Andrew Fieldhouse

The 2012 budget season saw two competing proposals that were commonly described as spanning from the political right to left in their approach: the fiscal 2013 budget resolution proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on a party-line vote,...

In his State of the Union address, President Obama defined the Buffett Rule aggressively: "If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes." The Buffett Rule, of course, was inspired by Warren Buffett urging policymakers to...

In a speech Tuesday, President Obama issued a damning critique of trickle down economics and a stark defense of social insurance and public investments funded by progressive taxation. The president's speech in Osawatomie, Kan., addressed the challenges of rebuilding the middle class and tempering income inequality, making the...

Earlier this week, Senate Republicans rolled out their proposal for financing an extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut scheduled to expire at the end of December. Disappointingly, the conservative counteroffer is to pay for this job creation measure by cutting federal employees' jobs and wages. The...

In outlining a budget framework for the Super Committee, President Obama has drawn a much needed line in the sand over the need for progressive taxation and certain government programs. This framework for job creation and deficit reduction called for more revenue from the most fortunate citizens and...

Today we learned that the U.S. economic downturn has been much more severe than previously understood and the economy is growing much too slowly to keep unemployment from rising. The economic downturn was 24% deeper than previously assumed, and actual economic output currently stands a staggering $882 billion (5.6%) below...

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (the first of a series of Bush-era tax changes) was enacted on June 7, 2001. Ten years later, the Bush tax cuts have exacerbated trends of widening income inequality, accompanied the weakest economic expansion since World War II, and turned...

Grover Norquist likes to boast that 41 senators and a majority of representatives have signed his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which unconditionally rejects any net reduction in tax credits, deductions, or rates unless matched dollar-for-dollar by some other tax reduction. Norquist has plenty of reason to gloat, but taxpayers...

Yesterday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R.-Wisc.) released a budget resolution for next fiscal year that would slash federal spending by roughly $5.8 trillion over the next decade, while simultaneously cutting taxes by $4.2 trillion, relative to current law. Roughly $1.4 trillion would be stripped from Medicaid and the...

Senate Republicans are lining up behind what they call a Consensus Balanced Budget Amendment. It would limit federal spending to 18% of gross domestic product and require a two-thirds supermajority vote of both chambers to pass any tax increase or run a budget deficit (with lower parliamentary hurdles...

Last Thursday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) unveiled their budget for the remaining months of the fiscal year. A new allocation cutting and capping appropriations levels will be entered into the Congressional Record early this week. There will...

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R. - Wisc.) will give the Republican rebuttal following the State of the Union address on Tuesday night. In recent days, GOP leadership has made it unequivocally clear that Ryan is their point man on the economy and the budget, with House...

This week the House of Representatives passed a bill instructively titled "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." Neither platitudes nor hypocrisy are new in Washington, but the "job-killing" rhetoric has reached overkill. In recent weeks, the "job-killing" bromide has been tacked to the front of government spending, stimulus, tax...

Under the tax cut package negotiated by President Obama and Senate Republicans, a one-year 2 percent payroll tax cut would be substituted for the extension of the Making Work Pay (MWP) refundable tax credit proposed in the President's budget request for fiscal year 2011. Many liberals have objected to the...

In recent weeks, we have seen a wave of budget commissions report on ways to tackle the nation's long-term fiscal challenges. While differing in their exact mix of policy prescriptions, the recent reports from the Co-Chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the Bipartisan Policy Center's Deficit...

Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner recently proposed a two-step job creation plan consisting of a full extension of Bush-era tax changes and cuts to domestic spending. His plan calls on Congress to cut non-security related spending back to fiscal year 2008 levels and to enact a two-year freeze on...