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Pre-2005 Content Archive

Blog

State Budget Cuts Update

August 5, 2010 |
States have been scaling back services and trimming their workforces for over two years now in response to sagging revenues resulting from the economic downturn. As our new report shows, these cuts continue to deepen. The cuts that many states have made for the current fiscal year (2011), which began in most states on July 1, go even farther than those in past years. To cite just a few examples, in 2011:
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Blog

Senators Coburn and McCain Turn Elephant Gun on Ants

August 5, 2010 |
It’s not a 9.5 percent unemployment rate that’s giving Americans the “summertime blues.” No, according to a new report with that title by Senator Tom Coburn, M.D., and Senator John McCain that attacks last year’s stimulus program, it’s that the State Department paid $18,000 too much for flat screen TVs and the American Museum of Ceramic Art in California received a $50,000 grant.
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Blog

What to Look for in the Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports

August 4, 2010 |
The trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will release their annual reports tomorrow. Although these reports generally come out by April 15, the trustees often miss that deadline. This year, the trustees delayed the reports to give the actuaries at the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services time to incorporate the effects of the Affordable Care Act (the recently enacted health reform legislation). Here are a few things to anticipate and keep in mind about the reports to come tomorrow:
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Blog

In Case You Missed It...

July 31, 2010 | CBPP
This week on Off the Charts, we examined the economy, why President Bush’s tax cuts for high-income households should expire on schedule, the importance of extending the TANF Emergency Fund to create and preserve jobs, key elements of the health reform law, and one step to avoid in addressing long-term federal deficits and debt.
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Blog

Don’t Sell the Stimulus Short

July 30, 2010 |
“It could’ve been a lot worse” may not be a winner as a political message, but it’s the right response when people complain that the TARP financial stabilization bill and the 2009 Recovery Act didn’t work. This chart, based on new data on gross domestic product (GDP) released this morning, shows the turnaround in the economy since Congress enacted these measures.
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Blog

More on the TANF Emergency Fund

July 30, 2010 |
A front-page story in yesterday’s New York Times emphasized that the TANF Emergency Fund, which states and localities are using to help create some 240,000 subsidized jobs in the private and public sectors, has helped many businesses as well as jobless workers weather the recession. That’s an important point that Congress should keep in mind as it decides how to help small businesses weather the recession.
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Blog

Will the House Kill Funding for Homeless Vets?

July 29, 2010 |
UPDATE 7/29/10 7:56 p.m. (ET): This housing amendment has been withdrawn. The 2011 transportation-housing appropriations bill that the House is now considering cuts $1.3 billion in funding that President Obama requested — and now four Democratic representatives (Peters of Michigan, Adler of New Jersey, Himes of Connecticut, and Welch of Vermont) plan to offer an amendment to make substantially deeper cuts, including $500 million in cuts to low-income housing programs.
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Blog

Reality Check on Health Reform, Cont.

July 29, 2010 |
As I mentioned a couple of months ago, we’ve launched a series of fact sheets called “Moving Forward with Health Reform” to help people (especially non-wonks) understand how the new health reform law will work — and whether the claims from opponents are true. Today we issued two more pieces in this series:
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Blog

Backward-Looking Federal Spending Target Isn’t the Answer

July 29, 2010 |
At its meeting yesterday, the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform discussed imposing a numerical limit on federal spending as a share of the economy. One of the commission’s co-chairs has suggested capping spending and revenues at 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the average spending level over the past 40 years. But as I explain in a new report, averages from the past aren’t a good guide for the future:
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Blog

The Center Hosts Alan Blinder, Who Speaks About High-Income Tax Cuts

July 28, 2010 | CBPP
On our conference call for journalists this morning, former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder made the case for letting President Bush’s tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 expire this year and using the savings over the next two years for measures that would better stimulate the economy, such as extended unemployment benefits and food stamps. Below is the audio and a cleaned-up transcript of the presentation portion of the call.
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Report

Media Briefing: Examining Tax Cuts For Those At The Top

July 28, 2010

Executive Director Robert Greenstein and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder discuss whether policymakers should extend President Bush’s tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, for those at the top of the income scale.

Duration: 10:17

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Blog

Health Reform Strengthens Medicare

July 27, 2010 |
As the Wall Street Journal reported recently, some seniors who receive Medicare coverage through private “Medicare Advantage” insurance companies rather than traditional Medicare are concerned about the health reform law’s impact on their benefits. They shouldn’t be worried: health reform will strengthen Medicare while protecting all beneficiaries.
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Blog

Best of Both Worlds on High-Income Tax Cuts

July 27, 2010 |
Even some key members of Congress who agree that President Bush’s tax cuts for people making over $250,000 are unaffordable have raised concerns that letting them expire in December would slow the already weak economy. Fortunately, Congress can boost short-term growth and help reduce long-term deficits: sunset the high-income tax cuts on schedule, re-channel the near-term revenues to far more efficient ways to generate growth and jobs, and use the long-term savings to reduce the deficit.
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Blog

Going, Going, Almost Gone

July 26, 2010 |
Time is running out for the highly successful subsidized jobs programs that states have created with the TANF Emergency Fund. The House has voted twice to extend the fund, a 2009 Recovery Act program that will help place an estimated 240,000 low-income parents and youth in subsidized private- or public-sector jobs by its September 30 expiration. The costs of the House extensions were fully offset so they wouldn’t add a penny to the deficit. But in the Senate, an extension has been part of larger bills that have stalled due to conflicts over provisions unrelated to the fund. What happens if Congress fails to act before the fund expires?
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Blog

In Case You Missed It...

July 24, 2010 | CBPP
This week on Off the Charts, we examined why President Bush’s tax cuts for high-income households should expire, the importance of extending the TANF Emergency Fund, the state of state budgets, extending unemployment benefits, the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges, the estate tax, and the Food Stamp Program.
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Blog

Food Stamps Helping More People — and More Efficiently

July 23, 2010 |
It’s no secret that with unemployment much higher than usual during the recession, a growing number of Americans are receiving food stamps to help them afford an adequate diet. In fact, the number of food stamp recipients has jumped by about 13 million (50 percent) since the start of the recession. But you might not know that the Food Stamp Program has handled this increase while becoming even more efficient, as a new Center report shows.
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Blog

The Latest on the Estate Tax

July 22, 2010 |
A couple of promising developments occurred on the estate tax front yesterday. The Senate soundly defeated (59-39) an effort by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to repeal the tax permanently. (It expired at the end of 2009 but is scheduled to return in much larger form next year when the 2001 tax cut expires.) And at a teleconference sponsored by United for a Fair Economy, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin called on Congress to reinstate a robust estate tax.
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Blog

Choosing the Right Debt Measure

July 21, 2010 |
In an earlier post I explained that when it comes to the nation’s long-term debt problem, what matters is the size of the debt held by the public, not the gross debt, and warned that the President’s deficit commission would go seriously off track if it focused on the wrong measure. The Center issued a new report today that explores this issue in greater depth. Here’s the executive summary:
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Blog

Q & A: The Need for Extending the TANF Emergency Fund

July 20, 2010 | CBPP
In this podcast we’ll discuss the Emergency Fund of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program – also known as TANF. I’m Michelle Bazie and I’m joined by the Director of the Center’s Welfare Reform and Income Support Division, Dr. LaDonna Pavetti.
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Blog

Back in the Black — But Not Out of the Woods

July 20, 2010 |
As states tally up spending and revenues for fiscal year 2010, which ended June 30 in most states, some (such as Virginia and Connecticut) are finding that they ended their year with their budgets in the black. Here’s what those modest “surpluses” mean — and what they don’t.
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Blog

Better Uses for Tax-Cut Dollars

July 19, 2010 |
Former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder makes an excellent suggestion in today’s Wall Street Journal: Congress should let the Bush tax cuts for people earning over $250,000 expire in December and use the savings to pay for jobless benefits and other programs that “put more spending into the economy than the tax hike takes out, thus creating jobs.”
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Blog

In Case You Missed It...

July 16, 2010 | CBPP
This week on Off the Charts, we examined ways to address high levels of unemployment, state budget and tax issues, preventive health care services in health reform, what to do about the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts, and possible improvements to the WIC nutrition program for low-income mothers and children.
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Blog

The Latest on State Budgets

July 16, 2010 |
Most states started their 2011 fiscal year on July 1, and we’ve updated our analysis of the budget shortfalls — that is, the gaps between revenues and spending — that states closed when adopting their budgets. As the map shows, nearly every state faced a shortfall for 2011; in 18 states, the shortfall exceeded a fifth of the state’s spending.
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Blog

An Ounce of Prevention

July 15, 2010 |
Millions of Americans will soon be able to receive preventive health care services free of charge under rules the White House issued yesterday to help implement the health reform law. The new rules will likely mean fewer unnecessary deaths from diseases like cancer and diabetes, reduced spending on costly and avoidable illnesses, and a healthier population overall.
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Blog

Where Have All the Millionaires Gone?

July 15, 2010 |
Several states, including Maryland and New Jersey, have reported a decline in their millionaire population in the past couple of years, and advocates for cutting taxes have been quick to argue that this shows high-income residents are fleeing to other states with lower taxes.
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Blog

Different Charts, Same Picture

July 14, 2010 |
Congress is back in session and will consider extending the parts of last year’s Recovery Act that have provided extra weeks of jobless benefits and aid to cash-strapped states. The graphs below show why it needs to do both.
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