In Case You Missed It...

This week on Off the Charts, we focused on food assistance, state budgets and taxes, federal taxes, and health care.

• On food assistance, Becca Segal highlighted our video on the benefits of community eligibility, noted the wide variety of schools opting to become hunger-free through the program, and pointed to Chris Hayes’ segment on the benefits of community eligibility.  Dottie Rosenbaum highlighted newly released Agriculture Department data that show SNAP error rates have fallen across the country.
• On state budgets and taxes, Erica Williams explained why more time is unlikely to fix the damage done by Kansas’ failed tax cut experiment.  Michael Mazerov discussed why Congress has no justification for permanently banning sales taxes on Internet access charges.
• On federal taxes, Chuck Marr detailed the problems with reinstating the “bonus depreciation” tax provision, which lets businesses take bigger upfront tax deductions for certain new purchases.
• On health care, Edwin Park described a new report to Congress from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission that explains why overpayments to insurance companies through the Medicare Advantage program are not the right way to aid low-income beneficiaries.

We issued a paper on why Congress should end the ban on state and local taxation of Internet access subscriptions and posted a video explainer on the benefits of community eligibility.  We also updated our chart book on the legacy of the Great Recession and our paper on why policymakers should not make “bonus depreciation” permanent.

CBPP’s Chart of the Week:

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A variety of news outlets featured CBPP’s work and experts recently. Here are some highlights:

No Justification for Permanently Banning Sales Taxes on Internet Access Charges
Huffington Post
July 11, 2014

Less than 1 percent of food stamps go to ineligible people
Vox
July 8, 2014

Kansas was supposed to be the GOP’s tax-cut paradise. Now it can barely pay its bills.
Vox
July 8, 2014

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