Sep 15, 2009 | Budgets & Projections
A Brief History of (Financial) Time
This week marks the one year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, an event that both seriously destabilized and ominously ruptured the U.S....
Blog
Welcome to our blog – The Bottom Line, where you’ll find up-to-date commentary and analysis on the most important news in the fiscal world. Below is a list of our blog posts.
Sep 15, 2009 | Budgets & Projections
The Lehman Collapse -- One Year Later
This week marks the one year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, an event that both seriously destabilized and ominously ruptured the U.S...
The Second Ten Years
CQ reports that CBO is likely to score the costs of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill for the second ten year period. This is...
Sep 15, 2009 | Economics
Can Deficits Fix the Economy?
By Maya MacGuineasLast night I attended a curtain raiser dinner for today’s...
Sep 15, 2009 | Budget Process
Peterson-Pew Commission Event on Budget Reform
Tomorrow, on September 16th, the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform will host an event --...
Sep 14, 2009
Fiscal Stimulus: The CEA Report and Beyond
Is the largest fiscal stimulus package adopted in U.S. history working? Is it worth the high fiscal cost in the future? With these questions in...
Sep 14, 2009 | Economics
Fiscal Failures Hurt U.S. Competitiveness
UPDATE: See New American Contract's response to our post. They argue there may be trade-offs between improving the fiscal situation and strengthening...
Sep 12, 2009
Three More FDIC Bank Closings
On Friday evening, the FDIC reported that it has taken over three additional banks (Venture Bank, Brickwell Community Bank, and Corus Bank) for a...
Selective Triggering
We think triggers can be helpful in budgeting, by providing a back-up plan for when estimates prove wrong or conditions change, and by helping...
Sep 10, 2009
CEA Releases Report on the Economic Impact of the Recovery Act
The Council of Economic Advisers has just released their first quarterly report on the economic impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act...
Sep 9, 2009 | Budget Process
Trigger Happy
REVISED: Today, CRFB issued a press release commenting...
Sep 9, 2009 | Health Care
The Deficit Pledge
"I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period.”That is...
Sep 9, 2009 | Health Care
Some Highlights from Obama's Health Care Speech
A few minutes ago, President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress to discuss health care reform. Although he talked about a wide array of...
Sep 9, 2009 | Health Care
Those 'Health Care Gimmicks' Are Still Out There
Today, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation released a Lewin Group analysis of the current House health care reform bill (America’s Affordable...
Sep 9, 2009
Congressional Oversight Panel Reports on Bailout of Auto Industry
This morning, the Congressional Oversight panel released a report on the use of...
Sep 9, 2009 | Health Care
What We'd Like to Hear in the President's Speech Tonight
1. Health reform is first and foremost about controlling costs – There are three major problems people would like to solve...
Sep 8, 2009 | Taxes
Ideas for Tax Reform
Recently, Tax Analysts released Toward Tax Reform: Recommendations for President Obama's Task Force , a collection of essays by 32 prominent tax...
Another $95 Billion of Budgeting Through Footnotes
Last week, we wrote about $85 billion worth of stimulus tax cuts which the Obama administration assumed as permanant in their baseline so that they...
Sep 4, 2009
Welcome to The Bottom Line!
CRFB.org has just completed a major web redesign! We encourage you to explore the entire site, along with a whole new...
Sep 4, 2009 | Social Security
CBO Projects Social Security Deficits in 2010
CBO recently published new projections for the revenues and outlays for Social Security (kudos to Andrew Biggs for pointing this out). The updated...
