Skip to main content

This page shows a chronological list of all CBPP materials.

Use advanced search and filtering

Pre-2005 Content Archive

Report

Reconciliation Bills Would Increase the Deficit and Favor the Well-Off

Key Findings

  • Taken together, the two planned reconciliation bills — one cutting programs, the other cutting taxes — would increase the deficit by more than $35 billion over five years.
  • Never before has Congress split reconciliation into two separate bills when the overall effect of reconciliation would be to increase deficits, rather than reduce them.
  • The separation into two bills may be intended, in part, to divert attention from the fact that the cuts of almost $35 billion in programs such as Medicaid, Food Stamps, and student loans would be used not to reduce the deficit, but to offset partially the $70 billion in tax cuts.
  • A significant part of the budget cuts would come in programs serving low- and moderate-income Americans, while the benefits of the tax cuts are likely to go overwhelmingly to the best-off taxpayers.
Report

Supplemental Security Income: Supporting People With Disabilities And The Elderly Poor

Supplemental Security Income:

SSI assists people who are aged (age 65 or over), disabled, or blind and who have very low incomes and very limited resources.

In 2005, the SSI benefit for an individual who lives alone and has no other income is $579 a month, or 73 percent of the poverty line. Some states supplement the SSI benefit with an additional payment that brings beneficiaries closer to — or, in a small number of instances, just above — the poverty line.

If an SSI beneficiary receives income from other sources or lives with other people, his or her SSI benefit may be reduced. In 2003, the average SSI benefit received by a person with a disability was about $433 a month. Close to 30 percent of all SSI recipients have no other income and receive the full SSI benefit. Another 35 percent have a small Social Security benefit and receive a modest SSI benefit to supplement that income.

The SSI eligibility criteria are stringent. SSI’s definition of “disability” is the same as that used in Social Security. A person must have a physical or mental impairment that will last at least 12 months or is expected to result in death. In addition, the person must prove that he or she is not able to engage in any “substantial gainful activity” as a result of the impairment.

The definition is stricter than definitions commonly used in private disability insurance. It also is stricter than definitions used in many public employee benefit systems for federal, state, or local employees.

In addition, people with countable assets of more than $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple are ineligible for SSI.

Report

Public Benefits: Easing Poverty and Ensuring Medical Coverage

Key Findings:

Assistance provided through public programs:

  • reduces the number of poor Americans by 27 million people, including 14 million elderly people and nearly 5 million children;
  • reduces the severity of poverty for those who remain poor, by increasing their average disposable income from 29 percent to 57 percent of the poverty line; and
  • reduces the ranks of the uninsured by tens of millions.

 

Report

Risky Business: South Carolina's Medicaid Waiver Proposal

KEY FINDINGS

  • South Carolina’s proposal to replace its Medicaid program with a system of private accounts would reduce health coverage for vulnerable state residents and raise their out-of-pocket health care costs significantly.
  • The funds provided by the state for health care would be particularly inadequate for people with above-average health care needs, such as those with disabilities, chronic diseases, or other serious illnesses.
  • The proposal rests on key untested assumptions, such as the belief that a system of managed care plans and provider networks will rapidly emerge in the state to serve Medicaid beneficiaries.
Report

Private Accounts Would Substantially Increase Federal Debt and Interest Payments

Key Findings

  • All of the private account plans that have been proposed would substantially increase federal debt and interest payments.
  • Despite the increases in debt, none of the private account plans would achieve Social Security solvency without large transfers from the rest of the budget, but the rest of the budget is in deficit and has no surplus resources to transfer.
  • The two Social Security plans that do not include private accounts would reduce, rather than increase, federal debt.
Report

OMB's Mid-Session Review

Key Findings

  • The Administration is overly optimistic in assuming that the recent increase in revenues signifies that revenues in future years, as well, will be substantially higher than earlier projections indicated.
  • An examination of factors behind the recent increase in revenues does not support the notion that the President’s tax cuts are substantially boosting the economy and increasing tax collections.
  • OMB’s estimates of deficit levels for the coming five years appear unrealistically low.
  • The troubling long-term budget outlook has not significantly changed.
Report

In a League of Their Own

The definition of "TABOR"

TABOR is a state tax and expenditure limit that includes the following elements:

  • It is a constitutional amendment
  • It restricts revenue or expenditure growth to the sum of inflation plus population change.
  • It requires voter approval to override the revenue or spending limits
Report

The Food Stamp Program

The Food Stamp Program has been streamlined and modernized and carries new protections against fraud. For many families, food stamps are a work support that provides a bridge from welfare...
Report

Streamlining And Coordinating Benefit Programs' Application Procedures

PROJECT ON PROGRAM SIMPLIFICATION AND COORDINATION

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Project on Program Simplification and Coordination conducts research and analysis on how benefit program rules can be simplified and better integrated across programs.  The project also provides technical assistance to states and policy analysts interested in pursuing simplification and alignment strategies in their states.

The project focuses on the main state-administered benefit programs for families with children — Medicaid, SCHIP, food stamps, TANF, and child care — with a goal of reducing the administrative burden of the programs on both states and low-income families.

This report is part of a series designed to describe how states can streamline their rules and procedures in particular areas.  Future reports will address simplification and alignment issues related to change reporting rules, verification procedures, and income and asset policies.