CongressDaily AM($) picked up a meeting of three former CBO directors who aren't very optimistic about the nation's fiscal health. Pessimistic about Congress' willingness to address looming fiscal shortfalls in federal healthcare and Social Security programs, three former CBO directors said Tuesday the outlook is bleak for heading off the problems.

With the bursting of the real estate bubble and increases in interest rates, access to cheap home equity loans is drying up and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are taking up larger portions of homeowners’ take home pay. As household finances begin tightening, consumers will be increasingly reaching for their credit cards, and not just for big-ticket purchases like plasma TVs, but for more everyday expenses like food and utility bills.

If Congress does not take action soon, nearly 630,000 children may lose their health care. Why? A funding shortfall in a quirky health care program called the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). SCHIP was created in 1997 to shore up Medicaid. It covers children whose families have incomes that exceed Medicaid eligibility levels, but are still struggling to get by. This design has been remarkably successful- the share of low-income children who are uninsured has fallen by one fourth since 1997, despite a decline in employer-provided benefits. Hundreds of thousands of enrolled children may get cut off the program now, though, for two reasons:

In their latest edition of Tax Justice Digest, Citizens for Tax Justice rundown the various tax propositions which appeared around the country on state ballots. CTJ applauds the defeat of a host of dreadful TABOR proposals, estate tax repeals, and a smattering of other awful tax measures, but they also applaud the defeat of cigarette tax increases. But, wait - don’t we want to discourage people from smoking? Now seems like a good time to discuss balancing competing objectives of a just tax code. In this case, the conflict is between degrading tax code progressivity and using the tax code to discourage harmful behavior (harmful not only to the individual who engages in the behavior, but also to those near him or her, and harmful to the economic prosperity of the jurisdiction).