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off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS

In Case You Missed It...

| By CBPP

This week on Off the Charts, we talked about welfare reform, federal budget and tax issues, Social Security, Medicare, and state economies.

  • On federal budget and tax issues, Paul Van de Water provided examples of spending cuts that will affect all Americans.  Kathy Ruffing outlined new Congressional Budget Office estimates showing that deficits and debt will decline in the coming decade even without large additional spending cuts.  And Chuck Marr showed that a proposed tax holiday for foreign-generated corporate profits would encourage firms to continue shifting income and investments overseas.
  • On Social Security, Kathy Ruffing debunked alarmist reports claiming the disability-insurance program was on the verge of insolvency.
  • On Medicare, Paul Van de Water explained that raising the eligibility age would increase overall health care costs, not reduce them.
  • On state economies, Michael Leachman looked at why some states have fared better than others during the recession.

In other news, we analyzed the proposal to raise Medicare’s eligibility age and examined the new budget estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.  We also updated our backgrounder on unemployment insurance.