The Administration appears to have noticeably overstated the deficit for the current year, 2004, just as it overstated the 2003 deficit last July.In issuing its mid-session budget...

Administration officials have raised concerns that the Section 8 housing voucher program, the nation’s principal low-income housing assistance program, has grown excessively in recent years. They...

“[C]onservatives have complained about the 31.5 percent growth in discretionary spending since Bush took office. [1] …the conservative Heritage Foundation's analyst said that...

With the ending of the federal Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation (TEUC) program, jobless workers whose regular, state-funded unemployment insurance benefits run out before they can...

In recent weeks, a number of newspapers have reported on growing discontent among conservatives who charge that federal spending in general — and domestic spending in particular — are...

The President recently signed the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004. Debate over this legislation has been accompanied by charges that appropriations in general — and...

Key Findings:

• Recent families that have left welfare are less likely to have jobs than prior TANF “leavers".
• Poverty rates among families that leave TANF are very high and remain high over time.
• Families that lose TANF cash assistance because of sanctions or time limits are more likely to experience hardship than families that leave for other reasons (such as getting a job).
• Many families receiving TANF include members who are disabled or have other serious health problems that have a negative impact on their employment and earnings.
• Half of the very poor families with children who are eligible for TANF assistance do not receive it. The share of very poor families who do not receive TANF is increasing.
• The expansion of child care assistance programs in the last half of the 1990s increased employment and full-time work among former TANF recipients.
• Provisions in the 1996 welfare law that made many legal immigrants ineligible for various public benefits have led to increased hardship among immigrant families.

Nearly one in three non-institutionalized people enrolled in Medicare, or about 10 million people who are elderly or disabled Medicare beneficiaries, have incomes below 150 percent of the federal...

SummaryThe Governor’s proposal to expand the base of Iowa’s sales tax to include more business and professional services has drawn fire from some who claim that the expansion would harm...

In his State of the Union address, the President announced his intention to propose to make permanent a range of tax cuts that are scheduled to expire by the end of 2010. Last year’s budget...

Key Findings:

In 2004, as a share of the economy:

• Federal revenues will fall to their lowest level since 1950, during the Truman Administration.
• Federal spending will be lower than in every year from 1975 through 1996 (and thus will be lower than throughout the administrations of Presidents Carter and Reagan and the first President Bush).

In explaining the shift from a large surplus in 2000 to a large deficit in 2004, the drop in revenues since 2000 accounts for more than three times as much of the fiscal deterioration as the increase in expenditures.

The new Congressional Budget Office budget projections show deficits of $1.9 trillion over the next ten years, fiscal years 2005 – 2014. As CBO has acknowledged, however, the baseline...

A new Center report, The President’s Proposal to Make Tax Cuts Permanent, examines the proposal in the President’s State of the Union address to make permanent a...

This paper is part of an on-going project at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to encourage improved coordination amongst the major state-administered low-income benefit programs.  The...

Summary States have been in the midst of the most severe state budget crisis in recent memory. This past year, state legislatures adopted changes to close state budget gaps totaling $78 billion...

SummaryA weak economy, new tax breaks, and aggressive tax sheltering have pushed corporate income tax receipts down to historically low levels, both relative to the size of the economy and as a...

A new Center report, The Decline of Corporate Income Tax Revenues, provides context for the debate over corporate tax-cut legislation now before Congress.It shows that corporate...

Issued Jointly With A Fiscal Crisis A fiscal crisis is developing in the United States, and the risks of inaction are high. Without a change in current policies, the federal...

Issued Jointly With   On September 29, 2003, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities joined with the Committee for Economic Development and the Concord Coalition for a press...

Developed Jointly WithThe Bush Administration’s fiscal year 2004 budget proposal appears to provide a modest amount of funding to help states meet Medicaid costs during this time of state...

A PDF of this report is available...

The 2001 federal tax legislation includes a phaseout of the federal estate tax, culminating in full repeal in 2010. On a much faster track, the legislation repealed over four years...

The House welfare reauthorization bill (H.R. 240) contains a proposal to allow five states to elect a food stamp block grant in lieu of the regular federal Food Stamp Program. A block grant,...

Developed Jointly WithThe Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 replaced the nation's basic cash assistance program for poor families with the Temporary...

Developed Jointly With   Until passage of the 1996 welfare law, legal immigrants were generally eligible for public benefits on the same basis as citizens. The welfare law conditioned...

Developed Jointly WithA significant number of current and former TANF recipients have various barriers to finding and maintaining employment. Among the most common barriers are physical...

Developed Jointly WithThe debate over TANF's role in strengthening families and promoting marriage may be among the liveliest of the reauthorization debates. It coincides with the...

Developed Jointly WithExecutive SummaryState fiscal conditions, already in decline prior to the September 11 attacks, are rapidly approaching a state of crisis. According to the National ...

 September 9, 2001State Responses to Tight Fiscal ConditionsShort-Term Fixes May Backfire if the Economy Does Not Soon Recover; Cyclical Downturn Masks Structural Problems...

Executive SummaryThe Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program is an employment and savings incentive program for low-income families that have Section 8 vouchers or live in public housing. The...

Under the proposed renters’ credit, states would have the option to use their credit authority for tenant-based credits, credits allocated through banks that lend to rental owners, or project-based...