CQ Budget

With worries about a possible recession in the near future, the Trump administration has thrown around the idea of implementing new tax cuts to help stimulate the economy, only to flip flop on the idea multiple times later on. Specifically, the administration has flipped on two types of tax cuts - capital gains indexing, which is favored by Republican senators, and payroll taxes. With the Democrat...

House Democrats are pushing new changes to the tax code aimed at helping low income individuals and families, with some lawmakers calling for an increase to the corporate tax rate. In this episode, CQ Roll Call's Doug Sword explains who stands to gain and lose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CQ Roll Call's Budget Editor Peter Cohn combed through the numbers since Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 and found something remarkable: the spending caps produced some results but most of the savings were because of factors out of Congress' hands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senate Democrats are preparing to fight the Trump administration over a $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local taxes, says CQ Roll Call's budget and tax editor Peter Cohn. And some conservatives are pressing the White House to bypass Congress to index capital gains taxes to inflation, in a move that would cut taxes for wealthy stock owners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphon...

With a new budget deal about to become law, CQ Roll Call senior budget reporter Paul M. Krawzak explains how raising the debt limit and raising the spending levels will shape government budget decisions this fall and the year to come. With overall spending limits set, the House will have to revisit the 10 spending bills it has already passed and find $15 billion to cut. Learn more about your ad ch...

Congress is racing to complete work on some big-ticket items before adjourning for the August recess. CQ Roll Call's budget and appropriations reporter Kellie Mejdrich reports on a deal in the works to extend the debt limit and set spending levels for two years. And  finance reporter Doug Sword explains why the House plans to vote on a bill to shore up struggling pension plans.  Meanwhile, the Sen...

With new warnings that the U.S. could run out of money to meet its obligations, Congress and the Trump administration are racing to raise the debt limit before lawmakers head home for August, says CQ Roll Call’s appropriations reporter Jennifer Shutt. And tax reporter Doug Sword explains how oil refiners could get up to a $10 billion windfall with an expired tax credit unless Congress intervenes....

With only 25 days left with both the House and Senate in session before the new fiscal year begins, the Senate has yet to draft any of its 12 spending bills and has no plan in place to pass them. The result is likely another short-term stopgap funding measure as congressional leaders struggle to reach a bipartisan deal on overall spending limits. CQ Roll Call's chief budget reporter Paul M. Krawza...

House Democrats passed the Financial Services spending bill that includes some controversial provisions, says CQ Roll Call's banking reporter Jim Saksa. Those include blocking money for a border wall, increasing funding to enforce sanctions on Iran, and allowing the District of Columbia to fund abortions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

House Democrats are pushing new changes to the tax code aimed at helping low income individuals and families, with some lawmakers calling for an increase to the corporate tax rate. In this episode, CQ Roll Call's Doug Sword explains who stands to gain and lose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As White House and congressional leaders prepare for another meeting this week to get a bipartisan spending caps deal, CQ Roll Call's Paul M. Krawzak unpacks the political sticking points, the pros and cons of a one-year or two-year agreement, and other potential obstacles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

House Democrats are packaging spending bills with the aim of completing all 12 by the end of the month, a goal that is likely to generate a lot of policy debates and amendments, explains Jennifer Shutt in this episode of the CQ Budget podcast. The first package contains five bills including the two largest, Defense and Labor-HHS-Education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

In an usually candid interview with CQ Roll Call's budget reporter Paul Krawzak, the ex Congressional Budget Office director Keith Hall said the often secretive process the Republicans followed defeated their effort to repeal Obamacare in 2017. He also urged Congress to deal with the rising deficits that will fall on the backs of younger Americans, saying that in the coming decade 50 percent of fe...

House lawmakers on Tuesday again will try to clear a $19.1 billion disaster aid package via unanimous consent after Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas blocked it Friday for a variety of reasons; delaying much needed funds for states still recovering from natural disasters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

House appropriators this week will take up the biggest of the 12 annual spending bills, the $690 billion Pentagon measure that includes some prickly issues such as funding for Taliban expenses for peace talks with the U.S. and money to give the Pentagon more F-35 fighter jets than it requested, says CQ Roll Call's senior defense reporter John M. Donnelly. He lays out what is likely to happen to th...

Lawmakers are struggling to find agreement on an aid package to help states recover from natural disasters, says CQ Roll Call's budget and appropriations reporter Kellie Mejdrich. She lays out the issues preventing Congress from passing a disaster aid package. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CQ budget and appropriations editor Peter Cohn games out the prospects of the ambitious $2 trillion infrastructure spending package touted by President Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer. And we preview the week ahead in the appropriations process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The writing of fiscal 2020 spending bills begins with the biggest nondefense measure, Labor-HHS-Education. CQ's health care reporter Andrew Siddons previews the bill and the partisan fights it triggers, including on gun violence research. And CQ's tax and finance reporter Doug Sword unpacks the new data on the future of Social Security. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice...

CQ Roll Call's appropriations reporter Kellie Mejdrich unpacks the demands and possible consequences of the Democratic party's progressives, who last week derailed plans to vote on raising the spending caps to prevent across-the-board spending cuts next fiscal year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CQ Budget and appropriations editor Peter Cohn sat down with Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, one of the longest and most influential members of Congress. Grassley says that he sees a good opportunity to work with Democrats on several bipartisan initiatives including on an expansive infrastructure bill and reducing drug prices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The House Budget Committee may punt on a fiscal 2020 budget resolution to avoid exposing Democratic caucus fissures over tax and spending policy. But an effort to reach a deal to raise spending limits for the coming fiscal year could prove just as dicey, as Lindsey McPherson explains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A fund designed to help crime victims is also used by lawmakers as an annual budgetary gimmick to help pay for other programs. But the victims fund is starting to run dry, making appropriations decisions tougher, as our tax and fiscal policy reporter Doug Sword explains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The president has proposed deep cuts to planned spending in Medicare and Medicaid, while trying to uphold austere limits on nondefense discretionary spending. But Congress is already talking about a rewrite. CQ's Kellie Mejdrich explains what lawmakers might have in mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump's fiscal 2020 budget request, due out next week, is likely to skirt a defense spending cap to boost the military while proposing deep cuts to nondefense programs. CQ's Paul M. Krawzak explains how the White House blueprint is sure to trigger a new showdown over spending limits,  along with the need to increase the debt limit and the continuing battle over border wall funds....

CQ's award-winning defense reporter John M. Donnelly revealed that a Pentagon fund that President Donald Trump wants to use to pay for his wall is nearly depleted, forcing him to look elsewhere in the Pentagon budget for the money. Trump appears poised to break tradition and bypass Congress in this money transfer, and Donnelly says that "would tear a hole in the fabric of cooperation between the W...