Understanding the Budget Control Act

This is the second of three posts on the bill agreed to by the President and the bipartisan bicameral leaders of Congress (Speaker Boehner and Leaders Reid, McConnell, and Pelosi).

Two Joint Committee structures that could succeed

The Budget Control Act creates a Joint Committee whose goal is to recommend legislation that will reduce the deficit by $1.8 T over the next ten years.

Quick summary of the Budget Control Act

This is the first of three posts on the bill agreed to by the President and the bipartisan bicameral leaders of Congress (Speaker Boehner, and Leaders Reid, McConnell, and Pelosi). The bill is called the Budget Control Act of 2011.

The debt limit threat was undesirable, necessary, and effective

The President spoke today in the Roosevelt Room on S&P’s downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating from AAA to AA.

THE PRESIDENT: And we didn’t need a rating agency to tell us that the…

Four things to watch for in August

Please expect very light posting from me for the remainder of this month.

Here are four things to watch for in August.

1. Speaker Boehner and Leaders Reid, McConnell, and Pelosi must each name their three picks to the…

Their strong suit?

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters minutes after the debt-ceiling deal passed: “It is now time for Congress to get back to our regularly scheduled program, and that means jobs.”

“With this debt-reduction package completed, the decks are now clear for a…

How to prevent spending cut backsliding

The big risk to the Debt Control Act is that policymakers might believe that the back-end threat will be undone just before it bites.

The Joint Committee has a deficit reduction target: a range of $1.2 T — $1.8 T over 10 years. Because…