15 Ways to Rethink the Federal Budget
Released: February 2013
Related Topics: Economic Security, Effective Government, Tax Policy, Employment & Wages
In the coming months, policymakers will be making important decisions on how to reduce the federal budget deficit. These decisions pose significant political and economic challenges, but also create a rare window of opportunity for policymakers to decide what kinds of programs and investments our country values, and what sort of society we will create for future generations.
To this end, The Hamilton Project asked leading experts from a variety of backgrounds—the policy world, academia, and the private sector, and from both sides of the political aisle—to develop policy proposals which could form a partial menu of options to achieve responsible deficit reduction. The mandate given to the authors was to describe pragmatic, evidenced-based proposals that would both reduce the deficit and also bring broader economic benefits. The resulting fifteen proposals are included in The Hamilton Project’s, 15 Ways to Rethink the Federal Budget. While not intended to cover every budget category, these papers take on a wide-ranging set of topics, including immigration, transportation, health care, defense spending, and tax expenditures, and include options to reduce mandatory and discretionary expenditures, raise revenues, and improve government efficiency.
Introduction
An Enduring Social Safety Net
- Transitioning to Bundled Payments in Medicare
- Reforming Federal Support for Risky Development
- Restructuring Cost Sharing and Supplemental Insurance for Medicare
- An Evidence-Based Path to Disability Insurance Reform
Innovative Approaches to Tax Reform
- Eliminating Fossil Fuel Subsidies
- Better Ways to Promote Saving through the Tax System
- Limiting Individual Income Tax Expenditures
- Replacing the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction
New Sources of Revenue and Efficiency
- Funding Transportation Infrastructure with User Fees
- Creating an American Value-Added Tax
- The Many Benefits of a Carbon Tax
- Overhauling the Temporary Work Visa System
- Increasing the Role of the Private Sector in Housing Finance
Budgeting for a Modern Military

Download 15 Ways to Rethink the Federal Budget, which includes all of the policy proposals in a single volume, either in PDF format or as a free ebook.
Download the book (PDF) »
Download the ebook from Amazon »
Download the ebook from iTunes »
Download the ebook from Barnes & Noble »
Search Papers
Related to This Paper
Multimedia
Hamilton Project Updates
A periodic newsletter of events, policy briefs, and working papers from The Hamilton Project.

Print This Page
Email This Page
Bookmark & Share

