On July 1, student loan rates doubled because Congress failed to agree on legislation to avert the scheduled increase. After a month of proposals and counter-proposals, Congress enacted a solution. Read More »
Policymakers could stabilize the debt (so it stops rising as a percent of the economy) over the latter part of the decade with about $900 billion in further deficit savings, according to the Center’s updated calculations, which are based on the new, more optimistic budget projections the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released in May. Read More »
The House was unable to pass a farm bill with a nutrition title because the $20 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food stamps) approved by the House Agriculture Committee was not deep enough for some of the most right-wing members. Now, the House leadership is reported to have crafted a new stand-alone bill including massive SNAP cuts – doubling the cuts to $40 billion, with 4 million more people losing SNAP and millions more seeing their benefits reduced. Read More »
On July 31, The House Budget Committee held a hearing anticipating the 50 year anniversary of the War on Poverty – the beginnings of Head Start, college prep programs, Work Study, and other programs for youth, and community action programs to seek community-wide economic development. Read More »
Policymakers have made substantial progress in recent years in “making work pay” for low-income families with children by strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit. But low-income workers not raising minor children receive little or nothing from the EITC; for example, a childless adult working full time at the minimum wage is ineligible, because his earnings exceed the income limit for the very limited credit for workers not raising minor children. As a result, childless workers are the sole group that the federal tax system taxes deeper into poverty. Read More »
The last major comprehensive federal tax reform legislation was passed in 1986. Since then, the federal tax code has been filled with changes making it more complicated and, for individuals and corporations who can afford tax lawyers, easier to find legal ways to avoid paying taxes. Chairmen of both the House and Senate tax-writing committees say they are preparing to introduce major tax reform bills this year. Both chairmen are determined to forward legislation during their remaining time in the driver’s seat – at the end of 2014 Senator Baucus will retire and Representative Camp’s tenure as Ways and Means chairman will end. Enacting reform will be a heavy lift, and advocates are concerned about the nature of tax reform under their leadership. Read More »
It looks like we’ve moved to talking about possible scandals just in time, because according to the Congressional Budget Office, the debt disaster that has obsessed the political class for the last three years is pretty much solved, at least for the next 10 years or so. The last time the CBO estimated our future deficits was February– just four short months ago. Back then, the CBO thought deficits were falling and health-care costs were slowing. Today, the CBO thinks deficits are falling even faster and health-care costs are slowing by even more. Read More »
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Latest Edition: August 7, 2013
Read articles from the August 7th edition, including pieces on appropriations, tax policy, immigration reform, student loan debt, and the recent War on Poverty hearing in the House. Read More »
