Facing the Future

This week on Facing the Future we talked with Bill Hoagland, Senior Vice President of the Bipartisan Policy Center, about the growing debt fears that cloud the prospects of Republicans' budget bill in the Senate.

This week on Facing the Future, we talked with Richard Swett, former U.S. Congressman from New Hampshire and Ambassador to Denmark. He discussed President Trump's desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark and why it's vital to restore trust in government.

This week on Facing the Future we focused on the One Big Beautiful Bill that has now passed the House and is headed to the Senate. Our guest was Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum and former Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). We also discussed interest rates, tariffs and budget scoring.

This week on Facing the Future we’ll discuss developments on Capitol Hill as Republicans try to pass what is now officially called, the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Our guest is Ben Ritz, Vice President of Policy Development at the Progressive Policy Institute and Director of PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future. Concord Coalition Executive Director Carolyn Bourdeaux joins the conversation.

This week on Facing the Future, Marc Goldwein, Senior Vice President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, guides us through the tax cut bill rolled out by House Ways and Means Committee Republicans. We'll discuss how big it is, whether it's good tax policy and will it be paid for?

This week on Facing the Future, we'll talk with students who participated in the annual collegiate fiscal challenge, a competition that seeks to stabilize the debt and economy. Then, Carolyn Bourdeaux and I assess President Trump's "skinny budget" and check in on reconciliation in Congress.

This week on Facing the Future we'll assess the risks and costs of rising federal debt with Ben Harris, vice president and director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. We’ll also get his take on congressional negotiations over a major spending and tax bill and whether the economy is headed for a recession.

This week on Facing the Future the guest is Alex Durante, senior economist at the Tax Foundation. We'll discuss the economic effects of President Trump's tariffs and whether Republicans in Congress can find a way to extend about $4 trillion worth of expiring tax cuts without adding it all to the debt.

This week on Facing the Future, Jessica Riedl, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joined me to discuss her list of the top 10 federal budget gimmicks and the potential for tariffs to raise revenues, harm the economy or both.

As we went through Riedl’s list of budget gimmicks, it was clear that many of them are in play this year. She mentioned, for example, “fake expiration dates” and using a “current policy” baseline. A key feature of the recently passed congressional budget resolution is the use of a current policy baseline to assume that extending the expiration date of the 2017 tax cuts will have no budgetary effect.

This week on Facing the Future our guest was Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and chairman of the bicameral Joint Economic Committee. He gave us his perspective on what it will take to get the U.S. fiscal house in order, why the budget and the economy are intricately intertwined, and why it is so important to act before a crisis hits. 

We also got his candid take on this year's Congressional budget process, which he said "shows the level of perversity there is on telling the truth about the math.” Concord Coalition Executive Director Carolyn Bourdeaux joined the conversation.