Last week I argued that budgeting for Medicare’s hospital insurance program is flawed. Today, I offer two ways to fix it (and reject a third). Medicare Part A is one of several federal programs that control spending through a “belt and suspenders” combination of regular program rules (the belt) and an overall limit (the suspenders). But [...]

The recent double-counting dispute isn’t just about politics; it also reveals a flaw in budgeting for Medicare Part A. Budget experts are waging a spirited battle over the Medicare changes that helped pay for 2010’s health reform. In April, Chuck Blahous, one of two public trustees of the program, released a study arguing that the [...]

By now, many readers of TaxVox know how much Barack Obama and Mitt Romney pay in taxes. But true tax wonks are more interested in why the candidates paid what they paid. A new infographic from the Tax Policy Center tells that story. The interactive display of the president’s and Romney’s (preliminary) 2011 tax returns [...]

The other day, I criticized the unwillingness of Congress to finance the latest extension of the payroll tax cut. Since that blog, the Congressional Budget Office released its estimates of the cost of the entire mini-stimulus, including the so-called “doc fix” and changes in unemployment compensation. And the games were even worse than I feared. [...]

The 2-percentage-point payroll tax cut extended by Congress in December and again last week will save workers a total of $114 billion this year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Spread over nearly 160 million workers, that’s an average tax cut of $714. Yet the typical news report says “the average worker earning $50,000 [...]

It looks like Congress is about to assume its default position: In the face of an intractable partisan dispute over how to pay for a government initiative, don’t. If Democrats won’t cut spending, and Republicans refuse to raise anybody’s taxes, there is always the solution they both can agree upon—just borrow the money and increase [...]

The least popular Congress in memory is back.  I, personally, am thrilled. After a year in which lawmakers did almost nothing besides (barely) keeping the government running, this session promises hardly more.  Tax policy will be at the center of much of the partisan squabbling, but it is hard to imagine Congress achieving more than a temporary [...]

After much anguish, Congress finally extended this year’s payroll tax cut for two more months. The final bill passed in nearly empty chambers a couple of days before Christmas. But this version differed in an important way from the measure passed by the Senate just a few days earlier. The final bill removed a cap [...]

House Republicans are right about one thing at least: Extending this year’s payroll tax cut for two months is ridiculous. The trouble is they are largely to blame for the very policy they are criticizing. Congress got itself in this mess because a few dozen self-styled tea partiers have refused since last summer to helo build a [...]

The fate of The Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 remains uncertain. But thanks to a carefully crafted technical change to the current payroll tax cut, the Senate version prevents a handful of very high wage earners from potentially enjoying a huge windfall from the two-month tax break. The legislation would cut the [...]