Skip to main content
  • Experts
  • Events
  • Briefing Book
  • Resources
  • About
  • Contact
  • Support
  • Fiscal Facts
Twitter
Facebook
Logo Site
  • Topics
    • Individual Taxes
    • Business Taxes
    • Federal Budget and Economy
    • State and Local Issues
    • Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms
  • TaxVox Blog
  • Research & Commentary
  • Laws & Proposals
  • Model Estimates
  • Statistics
  • Features

You are here

  1. Home
  2. Topics
  3. Federal Budget and Economy

Federal spending

RSS

Primary tasks

  • View(active tab)
  • From TaxVox
  • Research
  • Statistics
  • Experts
From TaxVox

Are Current Hill Tax Plans Enough To Fund A Scaled-Back Climate And Social Spending Bill?

From TaxVox

How Today’s Unsustainable Budget Is Stopping a Marshall Plan for Vaccines

From TaxVox

Searching for Supply-Side Effects of The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

Featured Expert

Donald Marron

Institute Fellow
A Better Way to Budget for Federal Lending Programs
Spending in Disguise
TPC Marriage Calculator

Getting married?

Find out how that will affect your taxes.
Tax calculator

From the Briefing Book

Why are tax expenditures controversial?

December 20, 2015 by tpcwebsite

Q.

Why are tax expenditures controversial?

A.

To some, tax expenditures are spending items that do not belong in the tax code. To others, they are merely a way of reducing taxes, and repealing them would amount to a tax increase.

  • Read more about Why are tax expenditures controversial?

What are the largest tax expenditures?

December 20, 2015 by tpcwebsite

Q.

What are the largest tax expenditures?

A.

Tax expenditures make up a substantial part of the federal budget. Some of them are larger than the entire budgets of the programs or departments that spend money for the same or related purposes. For example, the value of the tax breaks for homeownership, although reduced by the 2017 tax act, still exceeds total spending by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

  • Read more about What are the largest tax expenditures?

How much spending is uncontrollable?

December 20, 2015 by tpcwebsite

Q.

How much spending is uncontrollable?

A.

Technically, lawmakers can control all spending except the interest due on government debts. However, entitlement spending is sometimes said to be uncontrollable for political rather than legal reasons. It can always be controlled legally by reforming programs, but when an entitlement is extremely popular, reform may require more political courage than is readily available. Similar concerns apply to many tax expenditures—tax breaks that function much as spending programs.

  • Read more about How much spending is uncontrollable?

Read All >>

Stay on top of tax policy.

Subscribe to our newsletters today.
Newsletters
  • Donate Today
  • Topics
  • TaxVox Blog
  • Research & Commentary
  • Laws & Proposals
  • Model Estimates
  • Statistics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Newsletters
Twitter
Facebook
  • © Urban Institute, Brookings Institution, and individual authors, 2022.