Revenue & Spending / Fiscal Transparency
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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The State of the Nation's Budget
Jan 24, 2012
The state of the nation's budget can be summarized in one word: underutilized. The economy is still clawing its way back from the worst recession since the Great Depression, but Congress voted to drastically scale back federal spending in 2011 instead of investing in initiatives to spur demand. As President Obama prepares to give his annual State of the Union speech later tonight (Jan. 24), we hope he will argue that in the short run, the federal government should do more, rather than less, to create demand in the economy and leave deficit reduction to 2013 and beyond.
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IRS: Tax Gap Stands at Nearly Half a Trillion
Jan 18, 2012 by Gary Therkildsen*
Earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released an updated analysis of the tax gap – the difference between the total amount in federal taxes owed by people and businesses, and the total paid. What did the IRS find? In 2006, the most recent year for which information is available, Americans underpaid their taxes by $450 billion. Extended over a decade, this could represent a shortfall of trillions, robbing the country of needed funds for infrastructure and other investments.
read in full"Do-Nothing" the Best Prescription for Deficit Reduction, but a Bad Approach for the Country
Jan 10, 2012
Congress was busy in the days leading up to the winter holidays. At the 11th hour, the fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget finally passed, three months late, along with an extension of the payroll tax cut and a package of other assorted cuts and credits. The only real substantive legislative change coming out of the session was the death of the ethanol tax credit – because Congress failed to pass it. In the year ahead, this might be a theme: change only happens when Congress does nothing.
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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.
read in fullFiscal Policy: The Best and Worst of 2011
Dec 13, 2011
Welcome to OMB Watch's year-end fiscal policy review, where we give you a retrospective of the good, the bad, and the ugly of fiscal policy in 2011. Some acts, such as increased contracting transparency, made for enjoyable viewing, while others, like the congressional budgeting process, left us crying for a new script. Read on for our take on the year's highlights in revenue, budgeting, and spending.
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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.
read in fullCongress Votes on Balanced Budget Amendment
Nov 22, 2011
Even though the Super Committee is stealing the limelight, this summer's debt ceiling deal didn't just create the deficit-cutting committee. It also forces both the House and the Senate to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. On Nov. 18, House leadership brought an amendment to the floor, where it failed to get the two-thirds vote necessary to pass. However, the close House vote and the impending Senate vote mean that this is not the end of the balanced budget amendment.
OMB Watch Lauds End of Undemocratic "Super Committee"
Nov 21, 2011
WASHINGTON, Nov. 21—The so-called Super Committee announced today that it did not come to an agreement on deficit reduction. This should not be viewed as a failure. OMB Watch decried this undemocratic, unrepresentative, nontransparent process from its inception.
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Congress Passes Year's First Spending Bill With Plenty of Riders, Declares Pizza a Vegetable
Nov 21, 2011 by Sam Rosen-Amy
Late last week, Congress passed the first spending bill for fiscal year (FY) 2012, 48 days after it began. The bill, known as a minibus, is a bundle of three smaller appropriations bills, and collectively, the three bills are about a billion dollars lower than their level last year. Because the remaining nine spending bills required to keep the government running have yet to be approved, the minibus includes another stopgap spending measure, designed to keep the government open until Dec. 16. However, tucked inside the minibus is a litany of restrictions on spending designed to change non-budgetary federal policy. Even though congressional rules are supposed to prevent the practice of slipping policy initiatives into funding bills, the minibus includes 75 policy riders that affect everything from gun regulations to the weight of planes flying into New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport, and even declare that pizza is a vegetable.
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