Budget Battles
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Trump Touts ‘Rocket Ship’ Recovery. Does That Mean Next Stimulus Is Dead?
Friday’s jobs report was a complete stunner. The economy added 2.5 million jobs in May, the Labor Department announced , smashing expectations of millions more job losses, and the unemployment rate...
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Senate Passes PPP Changes Providing More Flexibility
The Senate Wednesday evening passed a bill modifying the Paycheck Protection Program of forgivable coronavirus relief loans to small businesses. The bill, which sailed through the House last week in...
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Does the US Spend Too Much on Police?
The Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham writes that, in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s death, tensions over funding differences for police departments and social services lie at the...
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GOP Rethinks Opposition to Unemployment Benefits
By Michael RaineyThe $600 per week boost in unemployment benefits that Congress passed in March expires at the end of July, and Republicans have vowed not to renew them, saying they are too generous and encourage...
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Nearly 70% of Coronavirus Relief Funds Have Been Spent or Committed
By Michael Rainey and Yuval RosenbergCongress has provided roughly $1.6 trillion in direct payments to assist individuals, businesses, hospitals, states and municipalities struggling during the coronavirus pandemic, and about 70% of the...
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Divided Senate Confirms Trump-Appointed Coronavirus Relief Watchdog
The Senate voted along largely partisan Tuesday lines to confirm a White House lawyer nominated by President Trump to oversee the Treasury Department’s use of $500 billion in coronavirus recovery...
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No More $1,200 Stimulus Checks, Says GOP
By Michael RaineyDemocrats in the House are pushing for another massive relief bill with more than $3 trillion in additional spending, but Republicans have called for a pause to give lawmakers a chance to evaluate...
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Amid Protests and Pandemic, Congress Faces a $1 Trillion Decicion
The nation is being rocked by protests, grappling with endemic racial injustice and still struggling to cope with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and its fallout. As disturbingly turbulent as the...
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Chart of the Day: The Dire State of State Tax Revenues
Lucy Dadayan of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center breaks down the good, the bad and the ugly of the fiscal crisis facing states as the coronavirus pandemic crushes revenues and raises costs. “...
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A Third of Unemployment Benefits Haven’t Been Paid Out: Report
By Michael RaineyThe U.S. Treasury paid out $146 billion in jobless benefits in the three months ending in May as tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic. Although the number is...
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Private Equity Firms Getting More Than $1 Billion in Coronavirus Relief Funds
By Michael RaineyMedical-service businesses owned by deep-pocketed private equity firms including KKR, Apollo and Cerberus have received more than $1.5 billion in no-interest loans from federal programs designed to...
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Coronavirus Will Cost US Economy Nearly $16 Trillion, CBO Says
The coronavirus pandemic will shrink U.S. economic output by $15.7 trillion over the next decade, or $7.9 trillion after adjusting for inflation, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Monday...
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The Battle Over State Bailouts
By Michael RaineyStates are confronting massive budget shortfalls as tax revenues plunge and social safety net spending soars, but there’s no clear sense in Washington about how to approach the problem. Despite...
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Bipartisan Group of Lawmakers Wants Next Coronavirus Bill to Address Rising Debt
Congress is likely to pass another coronavirus relief bill at some point, but doing so may require addressing the mounting deficit concerns of a bipartisan group of lawmakers. A group of 60 House...
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$1,200 Checks? $450 Bonuses? The Latest on the Next Coronavirus Lifeline
Congress has provided a lifeline for millions of Americans hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, providing a boost to incomes via one-time direct payments and implementing a range of other emergency...