The Boston Globe: In letters to the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration, and the Labor Department, [House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry] Waxman, Democrat of California, questioned Blackwater's classification of its workers as independent contractors instead of employees. That designation, which the government has questioned in the past, allowed the company to obtain $144 million in contracts set aside for small businesses and avoid paying as much as $50 million in withholding taxes under State Department contracts, he said.

During the House Budget panel's mark-up of the budget resolution last week, presidential politics were the backdrop for some frivolity and hijinks. Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-IA) displayed a surprsing degree of pessimism regarding his party's prospects for the presidential elections in the fall, offering amendments to include in the resolution's deficits projections the costs of the health care plans of candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

Budget -- Front and Center: Floor debates, amendments, vote-a-rama, and final votes on the FY09 budget resolution will occupy most of the House and Senate agenda this week. A central issue: taxes, especially the AMT and whether a patch for next year should be paid for. An amendment to watch for, mostly in the Senate: Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-SC) proposal to ban earmark projects for one year. (For House and Senate budget resolutions, see here.)

A report recently released by the GAO indicates that with rising rates of supplemental appropriations comes decreasing budgeting transparency. Looking at supplemental requests - emergency and non-emergency - from 1997 to 2006, the report concludes:

To the extent possible, funds should be provided through the regular appropriations process to ensure that trade-offs are made among competing priorities, especially in an environment of increasingly constrained resources.