Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work. A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and …

Strengthening state economies and creating jobs – now and into the future – will require sensible, forward-looking state fiscal policies. States need to invest adequately in education, health care, transportation and workforce development. To do that, they need to generate sufficient revenue, and they need to do so in an equitable and transparent manner. This paper is a guide to fiscal policies that can create jobs now and prime states for long-term economic …

The House may soon consider two bills (H.R. 3576 and H.R. 3580) that would limit federal spending to levels similar to those in the House-passed budget resolution, authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). These bills are part of a package of ten bills that Chairman Ryan and other committee members recently introduced to alter the federal budget process.[1] These two bills would require large cuts in federal spending that would likely fall disproportionately on …

Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow, and Chad Stone, Chief Economist, discuss what the encouraging January employment report indicates about job creation and economic growth. Chad Stone: “We’re smiling and the markets are smiling and this is actually a good jobs report. It’s one of the few good jobs reports we’ve had in this recovery. We had 240,000 jobs on private and government payrolls combined. 257,000 jobs in the private sector. 23 straight months of private …

Today's jobs report is encouraging, but we should judge it against the overall sluggishness of the economic recovery and a persistently large jobs deficit that remains after 23 straight months of private-sector job creation. Payroll employment is still 5.6 million jobs short of where it was at the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, there are four jobless workers for every job opening, and long-term unemployment remains at an historic high level …

New data show that an approach to covering the uninsured that Newt Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation (CHT) largely designed and heavily promoted to Georgia policymakers — and that Georgia adopted in 2008 — has failed to produce the promised results. The Georgia plan features multiple tax breaks to expand the use of Health Savings Accounts tied to high-deductible insurance plans. CHT claimed it would reduce the number of uninsured Georgians dramatically, but …

Chairman Kline, Ranking Member Miller, and members of the Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to testify today and applaud you for holding this hearing on the issue that matters most to most Americans right now: opportunity, jobs, and the living standards of the broad middle class. Introduction: Current Conditions and the American Middle Class The current economy continues to expand in real GDP terms, as has been the case since the second half of 2009. Employment growth …

Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, answers questions from his readers. Duration: 6:15

“There are lots of good reasons to get rid of” the preferential tax treatment of capital gains, Chye-Ching Huang tells Jared Bernstein in this video. She notes, for instance, that “at the same time that capital gains income has been growing really rapidly, and growing at the very top of the income distribution, we have been cutting the rates. That is one of the major reasons why the tax system hasn’t been doing as much to push against income inequality as it used …

Governor Brownback's proposal for dramatic changes to Kansas' income tax includes a highly problematic provision that would eliminate all taxes on the profits of certain types of corporations and similar non-corporate business entities. The provision would benefit many large corporations and investment vehicles, not just the small business job creators the governor claims he is trying to help. At the same time, the proposal would cost the state, at a minimum, $266 million or more in …

The House Budget Committee is scheduled to consider legislation on January 24 that would change the federal accounting of direct loans and loan guarantees in ways that would overstate the federal costs of those programs. As a result, the legislation also would overstate the size of federal deficits. The Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 changed the budgetary accounting of federal credit programs. Previously, the budget displayed the costs of credit programs on a yearly basis …

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA), and other members have introduced legislation that would require the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to assume, in constructing budget “baselines” that project funding levels for future years, that future annual appropriations will remain frozen indefinitely, with no adjustment for inflation. This change could weaken, rather than strengthen, fiscal …

Representative Diane Black (R-TN) has introduced a bill (H.R. 3575)[1] that would bar Congress from considering annual appropriations bills — or any other legislation that would affect the budget — until Congress has passed, and the President has signed, a joint budget resolution for the fiscal year, regardless of how many months it takes for the Senate, House, and the President to agree on one. Currently, under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, budget resolutions are …

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's proposals to cap total spending, boost defense spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget would require extraordinarily large cuts in nondefense programs. If policymakers cut all nondefense programs by the same percentage, the cuts would measure 21 percent in 2016 and 36 percent in 2021. If policymakers exempted Social Security from the cuts and then cut all other nondefense programs by the same percentage, …

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI), and others have introduced legislation (H.R. 3577) that would move the federal budget from an annual to a biennial cycle and make other changes in the congressional budget process. House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier has introduced his own biennial budgeting bill, H.R. 114. Proponents of biennial budgeting present it as a reform that will lead to more thoughtful and deliberative budgeting and allow …

A provision that some policymakers may seek to include in legislation to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of 2012would authorize the Secretary of Labor to let up to ten states per year use unemployment insurance (UI) funds for purposes other than paying benefits. The provision, part of the full-year payroll-tax bill that the House passed in December, would undermine UI’s fundamental purpose since its creation in the 1930s. As the bipartisan, blue-ribbon …

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has endorsed a proposal to eliminate major federal assistance programs for low-income Americans and turn them over to the states, often with deep funding cuts. But the rationale he offered for doing so in this past Sunday’s “Meet the Press” debate — that the federal bureaucracy eats up most of the money Congress provides for these programs, and little actually reaches people in need — is simply false. At least …

Issued Jointly With An increasing number of states are considering criminal justice reforms proven to protect the public and produce significant cost savings. For example, some states are offering effective addiction treatment to more people convicted of drug-related crimes instead of incarcerating them. Other states are increasingly turning to sanctions other than prison time for people who violate the technical conditions of their parole, for example, by missing a meeting …