Budget Battles
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How Congress Cheats with Our Money — and How We Can Stop It
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April Is Financial Literacy Month. Someone Tell Congress.
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When the Budget Won’t Balance, Just Get Rid of the Budget Committee?
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With Recent Laws, Congress Has Added $540 Billion to the 2019 Deficit
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Why Trillion-Dollar Deficits Matter
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Paul Ryan's Fiscal Legacy: Lots of Red Ink
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Why Almost No One Is Happy About This Week's Balanced Budget Amendment Vote
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Have the Trump Tax Cuts Flopped?
By Michael RaineySunday marks four months since President Trump signed the Republican tax overhaul into law. So it surprised us just a bit to see economist Andrew Hunter of Capital Economics already asking: “Have the...
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Could Another Round of Tax Cuts Backfire on Republicans?
Republicans face a dilemma in their quest to pass another massive tax cut ahead of November’s midterm elections. Party leaders have pledged to make permanent individual tax cuts in the tax overhaul...
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Why the Trump Tariffs Could Cost More Jobs Than They Save
By Michael RaineyThe tariffs President Trump announced – including a 25 percent levy on steel imports, with some notable exemptions – are meant to protect American jobs, but analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of...
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Banks Score Big from New Tax Law: $2.5 Billion in One Quarter
By The Fiscal Times StaffThe Wall Street Journal’s Michael Rapoport reports : “Overall, the combined earnings of Goldman and the four major national banks — JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and...
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Tax Day, Take 2: Filers Get More Time After IRS Glitch
Happy Tax Day … again. The IRS e-file system that was down for most of Tuesday is back up, but the outage led the agency to extend its filing deadline by a day, meaning taxpayers have until midnight...
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Why All the Warnings About Unsustainable National Debt Could Be Wrong
By Michael RaineyInternational economists are warning about rising global debt levels and deficit hawks in Washington are increasingly worried about what they see as unsustainable debt levels in the U.S., but a new...
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The US Has an Exceptional Debt Outlook – and Not in a Good Way
By Michael RaineyThe International Money Fund’s latest global fiscal survey warns that in five years, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than Italy’s, a nation not generally known for its exemplary fiscal...
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Why the Media War Over Trump's Tax Cuts Is Just Getting Started
Tax Day is, of course, the perfect time for Republicans and Democrats to resume their messaging battle over the GOP tax law that passed late last year. Republicans took to TV and social media to hail...
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The Biggest Winners from the GOP Tax Cuts (Hint: It Isn't Workers)
This won’t help the GOP’s tax cut message: U.S. companies are using the benefits of their tax cuts to reward shareholders and management far more than they are on hiring and pay raises, according to...
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Computer Problems Plague the IRS on Tax Day … and Bigger Troubles May Lie Ahead
It wasn’t a very happy Tax Day for the IRS, which announced it was “experiencing technical difficulties” with some computer systems and temporarily couldn’t accept returns from tax preparers,...
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What Americans Really Think About Taxes
Happy Tax Day! Ok, so maybe you’re not actively celebrating the IRS deadline, but Americans are now less likely than at any time since 2012 to say that the federal income taxes they pay are too high...
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With Recent Laws, Congress Has Added $540 Billion to the 2019 Deficit
Spending hikes and tax cuts passed since 2015 under the Trump and Obama administrations account for $540 billion of next year’s projected $981 billion budget deficit, or 55 percent, according to...
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Trump Touts Tax Cuts, but Can They Save the GOP from a Midterm Meltdown?
As the headlines about James Comey’s scathing criticisms of President Trump multiplied on Monday — and as presidential attorney Michael Cohen headed to a New York court for a hearing on documents of...
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HBO’s John Oliver Says GOP 'Absolutely Blew It' on Corporate Tax Reform
With tax day just around the corner, HBO’s John Oliver on Sunday night took aim once again at the recent GOP tax overhaul and, in particular, what he called the "long and infuriatingly proud history...
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Extending the Individual Tax Cuts Would Reduce Economic Growth: Penn Wharton Budget Model
By Michael RaineyMost of the individual tax cuts in the GOP tax overhaul that became law in December are scheduled to expire after 2025, but Republican lawmakers are expected to try to make them permanent well before...