TaxVox: Federal Budget and Economy

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The voices of Tax Policy Center's researchers and staff

Federal Budget and Economy

Fiscal State of the Union

October 1, 2010 –
The President shall, by the first Tuesday in October, address a joint session of Congress on the Fiscal State of the Union. Those words are...
Federal Budget and Economy

How Not to Create New Jobs

September 28, 2010 –
It is a good thing the “Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act ,” which died in the Senate today, was never supposed to pass...
Federal Budget and Economy

The GOP Pledge: Smaller Government, Bigger Deficits

September 23, 2010 –
Now it is official. Neither Democrats nor Republicans will run in 2010 on a serious platform to address the budget deficit . We knew the...
Federal Budget and Economy

Mitch McConnell, the Bush Tax Cuts, and the Future of Government

September 16, 2010 –
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to permanently extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts. He’s also rejected even modest efforts by President Obama...
Federal Budget and Economy

In the Tea Party Free Zone: A Serious Debate on the Budget Deficit

September 14, 2010 –
America ’s long-term fiscal challenge will drive the nation’s domestic policy for years to come. But in an age of partisan noise and name-calling, it...
Individual Taxes

Obama’s Business Tax Cuts

September 7, 2010 –
With the economy stalled and his party’s November electoral chances sagging, President Obama is rolling out a new plan to boost growth—a mix of infrastructure...
Individual Taxes

Talk of the Homebuyer Credit: It’s Baaaack

September 2, 2010 –
Please tell me it isn’t true: Washington is buzzing with talk of Homebuyer Tax Credit III. Like the killers in those really bad slasher movies,...
Federal Budget and Economy

Save the Making Work Pay Tax Credit but Narrow It

August 25, 2010 –
While Washington seems obsessed with the fate of the Bush tax cuts, it has paid little attention to a soon-to-expire Obama tax cut: the Making Work Pay credit (MWP). Like the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, this credit, which was enacted as part of the 2009 stimulus, is also scheduled to expire at the end of this year. President Obama has proposed extending it through 2011. But Congress has been largely silent about what it plans to do, in part because extending the credit for another year would reduce federal revenues by more than $60 billion
Federal Budget and Economy

Between a Fiscal Rock and a Hard Place

August 19, 2010 –
The Congressional Budget Office’s annual mid-session update provides some striking evidence of just how challenging today’s fiscal environment is. Because deficits were so high going into the economic slump, and because the financial crash was so steep, Washington must now navigate between two unacceptable outcomes: tight fiscal policy and slower growth now, or bigger deficits and slower growth later.
Federal Budget and Economy

Starving the Beast or Free Lunch?

July 22, 2010 –
Senator John Kyl’s (R-AZ) recent insistance that tax cuts should “never” be offset with tax increases got me thinking about the governing philosophy behind this argument. In part, it is based on the idea that tax cuts are always good for the economy while tax increases are always bad. I’ll leave that one for another day, and instead focus on a second premise: The best way to cut government spending is to cut revenues.