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Home :  Federal Budget & Tax : 
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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Congress Abandons Fiscal Responsibility

OMB Watch released a statement yesterday afternoon harshly criticizing the Democratically control Congress and the president for abandoning fiscal responsibility in the final hours of 2007 after they entire year was spent adhering to or attempting to adhere to righting our nation's fiscal course. From the statement:

Adding insult to a year of fiscal policy injuries, Congress has abandoned fiscal responsibility by waiving pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules in order to pass a one-year patch to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) without offsets. This tax cut adds another $50 billion to an already expanding deficit next year, and will give fewer options for our children and grandchildren to seek solutions to the problems of tomorrow.

While I expect as much from President Bush, this is a huge disappointment from the new Democratic majority in Congress whose number one promise was to uphold pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules. So much for promises:

This vote is particularly disappointing as Democrats have gone to great lengths this year to comply with PAYGO rules, particularly on spending. From student loan reforms to expansions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program and Food Stamps, Democrats have negotiated the turbulent fiscal waters of the federal budget responsibly, diligently, even courageously. That is why at this point, after all that work and sacrifice, the compromises and the concessions needed to construct balanced solutions to the AMT problem, it is unacceptable for them to abandon their stated principles of fiscal responsibility because they fear Americans will not accept paying up front for the services and benefits the country demands.

As the statement makes clear, there is plenty of blame to go around in Washington for this policy failure. What an awful way to end 2007.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 12:49:17 PM



Monday, December 17, 2007

Congress Close to Deal on Extension of SCHIP?

CQ Today reported ($) this afternoon the Senate is close to a deal on extending SCHIP into 2008. According to the article, a bill is being written to delay cuts taking effect Jan. 1 to Medicare physician pay rates that would include an extension of the SCHIP program. From CQ:

The package also is expected to include a funding extension of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, but it's uncertain for how long. There appeared to be agreement earlier on an extension until 2009, but the Republican aide cautioned that the situation was "fluid."

House Democrats have been pushing to extend SCHIP funding until September 2008, in order to force another debate on what they see as a winning political issue. A extension until 2009 would certainly make the legislation more palatable to Republicans, however.

SCHIP is set to expire this Friday if Congress does not act to extend it further.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 06:26:38 PM



Friday, December 14, 2007

CBO Releases Long-Term Budget Outlook, CBPP Makes Misguided Statement

CBO released its long-term budget outlook yesterday. Here's CBO Director Peter Orszag's testimony and the report itself. Key excerpt:

The rise in health care spending is the largest contributor to the growth projected for federal spending. Therefore, efforts to reduce overall government spending will require potentially painful actions to slow the rise of health care costs. There may be ways, however, in which policymakers can reduce costs without harming the health of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Changing those programs in ways that reduce the growth of costs—which will be difficult, in part because of the complexity of health policy choices—is ultimately the nation's central long-term challenge in setting federal fiscal policy.

You'd think that the fiscal policy community would respond to this message by calling for a redoubled effort into controlling health care costs. But to Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the long-term outlook means that we should focus our efforts on enforcing PAYGO budgeting rules.

Moreover, enforcing Pay-As-You-Go rules — and paying for any tax cuts Congress elects to extend (and any entitlement increases) — is within policymakers' power. In contrast, as CBO explains, we probably won't be able to secure the needed reductions in projected Medicare and Medicaid costs without causing serious harm to low-income and elderly patients unless we can slow cost growth throughout the entire U.S. health care system. And while this is the nation's most important fiscal challenge, there is currently no consensus among health care experts about how to accomplish it; achieving such a consensus and fully implementing the appropriate policies could take years or decades.

Why doesn't he ask to speed this process up? Put more money into research, experiment with incentives, implement what the research has already found, ANYTHING that would actually solve the problem, instead of just keeping it from getting worse. He could be asking Congress to both enforce PAYGO and reduce costs. But he clearly prioritizes PAYGO way over trying to control costs now, I guess because he thinks there's nothing we can do. There's plenty to do.

Plus, waiting around for a consensus seems pretty silly. There's no consensus on what to do about a lot of things- basically everything. And the consensus is often wrong. It wasn't that long ago that there was a consensus that the only way to close the long-term budget gap was to raise taxes and cut benefits.

This attitude won't solve the problem. It's a recipe for a continuation of the status quo. At least Orszag gets that much greater emphasis needs to be put on containing health care costs, because that's the most important problem, and not enough is being done about it. Why doesn't CBPP get that we CAN do something about health care costs now? Am I missing something?



Posted by Matt Lewis, 12:15:13 PM



Thursday, December 13, 2007

Bush Doesn't Care About Uninsured Children

President Bush vetoed the retooled SCHIP expansion yesterday night, all-quiet like, when he thought nobody was looking. Here's the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities take on it.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 12:26:03 PM



USASpending.gov Launched!

OMB has launched their website that will comply with the 2006 Coburn-Obama Federal Funding, Accountability, and Transparency Act (Transparency Act) today. You can visit it at www.usaspending.gov. OMB really needs to be commended for this site, for launching it two weeks before required under the legislation, and for their commitment to transparency.

For those of you who haven't been to the BudgetBlog before or have, but are still sleepy this morning, you might not notice that the government's website looks an awful lot like FedSpending.org, the site we launched in October, 2006. Well, that's because it basically is FedSpending.org, with a few design changes. As the Washington Post reported this morning, OMB Watch licensed FedSpending.org to OMB for use in compliance with the law (btw, the article is a great insight into the collaboration we've had with OMB over the past year). We will continue to operate FedSpending.org and add more advanced features that make the site easier to use and the data easier to understand. And we hope with a solid foundation, OMB will be able to make timely and eventually more accurate data available to the public through USASpending.gov.

Currently, there are difference between the sites. For instance, OMB will have more timely data as they plan to update the site every two weeks with new data (we currently update data twice a year). In addition, the government site does not have features and upgrades added to FedSpending.org in our last version release, including a mapping feature on all searches, creation of a streamlined and powerful SuperSearch for all advanced searching needs, and increased flexibility in getting data more quickly through expandable summary views.

I have been continually surprised and proud of the success of our endevor to make Federal spending information more available and understandable to the public through FedSpending.org. For it to now be the model for the government's efforts to do the same is feels even better.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 10:16:37 AM



Bush, Republicans Get Their Dream Budget

The Democrats will in fact meet Bush's spending limit. They say they'll try to fund their priority programs over Bush's, and may add funding in "emergency" spending. The worst possible scenario is if they do an across-the-board cut, meaning human needs programs will get cut pretty bad. We'll probably know by tomorrow what the plan is.

The Republican's year-long campaign of obstruction is getting results. These results include: 4 million children to go without health care coverage, maintaining a massive tax loophole for some of the wealthiest people in the country, another year of war and occupation, and the yet-undetermined human damage from cuts in cancer research, Head Start, WIC, and whatever else is squeezed. Congrats.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 10:11:15 AM



Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Orszag In The WSJ

CBO Director Peter Orszag editorializes in the Wall Street Journal today on long-term budget problems. It's a great piece. Key excerpts:

The bottom line is that while we need to address the effects of the coming retirement of the baby boomers and the projected imbalance in Social Security, we have to pay even more attention to the health-care costs that exert the dominant influence on our fiscal future. Policy makers will face both challenges and opportunities in trying to reduce these costs...

But it's too soon to conclude that the fiscal picture is hopelessly dismal. There remains the promising possibility of restraining health-care costs without incurring adverse health consequences. It may even be possible in some cases to reduce cost growth and improve health at the same time. Costs per beneficiary in Medicare, for example, vary substantially across the U.S. for reasons that cannot be explained fully by the characteristics of the patients or price levels in different areas.

One thing to look out for is whether congressional leaders or the presidential candidates listen to Orszag. Getting this message in the media seems like a good first step and the best way to challenge the dominant take on the issue, which is epitomized by wretch-inducing Robert Samuelson columns.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 09:44:18 AM



Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The SCHIP Campaign Is Probably Over

It now appears that the SCHIP expansion is sunk. CQ (subscription) is reporting that a one-year extension for SCHIP, with some additional funds to prevent cuts, will be tied to a bill that tweaks Medicare payments. That means a funding increase will have to wait until probably the year after next.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 01:50:20 PM



Thursday, December 06, 2007

Important Farm Bill Vote Tomorrow

A key vote on the Farm Bill, which includes increases in funding for anti-hunger programs, is set for December 7th (tomorrow). The Food Research and Action Center and the Coalition on Human Needs are asking people to call their Senator in support of the increases.

The vote is on whether to filibuster the bill, and it's probably even more important than the vote on whether to actually pass it. We need 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. We need only a majority to pass the bill, and previous votes have shown that there's a clear majority in favor of the bill.

Here are CHN's tips for contacting your Senator:

Message: Hungry people can't wait. The Senate must finish its work on the 2007 Farm Bill and pass a Farm Bill with a strong nutrition title as soon as possible in December.

Toll-free line: Use a toll-free line to the U.S. Capitol (1-800-826-9624) that has been made available by AARP while the Senate Farm Bill is pending. (You will hear a short message about the nutrition title before being transferred to an office). Or call your Senators via the Capitol switchboard (202-224-3121).

What's at Stake: The House approved its Farm Bill (H.R. 2419) on July 27th. That bill provides $4.2 billion in new five-year funding for nutrition programs, mainly for food stamps and TEFAP. For food stamps, H.R. 2419, among other things, would raise the minimum benefit, increase the standard deduction, more fully reflect a food stamp household's expenditures on child care, not count extra combat pay against military families, and allow food stamp households to have more in savings and still be program eligible -- by excluding education savings and retirement accounts and starting to index the $2,000 and $3,000 asset limits applicable to most households and households with elderly and disabled members, respectively. H.R. 2419 also provides $250 million per year and then indexes that amount for TEFAP commodity purchases.

The Senate Agriculture Committee voted out its Farm Bill on October 25th, with $4.3 billion in new five-year funding for nutrition programs (of which $3.2 billion would support improvements in Food Stamp Program benefits and accessibility and TEFAP commodity purchases). On November 1st, Senate Agriculture Committee leaders announced a bipartisan agreement to take more than $1 billion in offsets approved in another part of the bill to further strengthen the Food Stamp minimum benefit and asset tests and to increase TEFAP funding. In addition to the asset rule changes contained in H.R. 2419, the Senate bill would increase asset limits from $2,000 and $3,000 to $3,500 and $4,500, respectively. Several pending amendments would build on those provisions, including a boost in the minimum benefit to a more meaningful level.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 03:23:44 PM



CBO Director Peter Orszag Has A Blog

Check it out. Hopefully this means that we can outsource posts on say, Robert Samuelson's disgusting and wrong column on health care policy?

The Samuelson column really is awful, and if Orszag lays into it publicly, perhaps Samuelson will lose so much credibility that he'll shut up. If you do read it, remember that the central problem with health care is not overspending, but price, i.e. we're buying stuff that isn't worth the price we're paying.

Posted by Matt Lewis, 11:48:26 AM



Monday, December 03, 2007

SCHIP Revision To Be Sent To President

It looks as though Congress will send the SCHIP revision to the President after all. He will veto it and Congress probably won't have enough votes to override the veto. So I wouldn't get my hopes up.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 10:44:21 AM




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