Budget

Why the Deficit Outlook Could Be Even Worse Than It Seems

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Congressional Budget Office warned earlier this month that the U.S. will start running $1 trillion deficits in 2020, and that the national debt will be nearly as large as the economy in a decade...
Why Republicans Won’t Even Try to Pass a Budget for 2019

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Budget expert Stan Collender at Forbes slams Republicans for not even attempting to pass a budget for the fiscal year that starts October 1. “The House and Senate Budget Committees only have one job...
Deficit Owls Say You Shouldn’t Give a Hoot About $1 Trillion Budget Shortfall

By Yuval Rosenberg

As warnings rise about the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that the federal budget deficit is on pace to top $1 trillion in 2020, The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein on Friday highlighted a...
How Congress Cheats with Our Money — and How We Can Stop It

By Marc Goldwein and Zach Moller

The U.S. is on course to top its record debt levels set after World War II, and permanent trillion-dollar deficits — meaning, forever — are likely to return within two years . And unlike after World...
Will Work for Food? Republicans Push Stricter Rules for SNAP

By Michael Rainey

Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps, is provided in the farm bill, a massive spending and regulatory package Congress passes every...

April Is Financial Literacy Month. Someone Tell Congress.

By Joseph J. Minarik and Caroline L. Ferguson

February is Black History Month, March is National Women’s Month, and April? Well, it’s Financial Literacy Month, of course! The U.S. government gave financial literacy its own month in 2003. April...
Why All the Warnings About Unsustainable National Debt Could Be Wrong

By Michael Rainey

International economists are warning about rising global debt levels and deficit hawks in Washington are increasingly worried about what they see as unsustainable debt levels in the U.S., but a new...
The US Has an Exceptional Debt Outlook – and Not in a Good Way

By Michael Rainey

The International Money Fund’s latest global fiscal survey warns that in five years, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than Italy’s, a nation not generally known for its exemplary fiscal...
Why More School Districts Are Holding Class Just Four Days a Week

By Sophie Quinton, Stateline

The public school in Campo, Colorado, hasn’t required all its students to come to class on Fridays for nearly two decades. The 44-student district dropped a weekday to boost attendance and better...
When the Budget Won’t Balance, Just Get Rid of the Budget Committee?

By Michael Rainey

It may sound like a joke — Erik Sherman of Forbes said it seemed like something “from The Onion or Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker, only with less humor and pith” — but Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), chair...

Pete Peterson Dies at Age 91

By Yuval Rosenberg

Peter G. Peterson, the self-made billionaire businessman and former Secretary of Commerce under President Richard M. Nixon who went on to become a leading voice warning about the dangers of the...
What’s Holding Up the Spending Deal — and Threatening Another Shutdown

By Yuval Rosenberg

Tick, tick, tick. Congressional leaders are still working to come up with a final version of the $1.3 trillion spending bill they must pass by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. Lawmakers are...
Appropriations Committee Chairs Grab for Dollars Before They Go

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS), 80, is resigning April 1. House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) is retiring at the end of this congressional session...
What Are the Odds of Another Government Shutdown This Week?

By Yuval Rosenberg

The scramble is on. Any minute now, lawmakers are set to unveil the $1.2 trillion omnibus bill to fund the government ahead of a March 23 deadline to avoid a third federal shutdown this year. Under...
The Budget Is a Mess. Is This How We Fix It?

By Yuval Rosenberg

The federal budget process is a costly mess. Alice Rivlin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, summed up the recent dysfunction in...