Budget

Why the Deficit Outlook Could Be Even Worse Than It Seems

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Congressional Budget Office warned earlier this month that the U.S. will start running $1 trillion deficits in 2020, and that the national debt will be nearly as large as the economy in a decade...
Why Republicans Won’t Even Try to Pass a Budget for 2019

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Budget expert Stan Collender at Forbes slams Republicans for not even attempting to pass a budget for the fiscal year that starts October 1. “The House and Senate Budget Committees only have one job...
Deficit Owls Say You Shouldn’t Give a Hoot About $1 Trillion Budget Shortfall

By Yuval Rosenberg

As warnings rise about the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that the federal budget deficit is on pace to top $1 trillion in 2020, The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein on Friday highlighted a...
How Congress Cheats with Our Money — and How We Can Stop It

By Marc Goldwein and Zach Moller

The U.S. is on course to top its record debt levels set after World War II, and permanent trillion-dollar deficits — meaning, forever — are likely to return within two years . And unlike after World...
Will Work for Food? Republicans Push Stricter Rules for SNAP

By Michael Rainey

Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps, is provided in the farm bill, a massive spending and regulatory package Congress passes every...

April Is Financial Literacy Month. Someone Tell Congress.

By Joseph J. Minarik and Caroline L. Ferguson

February is Black History Month, March is National Women’s Month, and April? Well, it’s Financial Literacy Month, of course! The U.S. government gave financial literacy its own month in 2003. April...
Why All the Warnings About Unsustainable National Debt Could Be Wrong

By Michael Rainey

International economists are warning about rising global debt levels and deficit hawks in Washington are increasingly worried about what they see as unsustainable debt levels in the U.S., but a new...
The US Has an Exceptional Debt Outlook – and Not in a Good Way

By Michael Rainey

The International Money Fund’s latest global fiscal survey warns that in five years, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than Italy’s, a nation not generally known for its exemplary fiscal...
Why More School Districts Are Holding Class Just Four Days a Week

By Sophie Quinton, Stateline

The public school in Campo, Colorado, hasn’t required all its students to come to class on Fridays for nearly two decades. The 44-student district dropped a weekday to boost attendance and better...
When the Budget Won’t Balance, Just Get Rid of the Budget Committee?

By Michael Rainey

It may sound like a joke — Erik Sherman of Forbes said it seemed like something “from The Onion or Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker, only with less humor and pith” — but Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), chair...

Cost of War in Syria Is Rising

By Michael Rainey

President Trump said last week that he wanted to remove U.S. troops from Syria as soon as possible, but resistance from the Pentagon apparently changed his mind, and new reports that Syrian forces...
How Tax Cuts Are Influencing Teacher Strikes

By Michael Rainey

Thousands of public school teachers in Oklahoma entered the 10 th day of their strike on Wednesday, part of a wave of labor protests by educators around the country. West Virginia teachers went on...
Paul Ryan's Fiscal Legacy: Lots of Red Ink

By Yuval Rosenberg

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Wednesday that he won’t seek re-election this year and will retire at the end of his term in January, becoming the most prominent in a wave of Republican lawmakers...
Why Almost No One Is Happy About This Week's Balanced Budget Amendment Vote

By Yuval Rosenberg

The House is set to consider a Balanced Budget Amendment on Thursday, but the vote looks like an empty messaging exercise at best — The Washington Post’s Tory Newmyer called it a pantomime of fiscal...
Yellen, Democratic Economists Say Fixing Debt Crisis Isn’t All About Entitlements

By Yuval Rosenberg

Late last month, a quintet of big-name Hoover Institution economists warned in a Washington Post op-ed that a coming “string of perpetually rising trillion-dollar-plus deficits” could soon lead to a...