It's been an exceptional year. 2008 saw not only economic indicators that evoked memories of the Great Depression, but also a record-breaking federal budget deficit. The federal government, through several agencies, activated trillions of dollars in loans and asset guarantees. Congress approved the largest supplemental spending bill in its history and gave the Treasury Department the authority to expend the equivalent of three-fourths of the federal discretionary budget on one sector of the economy. But in many other ways, Congress proved to be unremarkable by staying true to its recent history of underachievement. While the national economic crisis drew the attention of Congress, prompting historic legislative action, the nation's lawmakers followed 2007's legislative blueprint in several key respects. Similar to 2007, Congress failed to adhere to the regular budget-making process and instead relied on a continuing resolution to fund the operations of the government for another six months. It once again used the emergency funding process to pay for wars that have lasted for more than six years and raised the national debt ceiling yet again. And Congress, like in 2007, waited until the absolute last minute to pass a package of expiring tax provisions.

Unlike Congress, OMB Watch's Federal Fiscal Policy Program is trying something completely different for the 2008 Year in Review Watcher. When we sat down to discuss what happened in 2008, we decided that instead of merely writing summaries of our Watcher articles and blog posts from this past year, we would invite you to virtually sit down with us and listen in on our conversation. We now present to you a series of three videos, available on YouTube, in which we discuss the events of the year in fiscal policy — 2008.

In the first video, we discuss the economy, fiscal stimulus, and the Frank-Dodd housing bill.

In Part II, we talk about the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), other federal bailouts, the budget process, and tax policy.

In the last segment, we discuss the federal budget deficit, the national debt, and federal contracting.