budget
194 pieces tagged “budget”, newest first.
Policy Riders in the Sky...
If there's anyone busier than Santa, it's Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.). As Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, it's up to him to make sure the government's stockings get stuffed for next year. That means another working weekend for he and the budget negotiators, who've been plodding through hundreds of pages of spending legislation before its release next week.
Finding Riders for This Omnibus
When the House and Senate fly back from Thanksgiving, they'll get to work carving up something else: the federal budget. Although some of the heavy lifting is out of the way with last month's two-year budget deal, GOP leaders have a big job to do before having themselves a merry little Christmas.
Guns, Butter and Budgetary Baloney
There's no choosing between guns and butter in Washington. With virtually no limit on what the federal government can spend other people's money on, policymakers have been loading up on both for decades, and they aren't about to let limits that they themselves created get in the way. The pesky budget caps that were accidentally installed in 2011 put a modest brake on spending, but the recent passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 increased allowable funding under those caps — for the second time. And sure enough, the deal promises more guns and more butter.
Budgeting in Wonderland
One need not be intricately familiar with the tale of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to appreciate that the federal budget process has similarly become an alternate reality replete with sketchy characters, peril and the absurd. In the latest trip down the Beltway rabbit hole, a Republican-led Congress relied on Democratic votes to produce a two-year budget agreement that removed the limit on Uncle Sam's credit card and increased spending now in exchange for offsetting spending cuts and revenue increases that will mostly occur 10 years from now. Well, that's if future Congresses stick to the offsets.
A Near-Debt Experience
America's debt problems are enough to keep people up at night — and [Thursday], they did! While the rest of the country was counting sheep, Congress was counting votes on a controversial budget deal that finally passed in the wee hours of Friday morning. At 3:12 a.m., with the government's credit completely maxed out, the Senate gave its approval to a deal that John Boehner hatched as one of his last acts as speaker.
Paul Ryan Starts Off on Wrong Foot With Budget Deal
Grass-roots conservatives have many unrealistic expectations and political objectives. And then sometimes they have a good point. The new budget deal arranged by John Boehner and Democrats — approving $50 billion of additional spending in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017 — will be split between domestic discretionary programs and defense. Cuts will supposedly take effect in 2025, by which time this deal is likely to be buried under a dozen budget debates and a trillion dollars of bad memories for fiscal conservatives.
Lame Ducks, Lame Deal: The Boehner-Obama Budget Plan
When I had just started to raise a family, and I struggled to make my small business turn a profit, I had to make decisions about what bills to pay based on priorities and due dates. Sometimes, the struggle to balance the checkbook would be a painful one, and we had to do without some things as "luxuries" — even if we hadn't considered them luxuries before.
This Is the Worst Budget Deal GOP Has Negotiated Since George H.W. Bush Violated No New Taxes Pledge
Halloween is looking especially scary this year. On Monday, Republican leaders in Congress declared an unconditional fiscal surrender to President Barack Obama and the left, negotiating a dangerous budget deal that eliminates all of the checks on Washington's spend-and-borrow binge by breaking the budget caps, ending the sequester and raising the debt ceiling by over $1 trillion.
Tea Party Wave Left a Ripple Effect Still Felt in Budget
Remember the much-maligned Tea Party movement? These were the patriotic Americans — millions of them — who took to the streets and the town halls across America and revolted against Bush's corporate bailouts, Obama's stimulus spending blowout and Obamacare, and the Fed's policy of tossing trillions of dollars out of helicopter windows (figuratively). Good news: They helped change and maybe even slightly fix America. The latest budget deficit numbers — for the fiscal year that just ended — find that the deficit has fallen by $1 trillion since Obama's tragic first term. The deficit is still near half a trillion, but the hole is a lot smaller than it was before the Tea Party's spontaneous combustion happened back in 2009.