Hang Together or Hang Separately: The Battle Against Austerity
May 7, 2013
Sequestration's automatic spending cuts were back in the news over the past few weeks. For a brief time, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had to furlough employees, leading to nationwide flight delays. At roughly the same time, a researcher exposed major flaws in one of the key texts serving as an intellectual buttress to global austerity policies. While those fighting against economically damaging austerity measures received a boost from these events, many fiscal policy battles and pitfalls still lie ahead.
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Sequestering Meals on Wheels Could Cost the Nation $489 Million per Year
Apr 30, 2013
Sequestering Meals on Wheels funds could cost taxpayers far more than it saves. While across-the-board spending cuts that began March 1, called sequestration, are expected to reduce spending on Meals on Wheels programs this year by an estimated $10 million, these savings will dwarfed by at least $489 million per year in increased spending on Medicaid, both this year and in each subsequent year that sequestration remains in place.
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How Do Giant Corporations Get Away with "Legal" Tax Cheating?
Apr 9, 2013
See how multinational corporations lobby to write their own tax laws. From We're Not Broke, the story of U.S. corporations dodging billions of dollars in income tax, and how seven fed-up Americans take their frustration to the streets ... and vow to make the corporations pay their fair share.
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House Budget Plans Do Not Reflect Americans' Views on Public Investments
Apr 8, 2013
Sequestration's automatic cuts to federal spending are beginning to sting in communities across the country, and two of the four major congressional budget plans put forth this year are at odds with public opinion on specific areas of public investments, according to a Center for Effective Government analysis. As the Pew Research Center found in a pre-sequestration poll in February, most Americans say they support maintaining or increasing funding for specific federal programs, including education, Social Security, and Medicare.
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Battle Lines Await an (Unlikely) Budgetary "Grand Bargain"
Mar 25, 2013
With Congress and the Obama administration still divided over tax revenues, the possibility of a "grand bargain" on another major deficit reduction package seems increasingly small.
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Undoing Sequestration
Mar 12, 2013
Across-the-board federal spending cuts, called "sequestration," have begun. What can be done to undo this damaging budget policy? One of the primary barriers to fixing sequestration is that it is playing out much like the metaphor of a boiling frog. According to the metaphor, if a frog is placed in a pan of boiling water, it will quickly jump out. But if it is placed in a pan of water that is room temperature, and then only slowly heated to a boil, the frog will not notice the danger and will be slowly cooked to death.
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Sequestration Standoff
Feb 26, 2013
As March 1 approaches, across-the-board federal spending cuts, called sequestration, appear almost certain to occur. Republicans and Democrats are not negotiating to resolve the looming crisis. Neither seems sufficiently motivated to compromise.
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Passing Over the "Fiscal Cliff" in Early 2013 Seems Increasingly Likely
Oct 10, 2012
While the outcome of the 2012 election will still ultimately decide next steps on the federal budget, a status-quo election that leaves Democrats in control of the presidency and Republicans in control of the House of Representatives seems likely to produce a budget stalemate that will last through the rest of the year and will trigger a "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases in the new year.
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New Senate Bill Would Advance Spending Transparency
Sep 25, 2012
The latest offering from the Senate on federal spending transparency is far less ambitious that its House counterpart, but if enacted, it would be a big win for transparency and accountability. There would still be some areas of spending transparency to be addressed in future legislation, but if the Senate's version of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) becomes law, the public will have a clearer picture of federal spending and new tools for accountability.
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Automatic Defense Cuts No Threat to National Security
Aug 14, 2012
Unless Congress acts to undo the $110 billion in automatic, across-the-board spending cuts scheduled to take effect early next year, most federal programs will be cut by about eight percent. These cuts are the unfortunate product of crisis budgeting and will have deleterious impacts on many Americans, but harm to national defense won't be one of them.
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