Blog: The Fine Print / Revenue & Spending

DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 27, 2008

May 27, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Housing -- Market Collapse Accelerates: Prices of single-family homes declined a record 14.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. Year-to-year prices fell less than three percent during the worst drop in the last housing recession, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller national home price index, released this morning.

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Earmark Skimming: It Costs Money ... to Spend Money

May 23, 2008 by Dana Chasin

When Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) heard from the Department of Defense that the agency was withholding 12 percent of a $1 million medical research earmark Nelson had secured for the University of Nebraska, he learned about a widespread but little-known practice among federal agencies -- taking a cut from earmarked funds, some for unrelated purposes as varied as staff salaries and postage stamps. Nelson dubbed it "earmark simming." This week, the New York Times reported on this practice. Apparently,

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Congress Sends Bush Fair Share Act

May 23, 2008 by Craig Jennings

When the Senate unanimously approved the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax (HEART) Act (HR 6081) on Thursday, two days after the House approved it 403-0, it also approved a measure that would force federal contractors employing American workers through offshore shell companies to pay Social Security and Medicaretaxes. If signed by the president, the bill's enactment would result in hundreds of billions of in new revenues.

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Senate Votes to Stop Medicaid Changes

May 23, 2008 by Matthew Madia

Yesterday, the Senate passed an amendment to the war supplemental bill that will put the brakes on several controversial Medicaid regulations. The Bush administration has finalized, or is preparing to finalize, the regulations in an effort to cut federal funding for a variety of Medicaid programs administered by the states.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 23, 2008

May 23, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Supplemental -- Senate OKs $250 Bn in War, Domestic Funds:

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Surrealistic Surplus

May 22, 2008 by Dana Chasin

The unanticipated hiatus between this week's conference approval of the FY09 budget resolution and its formal adoption by Congress next month gives us some time to examine the assumptions underlying the deficit/surplus projections in both the resolution and the budget submitted by the President in February in depth prior to passage.

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Mission Creep at Club Fed?

May 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

An op-ed in today's Washington Post, Fallout from a Bailout, examining the consequence of the Federal Reserve bailout of Bear, Stearns in March, breathlessly exclaims, "The world has changed because of a few snap decisions made one weekend in March." Maybe it takes someone with the unique perspective and insight of a former director of the Division of Monetary Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board to appreciate and alert us to this global cataclysm: "the Fed's action tipped the political balance toward providing direct subsidies to households having trouble meeting their mortgage payments."

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War Supplemental Update: Senate Approves Spending Amendments

May 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

...lobbing it back over to the House The Senate has approved an amendment to the war supplemental spending bill (HR 2642) that would fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of Bush's presidency. The $165 billion spending measure was adopted 70-26.

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Time Running Out for Wesley Snipes

May 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Our friend Wesley Snipes looks like he is running out of options to avoid going to jail on June 3 for believing he was exempt from paying taxes (oh, and actually not paying taxes too). The Associated Press reports:

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Condition of State Budgets Continue to Decline

May 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The state of state budgets continues to deteriorate around the country. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released another update yesterday to their increasingly disturbing analysis, which now shows that 31 states are anticipating budget problems in 2009, with 27 projecting a budget shortfall. We continue to reiterate that this is pretty bad news as state budgets are far less flexible than the federal budget and usually are legally prohibited from running a deficit. From the CBPP update: 31 states anticipate budget problems. Of those:

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