Issue Briefs

Once again, federal lawmakers have turned to a familiar tactic to keep the government operating and delay significant decisions to a later date: the Continuing Resolution (CR), a stopgap measure that generally extends federal funding at current levels. The House…

Three former congressmen and a retired U.S. ambassador warned of the difficult fiscal policy challenges facing the incoming Trump administration and congressional leaders at a forum last week in Concord, N.H. The bipartisan panel discussed issues such as the growing…

How the incoming Trump administration handles health care policy is perhaps the most consequential question hanging over the nation’s budgetary outlook. That’s why policy analysts are scrambling to read the tea leaves on health care amid conflicting signals. Republicans seem…

As Donald Trump prepares to become the nation’s 45th president, he must quickly turn his attention to converting campaign promises, which lacked detail, into his first budget. While presidential budgets are advisory to Congress, Republican control of both the House…

Voters are going to the polls today without sufficient information from the presidential candidates about how they would deal with the nation’s growing debt and unsustainable fiscal path. Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert L. Bixby writes in a recent Ripon…

Several notable changes to the funding and benefit structure of Social Security will be coming next year, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced last week. The nearly 25 percent of Americans who claim Social Security benefits will see a cost-of-living…

The third and final presidential debate last week failed to provide voters with credible and specific proposals for putting the federal debt on a sustainable path. “Donald Trump’s suggestion that economic growth alone can solve the problem is not realistic…

Three congressional candidates in New Hampshire expressed concerns about the federal budget and discussed possible solutions in live-audience television interviews at a “Fiscal Fridays Festival” in Concord last week. The event was co-sponsored by NH1, The Concord Coalition and the…