In Case You Missed It...

This week on Off the Charts, we featured a quiz challenge, the looming debate on taxes and spending cuts, and housing affordability problems.

• Each day during our quiz challenge, we focused on one key issue facing Congress when lawmakers return next week.  Here they are: Day 1: The 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts (answers here), Day 2: The Estate Tax (answers here), Day 3: Unemployment (answers here), and Day 4: Did Stimulus Work? (answers here). Do each quiz and tell us how many questions you answered correctly to receive a free Center on Budget and Policy Priorities T-shirt.
• On the tax vs. spending debate, Robert Greenstein responded to House Minority Leader John Boehner’s proposal to cut funding for discretionary (i.e., annually appropriated) programs other than defense, homeland security, and veterans and to extend all of President Bush’s tax cuts for two years, including those for the wealthiest Americans.  Chuck Marr answered questions about the future of the estate tax, outlining policy implications and potential paths for political action. Chuck also blogged about the high-income Bush tax cuts and why they should expire on schedule.
• On housing, Doug Rice explained how renting has in recent years become even more difficult for those living below the poverty line.

In other news, the Center released reports on “fairtax” proposals to replace state income and business taxes with expanded sales tax, the Boehner proposal to cut non-security discretionary programs 22 percent, and a podcast on the estate tax.  You can find it on iTunes here.