Budget

Trump Wants Federal Agencies to Cut Spending by 5%

By Michael Rainey and Yuval Rosenberg

President Trump instructed his cabinet secretaries Wednesday to reduce their departmental spending by 5 percent or more next year. “Some of you will say, ‘Hey, I can do much more than five,’” Trump...
Hurricane Michael Might Have Damaged More Than $1 Billion Worth of F-22s

By Michael Rainey

By the time Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle last week, most of the aircraft based at Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City had been flow out of harm’s way. But between four and 17 F-22...
Federal Deficit Jumps 17 Percent to $779 Billion

By Yuval Rosenberg

Despite a strong economy and robust job market, the federal budget deficit swelled to $779 billion in fiscal 2018, up $113 billion from 2017, according to final numbers released Monday by the...
Mnuchin Spins a False Claim About Tax Cuts and the Deficit

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Congressional Budget Office projected last week that the federal government’s fiscal 2018 deficit would total $782 billion. The final numbers will be released by the Treasury Department, but...
Pentagon Grounds All F-35s

By Michael Rainey

The U.S. Defense Department grounded all F-35 jets on Thursday, on the heels of a crash on September 28 in South Carolina. Investigators examining the loss of an F-35B, the Marine Corps’ version of...

Trump’s Border Wall: A Christmastime Clash Is Coming

By Yuval Rosenberg

There won’t be much holiday cheer on Capitol Hill this year, Politico’s Playbook warns : “Over the last few days, we’ve seen a massive ramp-up of the ‘build-the-wall’ rhetoric from key Hill...
How GOP Rhetoric on Entitlements Has Changed

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Washington Post’s David Weigel describes how Republicans have changed their tune on Medicare and, for this year at least, largely abandoned the idea of entitlement reform: “[O]ver eight years,...
How the Army ‘Found’ $25 Billion

By Michael Rainey

The U.S. Army has been combing through its existing programs to identify potential sources of funding that can be applied to its ambitious modernization program, and according to Army Secretary Mark...
529 Plans Are Growing — and So Is Their Cost to the Government

By Yuval Rosenberg

Education savings accounts called 529 plans have grown dramatically since 2010, both in terms of the number of accounts and total assets, according to research by The Pew Charitable Trusts . And they...
The Post-Election Outlook: ‘Debt, Debt and More Debt’

By Yuval Rosenberg

The 2018 elections are looking like a lose-lose proposition for the U.S. bond market, according to Bloomberg’s Liz McCormick and Alex Harris : “If Democrats take the House, it raises the odds that...

‘Beware Trillion-Dollar Deficits,’ Barron’s Says

By Yuval Rosenberg

In the latest Barron’s cover story, Jack Hough warns of the long-term risks of rising U.S. public debt. While noting that there’s little chance of hitting debt-related turbulence anytime soon and...
The Air Force Wants More Planes – and a Lot More Money

By Michael Rainey

The Air Force is 71 years old today, and its birthday wish list is a doozy. Saying that growing threats from China and Russia call for a substantial increase in U.S. air power, Air Force Secretary...
Kudlow: ‘I Don’t Buy’ That Tax Cuts Boosted Deficit

By Yuval Rosenberg

Larry Kudlow is at it again. Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the top economic adviser to President Trump said that, while the administration is looking to cut federal spending — including...
Are Deficit Hawks Dead or Just Playing Possum?

By Yuval Rosenberg

“The deficits hawks are dead,” declared Paul Kane, The Washington Post’s senior congressional correspondent and columnist, in a piece over the weekend. It’s easy to see why Kane says that, and there’...
Social Security Pulled 27 Million People Out of Poverty in 2017

By Michael Rainey

Since 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau has produced a more sophisticated measure of poverty that, among other things, includes the income effects of government assistance programs such as Social Security...