What Makes Defense Spending so Special?

A Waste of Money

Following up on Craig's post earlier this evening, I wanted to point out some of the really good points that Spencer Ackerman over at the Washington Independent and Matt Yglesias over at Think Progress have been making all day about President Obama's recently announced spending freeze. Ackerman asks why in the world defense spending should go unaffected and Yglesias adds that, while there are reasons to treat various kinds of spending and taxes differently, "the security / non-security distinction doesn’t hold up ... at all."

read in full

Emptying the Sea with a Teaspoon

We here in the Budget Brigade have been trying to get our heads around President Obama's announcement that his FY 2011 budget will propose freezing non-security discretionary spending at 2010 levels. Here's what has us beating our heads against our desks.

read in full

OMB Launches Opening Salvo on Performance Overhaul

OMB Director Peter Orszag released a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies this morning announcing a new initiative in the FY 2011 budget process that seeks to bring increased emphasis and resources for program evaluation within agencies. The memo has three separate goals:

1) Posting more information about federal evaluations online: OMB will begin working this fall with federal agencies to expand access to information about program evaluations.

read in full

Congress Accepts Very Few of Obama's Proposed Cuts

U.S. Congress

With the release of his detailed budget information in May, President Obama proposed cutting or scaling back 121 programs that would save the government $17 billion in FY 2010 - a very small first step in getting the budget deficit under control. Yesterday, CongressDaily published an article that examined the degree to which Congress accepted Obama's proposed cuts and the results are underwhelming.

read in full

Chugging Along: Time for an Appropriations Update

As Congress hits the home stretch before the traditional August recess, it's time to see what Congress has been up to...

read in full

OMB Delaying Mid-Session Budget Review

OMB Director Peter OrszagIn yet another example of searching for sinister intentions of the Obama administration that don't exist, the Associated Press reports this morning that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to delay the release of the annual mid-year update of the budget - called the Mid-Session Review - until mid-August.

read in full

Post-July 4th Appropriations Update

As Congress returns to work this week, it's time to take a look at the status of various appropriations bills. 

read in full

Obama Seeks to Eliminate Tax Benefits for Multinational Corporations

The Obama Administration continues to look for ways to find tax revenue and as a result, several significant tax breaks for multinational companies may be on the chopping block.  During the Bush and Clinton Administrations, it became easier for controlled foreign corporations (CFCs) to conduct financial transactions between offshore subsidiaries at much-lower effective tax rates (or in some cases, tax-free).  If Obama gets his wish, these tax breaks will not be renewed at the end of 2010 and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates will result in an increase of $31-86.5 billion in tax revenue from 2011-2019.

read in full

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman Not Really Grilled by Subcommittee

Congressional Hearing

Yesterday morning, I attended a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing to listen to Douglas H. Shulman, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), provide testimony on the funds Congress will supply to his agency this upcoming fiscal year. I had hoped that subcommittee members would question Shulman over the deteriorating quality of the agency's audits over the past few years – especially those performed on corporations and wealthy individuals – and the insufficient level of services provided to those who claim the overly complicated Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Despite the absence of any of these inquires, there were two interesting exchanges during the hearing.

read in full

IRS to Receive More Funding in Some Critical Areas

1040 Form

I wanted to follow up on Matt's blog post from last week about how regulatory agencies fared in President Obama's FY 2010 budget proposal. As Matt pointed out, the administration is making major investments in some agencies while shortchanging others. One of the agencies Matt didn't cover was the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which is a microcosm of the larger trend Matt was pointing out.

read in full

Pages

Subscribe to The Fine Print: blog posts from Center for Effective Government