Len Burman

Playing Budget Roulette Is A Bad Bet The scariest thing about our soon-to-be unprecedented federal debt is that there’s so much we don’t know about its consequences.

My final TaxVox blog: Playing Budget Roulette is a Bad Bet. There’s so much we don’t know about how our fiscal profligacy will play out. Unless we change course, a debt crisis is likely, and it could be catastrophic.
taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/playi...

Around midnight last night, President Trump sent up a “pocket rescissions” request.

Pocket rescissions are illegal. Here’s my thread explaining what pocket rescissions are, how they work, and why they’re illegal.

Trump Deals A New Immigration Blow To International Students Trump officials have proposed a new rule limiting international students to fixed periods of entry, making a U.S. education more precarious.

Trump admin planning to change student visas from lasting for duration of academic program to fixed 4-yr term, and then much harder to renew
Could destroy US ability to attract global talent, particularly those seeking advanced degrees in STEM. The median time to complete a PhD is 5.7 yrs per NSF.

I think this is probably wrong. As I argued here: www.taxnotes.com/tax-history-...

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued a statement on the Office of Management and Budget's rescissions proposal. "Congress has received from the Administration a $4.9 billion package of proposed rescissions of funding that had been previously appropriated for a wide range of foreign aid programs. Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval. "GAO has concluded that this type of rescission is unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act. Article I of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse. Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law. "Instead of this attempt to undermine the law, the appropriate way is to identify ways to reduce excessive spending through the bipartisan, annual appropriations process. Congress approves rescissions regularly as part of this process. In fact, the year-long funding bill that we are currently operating under includes 70 rescissions. This month, the Appropriations Committee intends to markup the Fiscal Year 2026 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs bill. The annual funding bill is the most appropriate way to ensure that any rescissions reflect the views of Congress."

A surprisingly clear statement from Susan Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, that the Trump administrations pocket rescission is illegal.

IMO, this is probably the most important thing to keep in mind.

The Trump administration is trying to keep the focus exclusively on foreign aid funding, since it’s the least popular, LOUDLY illegally impounding it via pocket rescissions, while they very quietly continue to impound cancer research.

Happy Birthday, CBO! You're A Great Role Model! The core mission of CBO—to provide objective, impartial analysis—is woven into TPC's DNA.

As a staffer in the 1980s, I called CBO's first director "the Blessed Alice" because people always referred to her in hushed, reverential tones. This is the first milestone anniversary since her death. Her legacy for CBO and public policy is eternal. 2/2
conversableeconomist.com/2019/05/15/a...

Happy Birthday, CBO! You're A Great Role Model! The core mission of CBO—to provide objective, impartial analysis—is woven into TPC's DNA.

The CBO is a national treasure. Today, former directors and staff will host a gathering to celebrate its 50th anniversary. CBO has been a huge influence on the @taxpolicycenter.bsky.social . 1/
taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/happy...

Colleagues: Anna Wiersma Strauss (Indiana University-SPEA), Margot Crandall-Hollick and Rob McClelland (@taxpolicycenter.bsky.social), Bradley Hardy (‪@mccourtschool.bsky.social‬), and Gabriella Garriga. This builds on Anna's extraordinary dissertation research.

TPC also looked at the revenue cost of a host of CTC reform options. Some, such as a fully refundable tax credit for infants, would cost a fraction of what the One Big Beautiful Bill Act plans would cost while doing far more for low-income families. taxpolicycenter.org/sites/defaul... 7/7

Other options would meaningfully help low-income families at much lower revenue cost and with miniscule effects on employment. One option—the per-child refundable tax credit passed by the House in 2024—would help working low-income families and actually increase employment. 6/

But it wasn’t renewed in part because critics feared disconnecting the CTC from work would drive parents out of the work force. Our research does find that a fully refundable CTC would reduce employment, but only slightly. 5/

Why focus on employment when there’s overwhelming evidence that helping low-income families with kids produces large lifetime benefits for children? Indeed, the American Rescue Plan Act, which increased the maximum CTC and made it fully refundable helped cut child poverty in half in 2021. 4/

And here’s the more technical research paper if you’d really like to dig into our analysis. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... 3/

Expanding the Child Tax Credit For Low-Income Workers Or Parents of Infants Would Have Modest Employment Effects As policymakers consider changes to the child tax credit (CTC) in 2025, this brief highlights new findings from Wiersma Strauss and colleagues (2025) examining the credit’s effect on parental employme...

Here's the full policy brief. taxpolicycenter.org/briefs/expan... 2/

CTC Reform Could Help Millions Of Low-Income Children With Minimal Effect On Employment TPC estimates of a substantial labor market exodus from a child tax credit (CTC) are overstated. There are ways to expand the CTC that would help low-income families and increase parents’ employment.

In new research, my colleagues and I show that reforming the child tax credit to help more low-income families would have little effect on labor force participation, and could even increase it. taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/ctc-r... 1/

Reconciliation Bill Would Cut Marketplace Enrollment by over 5 Million People In May 2025, the House of Representatives passed budget reconciliation legislation, H.R. 1, that would make substantial changes to health coverage programs.

Making Healthcare Unaffordable Again. www.urban.org/research/pub...

CBO distributional analysis of House reconciliation bill. Novel presentation of effects over time. Bottom decile suffers bigger proportional income cuts over time. Top decile gets a big tax cut initially, which diminishes somewhat over time. www.cbo.gov/system/files...

Catherine Rampell has been tracking Trump Administration/DOGE activities to terminate invaluable public datasets, erase history, and suppress scientific endeavors. Unless reversed, the loss to the US and the world will be incalculable. Where's Congressional oversight of these destructive activities?

@apsva.us The regular and spring break pool schedule pages are gone from the Arlington aquatics website.

The IRS will have a much harder time detecting and preventing identity theft and other forms of fraud. Tax cheats will face even less chance of detection and there'll be fewer agents to pursue those whose malfeasance is flagged. This means bigger deficits and a less fair tax system.

The people who'd ordinarily lead the planning process for next year's filing season are gone. That'd be a challenge most years, but especially now. Most TCJA individual income tax provisions expire at the end of this year. There will likely be big changes but IRS might not be able to update forms.

Stilted innovation, less efficiency: Former IRS executives explain the impact of DOGE cuts Recently departed tax agency leaders detail how workforce reductions could undercut modernization and the use of AI.

Efficiency? "Despite the massive loss of technical brainpower over the past few months, the average taxpayer probably won’t know what they’re missing this filing season. But next year could be a different story."

fedscoop.com/irs-moderniz...

How Alex Ovechkin topped Wayne Gretzky’s once-unbreakable record As our charts show, the Russian machine defies both his age and his era

I don’t usually look to @TheEconomist for sports writing, but this is good. Some data put Ovi’s goal record and sustained productivity in perspective.

How Alex Ovechkin topped Wayne Gretzky’s once-unbreakable record (no subscription required)
economist.com/united-state...

In the past, investors have demanded more Treasury bonds during crises, even those caused or exacerbated by US policies, because our bonds are seen as the safest asset. Do investors still think that? I don't know how this plays out for the US or global economy, but 95% CI must be huge. 3/3

Would investors still want to lend to the US when its government has demonstrated a willingness to adopt reckless and incredibly damaging policies with no regard for the foreign or domestic consequences (and has a personal propensity for bankruptcy)? 2/

We know the sign but not the magnitude of the effect on the economy. First, tariff and other changes are way outside of sample used to estimate macro models. Do models account for feedback effects of trade war and worldwide recession? What if investors add big risk premium to US debt? 1/

Republican Agenda’s “Triple Threat” to Low- and Moderate-Income Family Well-Being | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities This three-part agenda — legislation, executive action, and tariffs — will reduce the living standards and raise costs for millions of families with modest incomes while helping pave the way for tax c...

New paper from @gbenga-ajilore.bsky.social and me about Trump and congressional Rs “triple-threat” agenda of legislation, executive actions, and tariffs.

The result is higher costs for low- and moderate-income families while the rich get large tax cuts.

www.cbpp.org/research/fed...

1890s nostalgia? The Panic of 1893 was the worst depression until the Great Depression (1929). The US-led post-WWII trade liberalization and economic institutions created during the Great Depression led to unprecedented prosperity. Rethink dismantling it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_o...

The average tariff rate in the US is now 22.5% highest since 1909. This is nothing like Trump 1.0.

My @morningjoe-msnbc.bsky.social Chart