Budget Matters Blog


Congress Taking Food from Poor Women and Children to Save a Few Bucks?

Ask Kyle – Putting the “Bud” back in Federal BudgetWell...maybe. The actual answer is complicated. Although that might be an a reasonable conclusion to draw if you recently read that Congress was planning to slash more than $832 million from the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program. WIC helps ...

Talk of Balanced Budget Raises Eyebrows

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { } On June 6th, 103 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives lead by Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sent a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) calling for a “Cut, Cap, and ...

The Bush Tax Cuts: 10 Years Later, Still Expensive And Ineffective

That's the conclusion of a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in a report released last week: "Tenth Anniversary of the Bush-Era Tax Cuts: A decade later, the Bush tax cuts remain expensive, ineffective, and unfair."According to EPI's website, their mission "is to achieve shared prosperity by raising ...

NPP Launches "Ask Kyle" – Your Personal Concierge to the Federal Budget

Greetings All,My name is Kyle Andrejczyk (pronounced ann-dray-zik) and I'm here to help. I invite you to join me this summer as we all try to navigate the murky waters of the federal budgetary process. If last year's budget process is any indicator, then the course ahead will surely be ...

U.S. Security Spending Since 9/11

Last week NPP published "U.S. Security Spending Since 9/11," an analysis of total federal spending on defense and homeland security since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The key findings of the report were:The United States has spent more than $7.6 trillion on defense and homeland security since the ...

Senate Action on the Road to a 2012 Federal Budget

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { } On May 25, 2011 the full U.S. Senate began work on its version of the FY2012 budget resolution with the consideration of four separate budget proposals. These proposals represent the broad range of options available as Congress moves forward with its efforts to ...

Budget Group Identifies at Least $1 Trillion in Common-Ground Deficit Reduction Measures

A new analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has identified between $1.1 trillion and $2.6 trillion in possible deficit reduction measures that are common to most or all of four of the major deficit reduction proposals circulating in Washington.CRFB found "significant overlap" among the fiscal plans ...

Human Needs Groups Help Constituents Tell Their Stories

Half in Ten, the campaign to cut poverty in half in ten years, in partnership with the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), which heads up the "SAVE for All" coalition, have launched the "Stories" website. Together they "are collecting videos and written testimony from affected individuals from across the country ...

House Spending Levels Cut Everyone…Except Defense

Yesterday the House Appropriations Committee released its 302(b) allocations for Fiscal Year 2012. These numbers reflect the amount of spending each appropriations subcommittee will have for the programs under their jurisdiction for the coming year. 302(b) allocations are based on the Budget Resolution which was introduced by House Budget Committee ...

Biden Group, Senate Get Serious About the Budget

This week the Senate may begin its work on the FY2012 federal budget, while Vice President Joseph Biden holds a second high-level meeting with leading congressional figures on the budget.Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) is likely to release his FY2012 budget resolution sometime this week. As in the ...