Budget Matters Blog

President Obama argues against a cuts-only approach to deficit reduction/ White House flickr

By now you've heard that federal budget cuts will take effect on Friday. And you've heard the strange-sounding name for these cuts: sequestration. Sequestration means across-the-board spending cuts, and this sequester was written into law in August 2011 as a kind of terrible incentive for lawmakers to pass a long-term deficit reduction plan. No one thought the cuts would actually take effect, but now – it is near certain – they will, and the fallout will reach all of us.

For instance. Fewer law enforcement officials in ...

President Obama argues against sequestration

On March 1, we’ll begin to feel the impact of sequestration – approximately $85 billion in automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts in fiscal year 2013 focused almost exclusively on discretionary spending.

Designed as a penalty for congressional inaction, sequestration was supposed to force legislators to work together within a deficit reduction paradigm. It failed as a disciplinary measure. Many will implicate the prevailing austerity rhetoric as part of the problem believing it unwise to cut federal investment in the midst of continued economic crisis – especially when sequestration takes meaningful tax reform off the table. Now ...

One of the many sources of open government data that NPP scrubs and publishes in the Federal Priorities Database is U.S. Federal Tax Collections. We're highlighting federal income taxes this week as tax season gets into full swing.

With sequestration and Fiscal Cliff II looming, Congress and President Obama are once again tackling the spending side of the federal budget. But spending is only half of any budget. The income taxes due on April 15 — along with the excise, payroll, estate, trust, and gift taxes that we pay — are the other half of our nation's budget: revenue ...

The White House/ flickr

In the first State of the Union address of his second term, President Obama laid out a grand social vision for the next four years, while largely avoiding the critical budget challenges currently facing the nation.

He failed to mention the federal government is operating on a temporary budget or that the debt ceiling was merely suspended until May. He briefly mentioned across-the-board budget cuts – known as sequestration – that are scheduled for March 1, acknowledging that the effect of such cuts would be devastating. Nearly every federal program would be hit by sequestration, including Head Start ...

Actually, the fiscal cliff never left. If you thought we solved the fiscal cliff with the deal back in January (or even the more recent debt ceiling deal), you’re mistaken. Washington left a bunch of issues unresolved, and actually made a couple of them worse. And it’s up to Congress to find some answers.

Sequestration

A major unresolved issue is sequestration – the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that were set to take effect on Jan. 2 – which the fiscal cliff deal simply delayed until March 1. And it looks increasingly like Congress will let sequestration go into effect, despite ...

Article II of the U.S. Constitution states that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union."

While the date is not specified by the Constitution, traditionally the State of the Union takes place in late January. This year President Obama will give the State of the Union Address on Feb. 12. The speech is the president's opportunity to not only report on the state of the nation -- on such matters as the economy and foreign policy -- but to also lay out the Administration’s policy agenda for the ...

U.S. Government photo

The State of the Union is usually a speech about a vision – not only for the twelve months ahead, but for years to come.

This year is different.

Congress hasn't passed a budget for the current year, sequestration is scheduled to indiscriminately reduce funding for critical initiatives like education and food safety, and the government will shut down in May and default on its loans unless Congress deals with the debt ceiling. These looming crises will have to figure into President Obama's address next week. Instead of laying out a roadmap for how to ...

The last time we talked about the DATA Act in this space, Hudson Hollister of the Data Transparency Coalition was guest blogging about its unanimous passage in the House of Representatives and its re-introduction in the Senate. You can read the version that passed the House here.

Unfortunately, the 112th Congress ended without the DATA Act becoming law. Now that a new Congress is in session, the bill will have to be re-introduced.

So what is the DATA Act, and why should you care about it?

Despite the multitude of current debates about how the U.S. spends money, it ...

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 requires the President to submit his budget request for the upcoming fiscal year no later than the first Monday of February. Recently, however, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced it will delay the scheduled Feb. 4 release of the president’s fiscal year 2014 budget request until early March or later. According to the House Budget Committee, the Obama Administration has missed the deadline on three of its four previous budget submissions. By comparison, President George W. Bush missed it once out of his eight budgets, and President ...

Speaker John Boehner/ photograph under Creative Commons

Good news came at the end of last week, and it's something that will affect you and your neighborhood. Speaker of the House John Boehner said the House would vote on a three-month increase to the debt ceiling in order to give lawmakers time to pass a more comprehensive budget deal. A vote could come as early as today.

What is the Debt Ceiling (Debt Limit)?

The debt ceiling is the legal limit Congress places on its own borrowing. If the federal debt reaches the debt ceiling, the government is unable to ...