The focus on the Brooking Institution's Initiative on Business and Public Policy is to provide "analytical research and constructive recommendations on public policy issues affecting the business sector in the United States and around the world." The Initiative is primarily concerned with working in the areas of financial reform and competitiveness. Scholars, policy analysts, and others can click...

The Brookings Institution, America's oldest policy think tank, has recently made a new series of its publications, Policy Briefs, available at its web site. These are short papers that focus on various aspects of US and international politics, economics, and foreign policy. At present, some of the papers available are, including "China and the WTO," "Inside Outsourcing: More Bad News from Business...

The US Office of Management and Budget has released the Fiscal Year 1999 Federal Budget (Adobe Acrobat [.pdf] and .wk1 and .wk4 format only), which was presented to the Congress on February 2, 1998. The site provides "A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget." More detailed information can be found in the "Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1999," which contains the "Budget Message...

Transmitted to Congress on February 1, 1999, the FY 2000 Budget covers the fiscal year beginning October 1, 1999. At the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) site, users can view the full text of the budget and related documents in .pdf format. The latter include A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget (also available in HTML), Analytical Perspectives, supplements, historical tables, and a...

As more policy analysts and academics express concerns about the faltering economy, a number of think tanks and like-minded organizations are offering up research reports on how these changes are affecting various segments of American society. This recent 24-page report released in February 2008 looks at the economic problems faced by African-Americans and Latinos. The report was created by the...

Since it was last featured in the 2018-01-19 Scout Report, this resource has added a number of new multimedia offerings, including interactives discussing the impact of a $15 minimum wage, infographics on education, and a video covering the economic impacts of COVID-19. The Economic Policy Institute's Multimedia page offers a wealth of resources that may especially appeal to economics...

In a surprise move, the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee cut interest rates by one-half of a percentage point on Wednesday. For the second time this year, the interest rate change was decided during an emergency conference call between scheduled meetings. The Fed offered numerous reasons for the cut including slow business investment, tapering consumer confidence, unsteady foreign...

Some feel that every time US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Allan Greenspan speaks, the US stock market shudders. He gave testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on February 26, 1997 and the Dow Jones industrial average plunged over 55 points that day (after a rebound from a 122 point loss). You can read the chairman's testimony and his recent speeches at the Federal Reserve Board site (the...

Yesterday, the US Senate narrowly approved a $792 billion tax cut, 50-49. The bill, which was passed by the House with a vote of 221-206, would, among other things, cut all five income tax rates by one percentage point, lower capital gains rates, and eliminate death taxes on estates. The bill will not be sent to President Clinton -- who opposes the size of the cut and favors using the projected...

The December 1999 issue of Industry, Trade, and Technology Review, from the USITC, contains in-depth reports about the air transport services and WTO trade negotiations.