In advance of President Obama unveiling his FY 2015 budget earlier this year, senior White House staff signaled to the Washington Post that the plan would “call for an end to era of austerity.” This despite the fact that the nation has spent $21.1 trillion since 2009. Gross federal debt has increased by $7.23 trillion […]
The great economic tragedy of our time is the erosion of the American middle class. Millions of Americans find themselves locked out of the American Dream. Their wages are either flat or falling, even as the price of energy and goods surges; the labor force is shrinking; and the government stimulus which was claimed to […]
The Budget OutlookAccording to CBO’s updated budget projections released today, the federal government is on track to spend $3.5 trillion in the fiscal year ending September 30. Tax collections will total $3.0 trillion, resulting in a deficit of $506 billion. This estimate is $14 billion above CBO’s April estimate of $492 billion, and is the […]
There are currently 61.1 million American men in their prime working years, age 25–54. A staggering 1 in 8 such men are not in the labor force at all, meaning they are neither working nor looking for work. This is an all-time high dating back to when records were first kept in 1955. An additional […]
The recession officially ended in June 2009, but by nearly every measure, the period since has seen the slowest economic recovery since the end of World War II. Job creation is historically low for this point in a recovery, investment is poor despite record low interest rates, and labor supply is sluggish. Every day that […]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the President’s budget would increase the 2015 deficit to $509 billion, up 3.5 percent from the $492 billion deficit CBO estimates for 2014. Over 10 years, CBO projects that the President’s policies would result in deficits of $6.6 trillion and total federal debt of $26.1 trillion. The President’s […]
In 2009, President Obama predicted his policies would produce 4.2 percent growth in 2013—more than double the actual, anemic growth rate of 1.9 percent. Since making that projection, President Obama has had much of his economic agenda implemented: the $870 billion stimulus bill, Dodd-Frank financial regulations, Obamacare, restrictions on American energy, $1.7 trillion in higher […]
Spending in 2015 would total $3.901 trillion under the President’s spending policies, an increase of nearly 8 percent ($279 billion) above today’s levels. This is $114 billion more than the OMB baseline, which assumes compliance with the Budget Control Act (BCA) as revised by the Ryan-Murray spending agreement. The President’s budget recommends $1.759 trillion in […]
Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee worked with staff of the Employment Policies Institute to prepare an information sheet for each state on how the proposed increase in the minimum wage would affect employment and who would be affected. The Minimum Wage Fairness Act (S. 1737) calls for an increase in the Federal minimum […]
The Office of Management and Budget recently announced that President Obama’s FY 2015 budget would be delivered to Congress on March 4, just over one month past the statutory deadline (which requires the President’s budget to be submitted by the first Monday in February). This will be the 18th occasion that the Administration has missed […]
To view the Budget Committee’s detailed analysis of the omnibus as a 14-page PDF, including tables comparing the bill’s spending with the continuing resolution and 2008 enacted levels, please click here.
Senate Budget Committee Republican staff, in consultation with the Committee’s Democratic staff, have identified at least four budget points of order that lie against Sen. Jack Reed’s amendment #2631 to S. 1845 (the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act) for violating the FY 2014 deemed spending levels in the Ryan-Murray package. The points of order, which […]
We have just concluded the 5th fiscal year since President Obama took office. During those five years, the federal government has spent a total $3.7 trillion on approximately 80 different means-tested poverty and welfare programs. The common feature of means-tested assistance programs is that they are graduated based on a person’s income and, in contrast […]
On April 10th, Senators Sessions and Grassley, Ranking Members of the Budget and Judiciary Committees, along with former Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Pat Roberts, wrote an as-yet unanswered letter to the Gang of Eight concerning “the long-term costs that will be imposed on taxpayers once millions of illegal immigrants eventually become eligible not only for […]
The President’s 2014 budget never reaches balance, but asks taxpayers to send more money to Washington to grow the government. Relative to current law, the President would raise taxes by $1.083 trillion to increase spending by $1.025 trillion (including the President’s 2013 proposals). The actual deficit reduction in this budget is only $59 billion, barely […]