John Ricco

Recent Related Posts

Brief Education Tax Policy

The Tax Cuts for Working Families Act: Estimated Budgetary and Distributional Effects

PWBM estimates the Tax Cuts for Working Families Act would reduce federal revenues by $96 billion over a decade, cutting taxes for a majority of households in 2024. Households in the bottom quintile households, and those in the top 1 percent, generally would not benefit. As an illustration, we also consider making the provisions permanent, which raises the estimated ten-year budget cost to be between $419 billion and $527 billion.

John Ricco, Ed Murphy · Jun 14, 2023 · 8 min read

Brief Debt Education

The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023: Budget Cost Estimates of the Debt Ceiling Agreement

We estimate the Fiscal Responsibility Act (“FRA”) of 2023 will reduce noninterest spending by $1.3 trillion over the 10-year budget window using standard scoring assumptions. If discretionary spending in Fiscal Year 2026, after sequestration is no longer in effect, deviates from standard scoring assumptions, the spending reduction could be as low as $234 billion or as high as $1.8 trillion.

John Ricco, Ed Murphy · May 31, 2023 · 11 min read

Brief Entitlements Healthcare Social Security

President Biden’s Proposal to Extend the Medicare Trust Fund

PWBM estimates that President Biden’s new Medicare proposal would increase the solvency of the Medicare trust fund from the year 2028 to 2053. However, a significant share of that increase comes from redirecting existing (current law) revenue to the trust fund. Another portion comes from unspecific expenditure reductions that lack the details required to score. Counting only new income without unspecified expenditure reductions, we project, as an illustrative alternative, that the HI trust fund would remain solvent until 2037.

Felix Reichling · Mar 10, 2023 · 14 min read

Brief Tax Policy

Decomposing the Decline in Estate Tax Liability Since 2000

We estimate that the federal estate tax would have generated 9 times more revenue in 2019 without the tax changes in 2001 and 2017.

John Ricco, Victoria Osorio · Jul 28, 2022 · 50 min read

Brief Tax Policy

Capital Gains Taxation and Deferral: Revenue Potential of Reform

This brief examines different approaches to removing the capital gains “lock-in effect” within a realization-based tax framework. We estimate that this change would produce between $115 billion and $357 billion in additional tax revenue over the next 10 years, depending on the exact design.

John Ricco · Mar 7, 2022 · 13 min read

Brief Tax Policy

Expanding the Child Tax Credit: Budgetary, Distributional, and Incentive Effects

PWBM projects the House Ways and Means Committee proposal to temporarily extend the 2021 Child Tax Credit design would provide an average 2022 refundable tax cut of $2,785 to 78 percent of households with children at a budgetary cost of $545 billion over the 10-year budget window. Changes to phase-out and phase-in thresholds would reduce the budgetary cost but also reduce the size of the tax cuts.

Victoria Osorio, John Ricco · Oct 25, 2021 · 33 min read

Brief Tax Policy

Budgetary Offsets for Democrats’ Reconciliation Package: Options

We analyze a combination of net revenue raisers consistent with the requirements released by the Senate Budget Committee on August 9th, 2021, for budget reconciliation.

John Ricco · Aug 16, 2021 · 8 min read

Brief Debt Growth Public Investment Tax Policy

Updated Bipartisan Senate Infrastructure Deal: Budgetary and Economic Effects

The bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal, endorsed by President Biden, authorizes about $548 billion in additional infrastructure investments, which we estimate is funded by $132 billion in new tax provisions and $351 billion in new deficits. We project that proposal would have no significant effect on GDP by end of the budget window (2031) or in the long run (2050).

Jon Huntley, John Ricco · Aug 5, 2021 · 6 min read

Brief Debt Growth

President Biden’s FY2022 Budget Proposal: Budgetary and Economic Effects

PWBM estimates that President Biden’s FY2022 budget proposal would increase spending by $5.9 trillion and increase revenue by $3.9 trillion over the 2022-2031 budget window. By 2050, we project that the President’s budget proposals would decrease public debt by 7.3 percent and decrease GDP by 1.1 percent relative to current law.

Alexander Arnon, Marcos Dinerstein, Maddison Erbabian, John Ricco, Youran Wu · Jul 6, 2021 · 12 min read

Brief Debt Public Investment Tax Policy

Bipartisan Senate Infrastructure Deal: Budgetary and Economic Effects

The bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal, endorsed by President Biden, authorizes $1.2 trillion of spending, representing about $579 billion in additional infrastructure investments funded by a mix of deficits, user fees, and other tax provisions. This proposal would increase output in 2050 by 0.1 percent.

Jon Huntley, John Ricco · Jun 30, 2021 · 7 min read