In today's Senate debate on the farm bill, Senator David Vitter offered -- and Senate Democrats accepted -- an amendment that would increase hardship and will likely have strongly racially discriminatory effects.

The amendment would bar from SNAP (food stamps), for life, anyone who was ever convicted of one of...

Congressional Republicans reportedly may insist upon revenue-neutral tax reform as part of their price for agreeing to raise the debt limit later this year.  Such a course, however, would effectively block further progress in reducing long-term deficits.  As a result, its negative effects would likely substantially outweigh any positive...

President Obama’s budget includes a $1.8 trillion deficit reduction package that reflects his last offer to Speaker Boehner during their budget talks in December.  The new budget — like the president’s offer — represents a substantial compromise on the president’s part; compared to the President’s original offer to the Speaker...

The news that President Obama’s new budget will propose adopting the “chained” Consumer Price Index (CPI) for cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security and other retirement programs, and annual inflation adjustments in the tax code, has intensified the debate on this issue.  Some commentators portray this proposal as a test of...

In an attempt to reignite efforts to reach a bipartisan budget compromise, President Obama's new budget will adhere to his final offer to House Speaker John Boehner of December 17 in their budget talks.  As a result, it will contain more savings in both Social Security and Medicare -- both...

The budget that Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray released yesterday stands in sharp contrast to the one that her House counterpart, Paul Ryan, released on Tuesday.  As I wrote Tuesday, his budget is extreme.[1]   Hers is more balanced and appropriate to meet the nation’s economic...

When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan released his previous budget last year, I wrote that for most of the past half century, its extreme nature would have put it outside the bounds of mainstream discussion.  It was, I wrote, “Robin Hood in reverse -- on steroids,” because it would...

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) will reportedly begin to release the details of his new budget proposal on Wednesday.  House Republicans have already announced their goal is to balance the budget in 10 years, and some have assumed this will require even deeper cuts and more extreme policies...

Nicholas Kristof published an important column in the New York Times recently about young children in some poor communities who face greatly diminished opportunities by the time they’re just 2 years old. "Many low-income children never reach the starting line,” he notes.

Kristof points out that there are...

The lead editorial in yesterday's Washington Post argues that it's not enough to stabilize the debt as a share of the economy (i.e., gross domestic product or GDP) over the coming decade.  It says we should go farther and lower the debt-to-GDP ratio.

The debt target is certainly the...

In recent days, policymakers, pundits and the media have debated whether the “fiscal cliff” budget deal was a victory or defeat for the president or congressional Republicans, progressives or conservatives, rich or poor, the economy or the deficit -- you name it.  Most of the commentary is unpersuasive, however, for...

One of the most disappointing parts of this week's budget deal is its disparate treatment of a lavish estate tax break for the nation's wealthiest heirs as compared to several tax credit improvements for low-income working families.

On one hand, the new law makes permanent most of a...

Policymakers hope to cut federal deficits by trillions of dollars over the next decade, requiring wrenching choices and likely imposing painful sacrifices on millions of Americans. So it's astonishing that they're also considering million-dollar tax cuts for a few thousand of the nation's wealthiest heirs and heiresses by extending an...

Yesterday's Census data contained the good, the fair, and the ugly. The good news is that the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 1.3 million and the share of Americans without insurance fell by more than in any year since 1999; the fair news is that the poverty...

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision allows the nation to reap the very substantial benefits of the Affordable Care Act: health insurance coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, important consumer protections for millions of insured Americans whose coverage has serious gaps, and the promise of progress in slowing the growth...

My colleague at the Center, Richard Kogan, authored a wonderful summary of our new report tackling the question, "Are the Size and Reach of the Federal Government Exploding." See his post below from the Center's blog, Off the Charts.

Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) pounced on CNN's Soledad O'Brien this week when she raised findings from an analysis that CBPP issued last fall of the tax plan that the senator proposed to the congressional "super committee."  Senator Toomey asserted that a finding that O'Brien cited -- that his...

Mitt Romney said last week that if the safety net "needs a repair, I'll fix it."  It does need some repair, as our recent blog series explained.  That is, the safety net works but still has some serious gaps.

The positive news is that the safety net, bolstered...

As you may have heard, Mitt Romney said Wednesdaymorning, "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I'll fix it." We're glad the governor is expressing support for a safety net and for fixing it if it needs repair. ...

With some policymakers pushing to forestall the defense cuts that are slated to make up half of the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to start in January 2013, it's important to remember why Congress and President Obama agreed in the Budget Control Act to split those automatic...