The Heritage Foundation offers a detailed plan to redesign entitlement programs, guarantee assistance to those who need it, and save the American dream for future generations. Read More.
Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that risks disaster for America. Runaway spending has increased annual federal budget deficits to unprecedented levels, adding $2.7 trillion to the national debt in the past two years alone. Read More.
The Obama Administration has used the recession as an excuse for a historic and permanent expansion of government and deficits. Only during the height of World War II has Washington matched current levels of spending (25% of GDP) and deficits (10% of GDP). Read More.
See the web’s best visual presentation of federal spending, taxes, debt, and entitlements. Read More.
In the few months since Washington’s dramatic debt ceiling confrontation, America’s fiscal situation has only worsened. Federal spending is set to soar past previous record-shattering levels, endangering the economic future of the nation. This is a moral issue because younger generations will be forced to bear either staggering levels of…
Abstract: The President’s 2013 budget, released on February 13, repeats the stale and unsuccessful policies of the past three years. The Administration’s apparent vision is one of bigger government, more spending, higher taxes, and deeper deficits. At a time when runaway spending and swelling…
The President’s post-debt-ceiling, election-year budget will provide a good test of whether he is serious about facing up to the country’s looming fiscal crisis and driving spending down. At this critical moment for the nation’s fiscal and economic health, he should seize the opportunity to change the course of fiscal…
Today marks the 1,000th day since the United States Senate has passed a budget. While the House has put forth (and passed) its own budget, the Senate has failed to do the same. To help illustrate how extraordinary this failure has been, our new video highlights a few of impressive…
After a year of unproductive brinksmanship, Congress and the President enter 2012 facing the same intractable budget problems as before: a fourth consecutive deficit expected to be $1 trillion or higher, spending that consumes nearly one-fourth of the economy’s total output, and an entitlement-driven fiscal disaster that has drawn…
To say “the budget process is broken,” as many Members of Congress like to complain, is a little misleading. The regular order of the budget process has not been employed for the past several years[1]—and mostly because of Congress’s inability or unwillingness to use it. But if not…
Abstract: The failure of the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (“Super Committee”) to come to agreement on reducing the federal deficit raises the real prospect of a total of $1 trillion in …
With the collapse of the deficit reduction “super committee,” a year that began with promise is degenerating into another late-December budgetary scramble on Capitol Hill. Along with certain necessary decisions by Congress on tax policies, unemployment insurance, and the “doc fix,” nine of the 12 annual spending bills are still…
Abstract: The Budget Control Act, which ended the impasse over the debt ceiling and created a Super Committee to identify more deficit reduction proposals, cuts the defense budget by $1 trillion and paves the way for further reductions next year. These cuts come on top of successive rounds of deep…
Abstract: The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction—the “Super Committee”—created under the Budget Control Act of 2011 has failed to recommend a strategy for reducing the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next decade, leaving automatic cuts of 2 percent on…
Abstract: The number of Americans who pay taxes continues to shrink—and the United States is close to the point at which half of the population will not pay taxes for government benefits…
Abstract: Despite decades of repeated failure, President Obama and Congress continue to promote the myth that government can spend its way out of recession. Heritage Foundation economic policy expert Brian Riedl dispels the stimulus myth, lays out the evidence that government spending does not end recessions--and…
Abstract: The annual federal budget deficit is projected to reach 8.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020—more than three times the historical average of 2.3 percent. This dramatic increase in the federal deficit will be exclusively the result of increasing spending, not…
Abstract: Quantitative easing is a largely experimental tool employed by the Federal Reserve to address a continuing sluggish economy and the renewed potential of deflation. That the Fed faces this prospect is final proof positive that President Barack Obama’s Keynesian stimulus policies have failed,…
As the congressional “super committee” grapples with deficit reduction, all manner of spending is under scrutiny. A small group of farm-state lawmakers is proposing an overhaul of dairy subsidies that would supposedly reduce outlays by $131 million over 10 years. That is just a quarter of the dollars doled out…
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs for the President’s bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, released a co-chairs’ report today. Since it is a preliminary report from the chairs, it should be viewed as a model for discussion and seeding ideas for the final commission report. As such,…
The federal government’s finances were dismal even before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was enacted. That is why lawmakers who pushed for its passage felt compelled to try to calm worried Americans by claiming that the law would cut projected federal budget deficits in addition to covering…
Abstract: Since 1996, Congress after Congress has voted to lighten the tax burden on Americans. The current Congress will decide this fall whether to continue this policy or to significantly raise personal income taxes. President Obama has advanced a plan that reverses the long-standing…
As the “super committee,” created by the contentious Budget Control Act (BCA), grapples with its mandate to find $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction savings, many are urging it to “go big.” And no wonder. Since July 31, the eve of the BCA’s enactment, the federal government has continued to hemorrhage…
What do $16 billion and $68.4 billion have in common, other than the fact that each of these figures dwarfs JPMorgan...…
Popular opinion demonizes the U.S. for importing more goods than it exports, or running a “trade deficit.” This view...…
Heritage recently released the 2012 Federal Budget in Pictures. It graphically illustrates the direction our country is...…
We get it, the last thing President Obama wants is to be blamed for is the nation's growing debt—or anything else,...…
A study released today by Charles Blahous, one of two public trustees of Medicare and Social Security, once again...…
President Obama has touted reports from the Congressional Budget Office claiming his health care law would actually...…
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) just announced that the country’s current account deficit for 2011 was $473.4...…
President Obama's budget proposes a sharp increase in entitlement spending and more outlays for domestic programs and...…
President Obama is insistent that taxes must go up to close the deficit. He says it’s just common sense that taxes must...…
One year ago all eyes were on Wisconsin as labor unions stormed the Capitol building in Madison to protest Republican...…
Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy
Senior Research Fellow in Retirement Security and Financial Institutions
Grover M. Hermann Senior Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs