After the November elections, members of Congress returned to Capitol Hill for their “lame duck” session with one huge piece of unfinished business – the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. And while they failed to complete work on the budget – the government is currently running on a “continuing resolution” that funds federal agencies through March 4, 2011 – the lame duck session did pass legislation on a number of serious issues.Incidentally, if you’re wondering about the phrase, “lame ducks” are those members of Congress who lost their election (or did not seek another term), but are still in office because their ...

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During the holiday season, many of us

wish for a “White Christmas” while we “dream by the fire.”

For others, the warmth of the season is illusive, with high heating

costs and declining income leaving them vulnerable to the cold.

Congress created two programs to help the less fortunate afford to

heat their home during the winter: the Low Income Home Energy

Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Weatherization Assistance Program

(WAP).

The deadly effects of lack of warmth

during the winter are a statistical reality. Two economists

associated with the National Bureau of Economic ...

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With the clock ticking away on the last

session of the 111th Congress, the Democratic leadership

in the House and Senate have a few bills they still need to get

passed. The largest, most important one is the budget for the

government. The federal fiscal year began October 1st, and

the federal agencies have been running on continuing resolutions –

or “CRs” – ever since.

As we noted in our blog on December

8th, a CR is legislation that keeps agencies running at

the previous year's funding levels to avoid a government shut

down. Government ...

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Yesterday, President Obama signed the

Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 into law with his wife, a

strong anti-childhood obesity advocate, by his side. The law has two

main goals: to increase the number of students who are able to get

free or reduced price breakfasts and lunches at their school and to

ensure the food they have access to is healthy and nutritious.

Why is this important? In 2009,

the latest year for which data is available, 14.7% of U.S. households

were food insecure, meaning

there was at least once ...

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This week there was a lot of media

coverage of the tentative agreement reached between the Obama

Administration and congressional Republicans to extend the Bush-era

tax cuts. The agreement came after the GOP leadership announced its

intention to block any legislation during the current “lame duck”

session until the tax issue was resolved. In return for extending the

Bush-era tax cuts for two years, unemployment benefits will be

extended for another 13 months and all Americans will get a 2% break

on Social Security payroll taxes. These news stories assume you know

what all ...

In the topsy-turvy world that is Washington, D.C., these days, Congress is struggling to find a way to fulfill its primary function -- pass a budget.The government is currently being funded by a “continuing resolution.” The current fiscal year – FY 2011 – actually began on October 1, 2010, right before Representatives and Senators went home to campaign. Yet Congress failed to enact any of the twelve separate appropriations bills which keep federal agencies running. Instead, they adopted a “continuing resolution” (CR) as an interim measure. What a CR does is provide funding for areas of the federal government whose specific ...

Earlier today, the 18

members of the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and

Reform voted to approve the final version of the proposal issued by the

Commission's Co-Chairs, Sen. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. The vote was

11-7, short of the 14 votes which, according to the panel's rules, are needed

to prompt congressional action.

Failure to reach the 14 vote

threshold also means that the Simpson-Bowles proposal is not the Commission’s

final report. Yet despite this, the question of federal deficit reduction and

controlling the national debt will not go away. 

In addition to ...