Recently in Budget – United States Category

Source: Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 2010

From the summary:
The Great Recession has left tens of millions of families facing unemployment, underemployment and the threat of losing their home. However, concerns over the deficit threaten to derail efforts to turn around the economy and spur employment. This report attempts to correct many of the misperceptions about the deficit that have brought the issue to the center of national debate. In a time when cogent, effective policies are needed to address the suffering stemming from the economic downturn, the tactics of the deficit hawks distract the public and policy makers from the policies necessary to bring the economy back to full employment.
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Source: New America Foundation, Federal Education Budget Project, Issue Brief, February 2010

The president's 2011 budget request marks the second time the Obama administration has submitted funding recommendations for every federal education program and a comprehensive list of new education policy initiatives. The administration has proposed a $49.7 billion budget for education programs subject to the annual appropriations process (excluding Pell Grants), up from $46.2 billion in fiscal year 2010. This issue brief provides a summary and analysis of the president's fiscal year 2011 education budget request.

Source: Office of Management and Budget, February 2010

Issued by the Office of Management and Budget, the Budget of the United States Government is a collection of documents that contains the budget message of the President, information about the President's budget proposals for a given fiscal year, and other budgetary publications that have been issued throughout the fiscal year. Other related and supporting budget publications, such as the Economic Report of the President, are included, which may vary from year to year.

Source: Jason Delisle, New America Foundation, December 2009

From the summary:
Congress completed the fiscal year 2010 appropriations process on Dec. 13, 2009, finalizing annual funding for nearly all federal education programs through September 2010 at $63.7 billion, up $1.1 billion from the prior year, excluding economic stimulus funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Making sense of the federal education budget and the appropriations process can be a frustrating task for education advocates, state and local policymakers, the media, and the public. The now concluded fiscal year 2010 appropriations process is no exception.

This issue brief is intended to be a helpful guide to the appropriations process and recently enacted fiscal year 2010 education funding. It includes an analysis of funding for major education programs and a timeline of the 2010 appropriations process. It also includes exclusive tables comparing 2010 funding to prior years, the president's budget request, and funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Source: Richard Auxier, Pew Research Center, November 12, 2009

Americans are famous both for being weight conscious, and at the same time unable to come to terms successfully with their bloated waistlines. The same paradox has applied to how the public looks at budget deficits for a very long time.

Source: Kris Cox, Kathy Ruffing, James R. Horney, and Paul N. Van de Water, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 30, 2009

From the summary:
For a number of years, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has projected the long-term path of federal spending, revenues, deficits, and debt if current policies remain unchanged. These projections have shown that deficits and debt will grow in coming decades to unprecedented levels that will not only compromise the federal government's ability to address critical national priorities, but also pose a real threat to the U.S. economy and Americans' standard of living.

Thus, while it is imperative that we avoid undercutting ongoing efforts to spur a recovery from what is in many respects the worst recession since the 1930s, it is vital that policymakers begin as soon as possible to take the steps needed to raise revenues and slow spending growth when the economy recovers in order to put the budget on a sustainable path. They can -- and must -- do this in a way that also maintains policies that meet crucial national needs and that avoids further increasing poverty and inequality.

Source: Rosa Maria Castaneda, Olivia Golden, Urban Institute, August 8, 2009

From the abstract:
This report summarizes the roundtable "Infants and Toddlers in State and Federal Budgets: Yesterday's Choices, Today's Decisions, Tomorrow's Options" conducted by the Urban Institute, with support from the A.L. Mailman Family Foundation, on March 30, 2009. The roundtable's focus grew out of the widely perceived mismatch between sharply limited public investments on infants and toddlers and an accumulated body of research demonstrating the significance of the earliest years of life. We describe the group's diverse perspectives and wide-ranging discussion of strategies to address this mismatch.

Source: Congressional Budget Office, June 16, 2009

Because the Congress is now considering major legislation affecting health care and health insurance, the possible effects on the federal budget have received significant attention. To elucidate those effects, this analysis examines the budget outlook under current law; the likely budgetary effect of efforts to expand the scope of insurance coverage; the potential for reducing health care spending; the likely impact of specific changes in the health system; and mechanisms for engendering efficiency gains in health care over time.

Source: Fiscal Seminar Group, Brookings Institution, June 2009

From the summary:
The United States is facing a looming fiscal imbalance brought on by the aging of the population and rapidly rising health care costs. And while the credit crisis and recession are understandably of top concern to policymakers at the moment, the long-run fiscal outlook, seemingly deteriorating further day by day, cannot be ignored.

Unfortunately, the current political environment creates strong disincentives for individual politicians to tackle the tough choices required to put our fiscal house back in order. An appointed commission could offer an alternative mechanism through which to address these thorny but critical issues by undertaking the heavy lifting of developing options and building the political consensus necessary to enact legislation. As evidence of the popularity of this idea, over a dozen bills were introduced in the 110th Congress that would have created commissions to find politically and fiscally acceptable solutions for reforming entitlements, taxes, the budgeting process, or some combination of the three. This paper reviews some of the recent history of appointed commissions and discusses the issues surrounding their potential role in long-term federal budgeting.

Source: Congressional Budget Office, Economic and Budget Issue Brief, May 27, 2009

The Congress is currently considering various approaches for instituting major changes in the nation's system of health insurance. Some of those proposals would significantly expand the federal government's role in that system, thus raising the question of how such changes might be reflected in the federal budget. This brief describes the approach that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will take in judging the appropriate budgetary treatment.

In determining the budgetary treatment of a new program, CBO considers how similar existing programs appear in the budget and how the basic principles that underlie federal budgeting may apply. The most straightforward situation is one in which money flows through a federal agency or some entity acting on behalf of a federal agency. In those cases, the cash flows generally appear in the federal budget. But the major changes being contemplated for the nation's health insurance market are quite different from existing federal programs. Many of those changes would involve a mix of governmental activities and private transactions that have some similarities to other programs but are also different in significant ways. In addition, the scope of the changes and the amounts of money involved are substantial; even if there was a clear parallel in an existing but much smaller program, the budgetary treatment of health care legislation would nevertheless merit careful consideration.