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Today, the White House released the Appendix to the Fiscal 2010 Federal Budget, including $17 billion in proposed budget cuts. This adds detail to the $3.55 trillion 2010 budget outline released by the White House this past February.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics has released a special report on America's long-term economic prospects in the international arena.

"In the absence of long-term fiscal consolidation," the report warns, "the US current account deficit over the next 10 to 20 years is likely to soar to several trillion dollars annually and well into double digits as a share of the economy."

PGPF President Dave Walker and MTV's Ross Martin appeared this morning in support of a new fiscal video game on ABC's "Money Matters." Martin said that two-thirds of college students are graduating with student loans, and that "today's graduates are not graduating into a job market that's embracing them with open arms." Added Walker, "Young people represent our future. It's important that they be informed, that they be engaged, that they be empowered."

Last weekend, the University of Miami hosted a Budgetball competition on campus. Thirty-two teams of up to ten students participated in the tournament, reported the Miami Hurricane. The winning team, called Launch Pad, will head to Washington D.C. in June for a free trip to compete in the national Budgetball Championship.

At this year's Financial Literacy & Education Summit, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke urged Americans to educate themselves about personal finance. In his opening remarks, Bernanke said, "Promoting financial education is especially important as the global economy continues to experience extraordinary turbulence," and that the "need has never been greater for initiatives that help consumers learn to manage their money wisely."

Be wary of economies across the Atlantic. As Michael Lewis reports on the collapse of Iceland in this month's Vanity Fair, Paul Krugman turns his attention to Ireland, where a housing bust has forced the government to raise taxes and cut spending. While Ireland is, in Krugman's words, "really, truly out of options," the United States is in a better—if really, truly slightly better—position.

The need for economic reform has reached biblical proportions. In an address at Georgetown University this week, Obama cited the Sermon on the Mount to compare the fragility of our former economy to the solid economy he envisions. A strengthened system, said Obama, will require comprehensive healthcare reform and long-term fiscal sustainability.

April 15 is never pleasant, but Americans have fewer gripes this year. Gallup reports that 48 percent of Americans say the amount they pay in federal income taxes is "about right." In the half-century since the poll was instituted, Americans have never looked so favorably on their rate of taxation (aside from 2003, the year of the Bush tax cuts). At the turn of the century, by comparison, only 28 percent of those polled said their taxes were "about right," while 68 percent said they were "too high." Today, only 48 percent feel that they're overtaxed.

Rob Fishman and Tim Roeper Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:57:00 MST http://www.pgpf.org/blog/?storyId=26238 http://www.pgpf.org/blog/?storyId=26238

A leading voice in Washington is now supporting a bipartisan commission to address the nation's long-term fiscal challenges. Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post, came out in favor of a Fiscal Future Commission in Sunday's paper.

Did you know that your share of the government's debt is $184,000? Most people don't.

PGPF has launched an entertaining new website, http://www.OwenandPayne.com, as part of a...

Next Wednesday, the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour will make a stop at George Mason University's Johnson Center. The free event features the Committee for Economic Development's Joseph...

Tomorrow morning, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and the Congress, a PGPF grantee, will release a report on challenges facing the United States called Saving America's Future: A Challenge to the American People. Senator Mark Warner and Representative Frank Wolf will join a bipartisan steering committee in announcing their findings.

Budgetball, the fiscal sport, is up and running. With a new website and an upcoming tournament, Budgetball was a hot topic yesterday, when the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour came to the University of Miami. Speaking to students, Dave Walker said, "The challenges we face go beyond numbers and dollars. It's about values and people."

PGPF has teamed up with America's Promise Alliance to create $aving our Futures: A Financial Responsibility for Young People, a new online curriculum for middle and high school students. The program, developed by the Academy for Educational Development, will be available for free at America's Promise. Sections of the acclaimed documentary, I.O.U.S.A., will be shown alongside the curriculum to teach smarter money management.

America's national debt has punched a new hole in the stratosphere. PGPF's NationalDebt Twitter just clocked in at $11,033,157,578,669.78-the...

With shrinking budgets, traditional news outlets are struggling to cover foreign affairs, but new programs—including a PGPF grantee—are filling the void. Worldfocus is a half-hour show produced by WNET, the New York-based PBS station. As Peter Osnos reports on the Daily Beast, the nightly broadcast was recently granted $1 million by the Peterson Foundation. The grant will help fund the program's efforts to produce reports examining how foreign countries have dealt with the challenges facing the United States, like health care.

The Committee for Economic Development, in partnership with PGPF, will host an event at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan on April 9, entitled Health Care, the Budget Deficit and the Economy.

President Obama yesterday signed off on a $410 billion omnibus spending bill, but called the package, which includes billions of dollars in earmark spending, "imperfect." Earmarks are funds provided by Congress that circumvent the normal process, and they have become a political lightning rod for Obama and the new congress.

As he opened the White House Forum on Health Reform, President Obama advocated for the plan he campaigned on - "I thought it was an excellent plan," he said - but in going forward, said there would be room for compromise and concessions. "I don't presume that it was a perfect plan," Obama said, "or that it was the best possible plan."

In honor of Theodore Geisel's 105th birthday, the Sacramento Bee asked readers to send in economy-themed poetry in the style of Seuss.

USA Today reports that as part of President Obama's pledge to create greater accountability of federal spending, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will receive $25 million to hire over 100 additional staff members to monitor the spending of hundreds of billions of new stimulus dollars by federal, state and local agencies.

As President Obama unveils his budget, voices from across the country are weighing in on the process, the programs, and of course, the deficit.

Budgetball, a new sport developed to raise fiscal awareness, will debut on college campuses this spring starting with the University of Miami and Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Budgetball, as the ...

Reports on President Obama's Fiscal Responsibility Summit are streaming in from across the nation. See the links below for different impressions on this groundbreaking meeting, of which PGPF's founder and CEO took part.

The new AP poll of economic stress reveals that among other woes, Americans are increasingly concerned about their futures. The unemployment rate - which is expected to top 9 percent before the recession is over - is of great concern to Americans: 47 percent worry about losing their job, and 71 percent say they know someone who has lost a job in the past six months.

California, the eighth-largest economy in the world, is on the brink of economic collapse. With a $42 billion budget deficit looming over them, lawmakers are locked in Sacramento searching for a solution. According to the New York Times, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently announced that he would cut 20,000 jobs and that 276 infrastructure projects, including highways and prisons, would be shut down. Standard's & Poor's downgraded the state's bond rating to the lowest in the nation.

As the unprecedented stimulus package made its way off the Hill and to the President's desk, a group of youth leaders concerned about the future of the national debt made their views known to a targeted audience of federal lawmakers.

There's no denying that health care costs in the United States are out of control, and the graph above shows that if we do nothing about them, things will get much worse. But what are the options for reform? Last week, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee, building on CBO's previously issued analyses on the key issues in major health insurance proposals and budget options for health care reform. Elmendorf's testimony focused on how to achieve two key goals: (1) expand the number of Americans with access to affordable health care, and (2) make the health care system more cost-effective. Among his key points were the following:

House and Senate conferees announced agreement on a $789 billion stimulus plan late yesterday-downsized from the $820 billion House version and the $838 billion Senate iteration. (The Center for a Responsible Federal Budget and The Wall Street Journal posted useful comparisons of the two earlier versions.)

Two scholars from the Center for Strategic & International Studies have published The Graying of the Great Powers: Democracy and Geopolitics in the 21st Century, a book examining how aging and declining populations will constrain developed nations from maintaining national and global security in coming decades.