 days since passing a budget resolution, the Senate has decided to forgo...… Read more
Members of Congress will vote Wednesday to freeze their salaries through 2013 and impose the same pay limitation on...… Read more
President Obama visited the Pentagon on Thursday to outline his plan for gutting our nation's military. Obama's vision...… Read more
New polling data reveals that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire overwhelmingly believe the federal budget deficit is the...… Read more
Following the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) criticized liberals...… Read more
Want to hear something disturbing? China has increased its defense budget by double digits every year for the last 20...… Read more
The debt-limit deal this summer guaranteed a vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment this year. As the House and Senate...… Read more
Greece continues to dominate the headlines as the country faces an increasingly dire economic situation and now...… Read more
House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) is a man on a mission. He's making the rounds on Capitol Hill to...… Read more
One of the most crucial issues confronting the nation is the debt and spending crisis. Standard & Poor’s downgraded...… Read more
Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies