America Would Know Less Under House Census Policy
May 16, 2012 by Gavin Baker
Since 1790, Americans have used the Census as a tool to understand who we are and where we stand as a nation. However, our ability to gather this crucial data would be crippled under a bill recently passed by the House.
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State of the Union's Call for Tax Fairness is a Good Start
Jan 26, 2012 by Sam Rosen-Amy
“The state of the union is getting stronger.” That is how President Obama characterized the current state of the union. But, as we wrote in our State of the Union preview on Tuesday, we still have a long way to go before the economy is back on its feet. In our article, we recommended doing away with the looming budget cuts, increasing taxes on capital gains and financial transactions, and using the additional revenue to pay for more infrastructure projects and public protections. So what fiscal issues did Obama talk about in his speech on Tuesday?
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Congress Strips Out Many Controversial Riders from Funding Bills, but Leaves Public in the Dark
Dec 21, 2011 by Sam Rosen-Amy
Even though the 2012 fiscal year (FY) began more than two months ago, Congress only recently put the finishing touches on this year’s budget. Over the weekend, the House and the Senate approved a funding package wrapping all of the outstanding annual appropriations bills into one. In doing so they stripped out many, but not all, of the controversial legislative provisions, known as policy riders.
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House "Megabus" Contains Modest Boost to E-Gov Fund
Dec 15, 2011 by Gavin Baker
Late Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee released its proposed "megabus" spending bill, packaging the nine appropriations bills that have not yet been completed for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012. The House and Senate have been in negotiations to finish the nine bills before a stopgap spending bill expires on Friday.
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Super Committee "Failure" Is Anything But
Nov 28, 2011 by Craig Jennings
On Monday evening (Nov. 21), the Super Committee formally announced that it was unable to reach an agreement for reducing the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion. While others are decrying the lack of agreement by the Super Committee and calling it a failure, we at OMB Watch believe that each of us should, instead, be relieved.
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Open Government Leaders Support Funding for Key Transparency Initiatives
Nov 16, 2011 by Gavin Baker
OMB Watch and the Sunlight Foundation today released an open letter to the U.S. Senate supporting continued funding for the Electronic Government Fund's important transparency projects. The letter echoes the Obama administration's policy statement issued Nov. 10.
read in fullAppropriations Policy Riders: They’re Ba-ack!
Oct 31, 2011 by Sam Rosen-Amy
Earlier this year, when Congress was finishing the long-overdue budget for fiscal year 2011, the House tried to use the must-pass spending bill to force adoption of dozens of "policy riders." These provisions would have done everything from preventing the regulation of greenhouse gases to prohibiting certain loans to mohair farmers. Fortunately, almost all of them were stripped out of the final bill. However, now, as Congress moves toward finishing the FY 2012 budget, Republicans in the House and Senate are once again attempting to bend the budget process to enact non-budget policies that can't pass on their own merits. Riders have no place in congressional spending bills.
IRS Enforcement Likely to Take Hit in 2012 Approps
Oct 14, 2011 by Gary Therkildsen*
Reporting last week in a piece titled, "Bipartisanship lives! And it will likely cost taxpayers money," Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post notes that although Democrats and Republicans are battling over the fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget, "there's one big thing that both parties already agree on: cutting funding for the [Internal Revenue Service (IRS)]." This shortsighted move is likely to end up costing the government money (at a time when every penny is needed) because roughly half of the cuts are coming out of the agency's enforcement budget.
read in fullObama's New Deficit Reduction Plan Unapologetically Balanced
Sep 19, 2011 by Sam Rosen-Amy
Earlier today, President Obama released a new plan for reducing the federal deficit, or the shortfall between revenues and spending. The plan is technically a set of recommendations for the Super Committee, which Congress created last month to find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. Obama’s plan isn’t ideal, but it is easily one of the best set of deficit reduction recommendations to come out of Washington in a while.
Senate Committee Proposes Transparency Cuts
Sep 16, 2011 by Sam Rosen-Amy
There’s a grand tradition in DC: the Friday afternoon news dump. Press secretaries from across the District save up any bad news, and then release it on Friday after the major news deadlines have passed. That way, articles won’t show up until the weekend, when most people aren't paying attention. In yet another example of this, the Senate Appropriations Committee, responsible for the government’s yearly funding bills, released four bills this afternoon, all of which had passed out of committee yesterday. And, sure enough, there, buried in one of the bills, is the Senate effectively slashing funding for transparency projects.
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