The Long-Run Budget Squeeze and the Short-Run Race to November

First Tuesday Forum

June 1, 2004
Urban Institute
2100 M Street, NW
12:00-1:30 p.m.

Sixth in the Urban Institute's First Tuesday Series Examining Key Election Issues

Panelists:

• Howard Gleckman, senior correspondent, Business Week (moderator)
• Nancy Belden, senior partner, Belden Russonello & Stewart and president, American Association of Public Opinion Research
• Karlyn Bowman, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute and columnist, Roll Call
• Rudolph Penner, senior fellow, Urban Institute
• Eugene Steuerle, senior fellow, Urban Institute

The 2004 First Tuesday series continued with a timely look at a tough topic: "the perfect budget storm." Almost half of all federal spending apart from defense and interest goes to people 65 and over. If scheduled entitlements, tax cuts, and defense spending are maintained, by 2011 no revenues will be left for other domestic programs, particularly those affecting families and children. Researchers provided the hard facts needed to size up policy options and public opinion experts explained how domestic spending issues are being weighed--or ignored--by the electorate as November 2 nears.