Federal quality control (QC) programs for the measurement of payment allocation errors in federally funded Family Assistance Programs have been at the center of a hot controversy. In 1986, Congress directed the Department of Health and Human Services to contract with the National Academy of...

Debt limits, interest coverage ratios, one-off balanced budget requirements, pay-as-you-go rules, and tax and expenditure limits are among the most important fiscal rules for constraining intertemporal transfers. There is considerable evidence that the least costly and most effective of such...