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off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS

In Case You Missed It...

| By CBPP

This week on Off the Charts, we focused on the federal budget and taxes, the economy, state budgets and taxes, and the Medicare and Social Security trustees’ reports.

  • On the federal budget and taxes, Chye-Ching Huang explained why neither territorial taxation nor a corporate tax holiday is a good idea and highlighted her New York Times “Room for Debate” column on why they won’t fix the broken corporate income tax.  Chuck Marr noted a new Congressional Budget Office report showing why the deductions, exclusions, and credits known collectively as tax expenditures are ripe for reform.  He also listed three reasons why preferential tax rates for capital gains and dividends don’t make sense.
  • On the economy, Chad Stone highlighted his US News & World Report column on why the Federal Reserve is correct to focus on lowering unemployment.
  • On state budgets and taxes, Michael Leachman showed why smart states are raising revenues in the aftermath of the Great Recession and illustrated the deep cuts in higher education funding in recent years.
  • On the trustees’ reports, Paul Van de Water previewed the Medicare report and Kathy Ruffing previewed the Social Security report.  Once the trustees issued their reports, we pointed to our statements on them.

In other news, we released statements by Robert Greenstein on the Social Security trustees’ report and by Paul Van de Water on the Medicare trustees’ report.  We also updated our chart book on the legacy of the Great Recession and our backgrounder on the number of weeks of unemployment benefits available in each state.