At first look, the budget unveiled today by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) advances much-needed reforms and importantly accomplishes the crucial goal of balancing the budget within the decade, though this is partially on the coattails of Obama’s tax increases. Not a silver bullet, it is more …
Sequestration has taken effect, and yet government spending continues growing. Sequestration’s 2.4 percent reductions are not enough to fix Washington’s spending and debt problem because they do nothing to reform entitlement programs, whose costs will grow rapidly with America’s aging population. As more Americans age and retire, more Americans will …
Federal spending will explode from $3.6 trillion to $6 trillion over the next 10 years, but the much-maligned sequester will cut only 2.4 percent of this spending. Sequestration represents a relatively small cut in projected spending. So why are so many in Washington wringing their hands over a two-and-a-half percent …
As Members of Congress left town last week for the Presidents’ Day break, a refreshing and commendable sentiment followed them: nostalgia for the “regular order” of lawmaking. “Tired of watching as flailing leadership negotiations fail to produce any key legislation,” wrote The Washington Post, “senior lawmakers hope that a return …
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, former co-chairs of the 2010 White House deficit-reduction panel whose plan failed, released an outline for a new proposal on their own today. A Bipartisan Path Forward to Securing America’s Future lacks any significant details but does include a $600 billion tax increase in addition …
The National Small Business Association’s economic report finds, “The growing national debt is the number one thing small businesses thin[k] Congress and the administration should address.” Small businesses employ the majority of American workers and are vital to the innovation that grows the American economy. After a severe recession, the …
The congressional formula that determines the annual Medicare payment update for physicians, the sustainable growth rate (SGR), was supposed to cut Medicare doctors’ pay each year starting in 2002. But that congressional formula is so flawed and unworkable that every year since 2003, Congress has stepped in to stop it …
Obamacare supporters tend to give credit to the law where credit is not due. In the latest attempt, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D–WA) tried to link lower projections for Medicare and Medicaid spending to the Affordable Care Act. During today’s hearing on the recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) …
Two hospice care centers are struggling to make ends meet, and Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare are to blame. Hospices—health care facilities for the terminally ill—along with other Medicare providers are facing Medicare pay cuts. Of the $716 billion in payment reductions, hospice care was hit by a $17 billion payment …
