You can always tell when the appropriations season is approaching because, somehow, earmarks, the shadowiest part of the appropriations process, always find a way of sneaking back into the political discourse. True to form, as we wait for Congress' budget resolution, today saw both the Democrats and Republicans announcing their own earmark reform plans. The House Democrats, through Congressman David Obey, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, announced that they would be forbidding earmarks to for-profit organizations. At the same time, House Republican Leader John Boehner announced that his caucus was considering an outright ban on earmarks from House Republicans.

The Recovery Board, via the Office of Tax Analysis, has a new set of snazzy charts and graphs breaking down Recovery Act tax obligations, from March to December 2009. There isn't anything particularly newsworthy in these charts, since we've known the relative sizes of the expenditures for a while now, but they are very useful in seeing the expenditures over time, which is a new trick. I added part of one of the more interesting charts below; just be aware that more current estimates place the tax expenditure amount obligated closer to $120 billion.

ProPublica has a great story up today, examining the list of "two-time losers" the Recovery Board posted on their website. The Board chairman, Earl Devaney, said he posted this list of recipients who failed to report, as they are legally required to do, in both reporting periods, in an effort to shame the recipients into reporting. Since agencies have very few sticks to get recipients to report, the list sounded like a great idea. One problem: ProPublica found that at least 60 of the 360 recipients listed did actually report on time.

Kudos to Ray Locker and Ken Dilanian at USA Today who recently published a story on the rampant conflicts of interest within a study panel that evaluates the Department of Defense's (DOD) Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) for Congress. Locker and Dilanian's analysis found that "more than half of the panel members appointed to review the Pentagon's latest four-year strategy blueprint have financial ties to defense contractors with a stake in the planning process."