“The fact is what we don’t have is a longer term plan. What we need, I believe, is at least a 10-year plan. That’s why I’m going to mark up the first week that we’re back in session.” – Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, interview on “Fox News Sunday,” April 8, 2012 After not adopting […]
Before President Obama’s health care law was enacted, unfunded obligations for federal health programs totaled $65 trillion over a 75-year period. The most recent Senate Budget Committee staff estimates show that after the law’s passage, that figure has grown by $17 trillion, to $82 trillion. Why we should be concerned that the law is adding […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its annual report on government duplication today. This is the second year of a three-year process, during which the GAO will comprehensively review the federal government to identify duplication, fragmentation, and waste. Since the review’s inception, GAO has found 66 areas of duplication encompassing over 1,500 individual programs. This […]
The president’s 2013 budget claims it will result in declining deficits from $1.3 trillion in 2012 (8.5 percent of GDP) to $0.9 trillion in 2013 (5.5 percent of GDP) to no less than $0.6 trillion in any subsequent year. The budget fails the pledge the president made on February 23, 2009 at his Fiscal Responsibility […]
A Detailed Summary and Analysis of President Obama’s FY 2012 Budget
The Congressional Budget Office baseline budget outlook dramatically understates—by nearly $6 trillion—the deficit and debt path that the nation is on. The agency’s current law outlook shows deficits declining from $1.3 trillion last year to $1.1 trillion this year, and dropping further until fiscal year 2018, when it starts rising again. Using a realistic baseline, […]
News reports appear to confirm that, as laid out in the State of the Union address, President Obama’s budget will propose using caps on war spending as a gimmick to either “offset” new spending or reduce the deficit. This offset is an accounting trick because it claims artificial savings from money that would never be […]
In one week, on January 24th (the same day as President Obama’s State of the Union address), 1,000 days will have elapsed since Senate Democrats offered a budget plan for the nation. Higher debt leads to slower economic growth. Empirical studies show that high levels of government debt inhibit economic growth by creating uncertainty, displacing […]
Soon, the Senate will hold a series of three votes on H.R. 2055, H.R. 3672 and H. Con. Res. 94 to complete the appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2012. The first vote is on H.R. 2055, the omnibus appropriations bill; the second vote is on H. Con. Res. 94, a 1.83 percent across-the-board rescission to […]
THE PRESIDENT’S BUDGET SPENDS, TAXES, AND BORROWS TOO MUCH – STIFLING JOB GROWTH TODAY AND THREATENING OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE In challenging times, a chief executive must lead. But President Obama has failed to confront the fiscal and economic challenges before us. Instead, he continues down the same unsustainable path: growing the government, weakening the economy, […]
The House bill extends the temporary two percentage point payroll holiday for an additional year and relies largely on reductions in mandatory spending to offset its cost. There are no tax hikes. Major Budgetary Provisions Extends for one year the temporary Social Security payroll holiday. Increases the incentive to expand and hire by extending 100 percent […]
Recent reports assert that the federal government has entered a new era of austerity. For instance, an article in Politico claimed “2011 was a year that saw spending trends break heavily in favor of deficit hawks.”[1] In fact, federal spending continues to increase at a rate well above inflation, despite the country having amassed $15 […]
Some in Congress are willing to use a reduction in war spending to offset increases in domestic spending and reductions in revenue. This offset is a budget gimmick since it claims savings from money that would never be spent in the first place. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline assumes that war spending (overseas contingency […]
“President Barack Obama has unveiled a hugely disappointing budget, cutting only a few percentage points from the $100,000bn in projected US federal deficits over the remainder of this century… If Mr Obama will not make this case, who will?” Financial Times, Obama’s budget shows failure of leadership “The larger problem with the budget is the […]
The Budget Control Act imposed caps on discretionary spending and provided a mechanism for achieving an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years through the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the so-called supercommittee). The failure of the supercommittee to find that additional deficit reduction will cause a $1.2 trillion spending […]
When the Gang of Six constituted itself after the Fiscal Commission submitted its report in December 2010, its apparent mission was to turn the Commission’s proposals into legislative language in a way that could potentially be added to the debt limit bill and that would achieve the Commission’s proposed savings. Yesterday the Gang released an […]
U.S. Senate Budget Committee Republican staff analysis IntroductionThe federal debt held by the public has doubled, in nominal terms, in less than four years. It now stands at over 62 percent of GDP, the highest level since 1951. What costs does this place on our economy? With our fragile economy still suffering high unemployment, can […]
“Money does not necessarily correlate with student achievement… in this country in the last 30 years, we have more than doubled the amount of money we are spending per child… and the results have gotten worse, not better.” – Michelle Rhee, former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor, February 9, 2011 As the United States concludes […]
[To read Ranking Member Hatch’s press statement click here]. Today the Social Security and Medicare Trustees issued their annual reports on the financial status of the two programs. The following are the major highlights from the 2011 Trustees’ reports: Social Security Social Security is now permanently cash negative. Absent intra-governmental payments to the Trust Fund, […]
Experts warn that our uncontrolled spending threatens our whole economy. But as House Republicans have put forward bills to both fund the government responsibly in the short term and confront our fiscal challenges in the long term, Democrat leaders in Washington have not put forward a single serious proposal to cut spending. Instead, they have […]