You are here
Budget Basics Archive
The fairness of our federal tax system is a hotly debated issue. Too often, however, those debates confuse or misrepresent important facts because they focus on one type of tax in isolation rather than the various taxes that people face in aggregate.
Medicare is an essential health insurance program serving millions of Americans, and a major part of the federal budget and our fiscal outlook.
Social Security is the largest single program in the federal budget and makes up approximately one quarter of total federal spending.
Although the need for serious, long-term changes to the funding structure of the Highway Trust Fund is clear, there is disagreement over the approach to do so.
PAYGO is a budget enforcement mechanism intended to prevent passage of legislation that increases deficits.
Here are the top ten spending categories for the federal budget.
CBO plays a vitally important role in the federal budget process.
There is one cap for national defense and another cap for non-defense programs.
Sequestration was designed to be a blunt instrument, whose arbitrary effects would be so undesirable that they would compel policymakers to reach compromise on budget legislation rather than allow the cuts to go into effect.
Reconciliation is a powerful process, whereby legislation drafted to meet those instructions has an easier path to passage.