Abstract: A host of annual tax-reducing provisions expired on December 31, 2011. As it does each year, before restoring these policies, Congress is sure to argue about how to “pay for” extending these tax reducers, for some of which have been the law as…
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…
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…
In February, employment grew by 192,000 workers, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent, the lowest level since April 2009. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’s monthly report shows that the labor market is improving, with job growth in several sectors. Revisions for December and January increased those monthly job…
The new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) 10-year budget baseline shows a virtually unprecedented sea of red ink. The report reveals an unprecedented $1.5 trillion deficit in fiscal year (FY) 2011—an increase of $95 billion over their last 2011 estimate.[1] This will be the third consecutive year of trillion-dollar…
The federal government’s finances were dismal even before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was enacted. That is why lawmakers who pushed for its passage felt compelled to try to calm worried Americans by claiming that the law would cut projected federal budget deficits in addition to covering…
The incoming Congress has its hands full. It should prevent a massive tax hike from shellacking a weak economy, get a spend-happy President to repent, try to repeal or defang Obamacare, get a handle on entitlement spending, and much more. The going will be much easier if new Members first…
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the health care bill signed into law by President Obama in March, will overhaul the current health insurance system by enforcing mandates on individuals and businesses, expanding Medicaid, and introducing new taxes and fines to help pay for the increased…
The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (PPACA) is projected to yield $575 billion in Medicare savings over the next 10 years, mostly from Medicare payment reductions to doctors, hospitals, and health plans. But beneath these payment reductions, the PPACA also makes statutory changes that could challenge the autonomy…
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has updated its 10-year budget baseline, and America’s fiscal outlook continues to worsen. The CBO projects $6.2 trillion in additional deficits over the next decade. This darkening budget forecast would have been even worse, were it not for the unrealistic assumptions that Congress requires the…
President Obama and other proponents of the recently passed health care law argue that the legislation was desperately needed to improve the nation’s health system for both today’s citizens as well as future generations. But there are many reasons to be concerned that this new law…
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects a balanced budget by 2012. A number of CBO's assumptions underlying this projection are, to say the least, problematic. For example, CBO's projections assume that all of the President's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as well as all other temporary tax cuts, are allowed…
There they go again. The House of Representatives passed another huge tax increase. Earlier in the year they passed a big, economically harmful tax hike attached to a bill expanding veterans' benefits. This time, they married a big tax hike to a bill extending the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch for 2009.…
President Obama has called Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget “an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country,” but as this...…
President Obama has touted reports from the Congressional Budget Office claiming his health care law would actually...…
President Obama has reassured Americans that if they like their current health insurance, they can keep it. “If...…
Some apologists for Obamacare are trying to tout recent analyses from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as...…
Environmental activists and liberal politicians are fond of bemoaning the supposedly disproportionate tax benefits that...…
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), measurements of the budget impact of federal credit do...…
Members of Congress will vote Wednesday to freeze their salaries through 2013 and impose the same pay limitation on...…
Medicare is in dire need of reform. This week's chart illustrates why the entitlement program is the largest driver of...…
The accounting methodology used to measure the cost to taxpayers of federal loan guarantee programs such as the one...…
Following the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) criticized liberals...…