Federal Budget Policy | Center for Effective Government

More Budget Deficit Estimates Released

FY 2002 Appropriations Update Congress completed its work on the last 3 FY 2002 appropriations bills (Defense, Foreign Operations, and Labor-HHS-Education) on December 21 and the President is expected to sign all three of them and bring the appropriations season to an official completion. According to usbudget.com, the bills are being readied for the President's signature and he is expected to sign them on January 10, when the Continuing Resolution - passed on December 20 - expires. Though estimates by Democrats and Republicans of the size of the deficits differ, and will continue to grow substantially depending on the amount of additional homeland security and defense spending approved this year, both sides agree that the deficit will likely be at least $15 billion -- the Democrats are predicting it could be as large as $70 billion.

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New Priorities and Future Tax Cuts

Kennedy, Daschle and their Republican counterparts have made clear over the last 4 months that the nation is now facing new problems (on top of existing problems) and we cannot afford a debate over semantics. Instead, we must address the problems laid out by Daschle and Kennedy over the last 2 weeks and by the President in his State of the Union address next week.

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The Role of Government Performance in the FY 2003 Budget

As we have said before, if improving government performance is limited to threatening agencies with cuts, rather than working together with Congress and the Administration to truly make government more effective and useful to citizens, we can't expect much good to come from this new attempt at improving government.

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Table: FY 2002-03 Percentage Growth in Discretionary Budget Authority

Note: Many of the increases noted in the table below are due to programs specifically concerned with the President's $37.7 billion Homeland Security budget. For a more-detailed analysis of the components of the Homeland Security and other agency budgets, please see the OMB Watch website for other analyses.

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Amendment To Permanently Repeal Estate Tax

Demise of economic stimulus package brings end to efforts to make estate tax repeal permanent -- for now, at least.

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Whatever It Takes!

Wouldn't it be great if we could resolve to do whatever it takes so that everyone who works can afford shelter and food, or to clean up the nation's water and air, or make sure no child goes to bed hungry -- just as we've resolved to do whatever it takes to fight the war on terrorism?

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The Bush Budget: Reagan Redux

OMB Watch will continue to analyze the President's FY 2003 Budget. Please see the OMB Watch website over the next week for further analyses of homeland security spending, cuts to human needs spending, and spending increases on future tax cuts. The President's Budget is now online. The Washington Post has provided an agency-by-agency overview of the President's proposed spending increases and cuts.

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SII Project Summary

The Social Investment Initiative (SII) is based on the premise that a discussion of federal budget priorities must begin at the state and local level. Following is a short description of the project. Project Summary The Social Investment Initiative (SII) is a two-year planning and action project to put into place initial steps that will build the foundation for a longer-term effort to address domestic priorities.

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