Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
The Federal Budget Debate
Deficit Reduction Should Not Increase Poverty and Hardship
With President Obama and lawmakers of both parties vowing to achieve further deficit reduction, the stakes are high for low- and moderate-income Americans. If policymakers heavily target programs that serve vulnerable Americans, they will run the risk of increasing poverty and hardship and reducing opportunity for those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, limiting their future educational and employment prospects. If, however, policymakers take a more balanced approach to deficit reduction, one that includes adequate new revenues to complement additional spending cuts, they can further reduce deficits while maintaining the resources to invest in key building blocks of future prosperity, including effective services and supports for poor families and children. Read more
The Impact of Sequestration
The Effects are Real
Some skeptics have downplayed the impact of impending across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, arguing that federal spending will remain high and growing even if the cuts take effect Friday as scheduled.
In fact, sequestration will have a real impact on Americans across the country. There is no way to cut $85 billion in a single year, mainly from discretionary programs — which include most defense spending as well as medical research, education, help for low-income families, food and water safety, law enforcement, and so on — and not see real impacts. Read more
WIC Benefits for Women & Children At Risk
Some 575,000 to 750,000 low-income women and children, including very young children, who are eligible for WIC — the highly effective nutrition program that serves roughly 9 million low-income women and children — will be turned away by the end of the fiscal year if the budget cuts known as “sequestration” which took effect as scheduled on March 1 remain in place. Read more
Related: March Will Bring Two Separate Sequestrations (Not Just One)
More: Federal Budget Analyses
Facing Our Fiscal Challenges
What Is Driving the Large Projected Deficits?
"Federal deficits and debt have risen sharply under President Obama, but the evidence continues to show that the Great Recession, President Bush’s tax cuts, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain most of the deficits that have occurred on Obama’s watch…." Read more
Tax Expenditures: Ripe for Reform, Needed for Deficit Reduction
"Tax expenditures are ripe for reform: they are costly, reducing revenues by over $1 trillion annually, and they are often poorly designed for achieving their desired policy goals…. Further, tax expenditures tend to provide a disproportionate share of benefits to households higher up the income scale. Thus, tax expenditure reforms are likely to be substantially more progressive than changes to entitlement programs, which tend to provide the bulk of their benefits to lower- and middle-income households." Read more
Related:
- Greenstein Testimony: Putting the Budget on a More Sustainable Fiscal Course Without Hindering Economic Recovery
- $1.5 Trillion in Deficit Savings Would Stabilize the Debt Over the Coming Decade
- Commentary: A Look at the New Simpson-Bowles Plan
- Greenstein Testimony: Deficit Reduction About Quality, Not Just Quantity
- The Perils of Achieving Further Deficit Reduction Solely Through Spending Cuts
- Greenstein Commentary: Big Dangers Ahead for the Economy, the Budget, and Low-Income People
- The Next Act: Further Deficit Reduction Must Include a Mix of Revenues and Spending Cuts
- More:
- Federal Budget Analyses
Center Initiatives
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International Budget Partnership -
State Fiscal Analysis Initiative -
DC Fiscal Policy Institute -
2012 Tax Credit Outreach Kit
New From the Center
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Jared Bernstein Testimony: Tax Expenditures: How Cutting Spending Through the Tax Code Can Lower the Deficit, Improve Efficiency, and Boost Fairness in the US Tax Code
March 5, 2013
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Paul Van de Water Testimony: Health Reform’s Tax Provisions Are Sound Health and Tax Policy
March 5, 2013
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TANF Emerging from the Downturn a Weaker Safety Net
March 1, 2013
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Commentary: Senate Republican Proposal Fails to Address Key Sequestration Problems
February 28, 2013
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Changes in TANF Work Requirements Could Make Them More Effective in Promoting Employment
February 26, 2013
- More:
- View All
Center in the News
Sequestration Adds to Woes of Long-Term Unemployed
US News & World Report
March 8, 2013
A Costly Catch-22 In States Forgoing Medicaid Expansion
NPR
March 5, 2013
Sequester likely to hurt most vulnerable, despite protections
Washington Post
March 4, 2013
As Automatic Budget Cuts Go Into Effect, Poor May Be Hit Particularly Hard
New York Times
March 3, 2013
Nationwide cuts could trouble low-income children, seniors
The Philadelphia Inquirer