A Congressional Halloween: all trick, no treat
We’ve got to give it to them, Congress is getting pretty clever. Unfortunately, they’re tricking us with our own money and ultimately jeopardizing the fiscal health of the country. In our new Halloween-themed budget breakdown, we visualize the budget tricks Congress continues to get away with.
PAYGO rules regularly broken
Back in March, Bankrupting America warned in an opinion-editorial that the Pay-as-you-go (or PAYGO) rules currently in effect in Congress, and frequently referred to as evidence of fiscal discipline, would be broken regularly in the name of “emergency.” Well, it looks as though that prediction is coming true. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal [...]
How much is too much when it comes to unemployment benefits?
Unemployment benefits expired this week for an estimated 212,000 unemployed workers. That’s a small fraction of the 11.4 million currently receiving benefits, but represents significant hardship for those who depend on those checks to stay afloat. Congress is set to discuss extending unemployment benefits again this week when the Senate returns from its recess. Media [...]
(PAYGO) Rules are made to be broken
Gretchen Hamel, executive director of Public Notice, wrote an OpEd for US News and World Reports on PAYGO (a budget rule that is meant to ensure new spending is paid for). Among Hamel’s warnings of PAYGO’s limitations, she points out that any spending deemed an “emergency” by lawmakers exempts them from offsetting the new spending [...]
PAYGO stumbles from the GETGO
When PAYGO (a budget rule that is meant to ensure new spending is paid for) passed recently, we cautioned that it was a weak tool for fighting fiscal irresponsibility. Congress can avoid following PAYGO anytime it wants. In a blog post and OpEd, we said that one of PAYGO’s glaring limitations was politicians’ ability to [...]
Pay-As-You-Go is no panacea
President Obama recently signed legislation that would restore pay-as-you-go, or PAYGO, rules to the federal government’s budget process. During his weekly address, he celebrated this move as a return to fiscal discipline, ignoring the fact that the legislation he signed also raised the debt limit by another $1.9 trillion. Here’s how the President described PAYGO: [...]
