Budget

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...
With Recent Laws, Congress Has Added $540 Billion to the 2019 Deficit

By Yuval Rosenberg

Spending hikes and tax cuts passed since 2015 under the Trump and Obama administrations account for $540 billion of next year’s projected $981 billion budget deficit, or 55 percent, according to...

The Spending Deal: $1.3 Trillion, 2,232 Pages, One Messy Process

By Yuval Rosenberg

One vote down, one to go. The House on Thursday easily passed a bipartisan $1.3 trillion spending bill, setting the stage for a Senate vote that would avoid a government shutdown after midnight on...
7 Big Pentagon Numbers in the $1.3 Trillion Spending Deal

By Michael Rainey

The Department of Defense is one of the biggest winners in the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill working its way through Congress, with the Pentagon receiving $700 billion for the current fiscal...
Spending Bill Includes $320 Million for IRS to Implement Tax Law

By Michael Rainey

A frequent target of Republican scorn, the IRS has seen its budget cut significantly in recent years. But the spending deal for 2018 boosts the agency’s budget by $196 million compared to 2017, for a...
Winners and Losers in the $1.3 Trillion Spending Deal

By Yuval Rosenberg

It’s almost done. After weeks of closed-door negotiations and days of extended haggling, congressional leaders said they had all but completed a massive $1.3 trillion spending deal to fund the...
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...