Policy Briefs

Tonight’s vice presidential debate and next Sunday’s presidential debate offer more opportunities for the Democratic and Republican campaigns to put some much-needed focus on the growing federal debt and related issues such as tax and entitlement reform. Unfortunately, the debt…

The next president will face difficult challenges with the federal budget, and younger Americans have much at stake in whether those challenges are effectively met. Three speakers delivered that message Thursday to students at Washington University in St. Louis, site…

After failing to approve any regular appropriations bills this year, Congress must take action this week on short-term stop-gap legislation to keep the government open after Friday. Fiscal 2017 begins Saturday and Congress should have approved a dozen appropriations bills…

Lawmakers ought to have an opportunity to vote on a common-sense proposal to shift the federal government to a biennial budgeting cycle before leaving town at the end of September, Concord Coalition Government Relations Director Phil LaRue writes this week.…

Peter G. Peterson, who has spent decades focusing public attention on the nation’s unsustainable budget policies and encouraging fiscal reform, is being honored by The Concord Coalition with its 2016 Paul E. Tsongas Economic Patriot Award. Peterson “has been a…

In advance of the Oct. 4 vice presidential debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, dozens of students and faculty there participated in an interactive federal budget exercise last week. It was the first in a series of programs on…

The “penny plan” to reduce spending by one cent on every dollar (one percent a year), which has been bouncing around Washington for years, got renewed attention recently from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. (more…)

Lawmakers and expert witnesses displayed bipartisan concern over the nation’s debt and some agreement on its causes, including aging demographics, at a hearing of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee last week. “The temporary decline in deficits has ended,” said former…