Blog: The Fine Print / Revenue & Spending

Monthly Budget Review: November, 2008

Dec 5, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its Monthly Budget Review for November.

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SIGTARP Hold Lifted

Dec 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

It appears that the anonymous hold on Neil Barofsky, President Bush's nominee for the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program has been lifted. The Senate is expect to proceed expeditiously when they return to action next week.

There's no word, however, on the identity of the anonymous holder.

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Thomas Frank on Our Obsession with Contracting

Dec 3, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Thomas Frank wrote an excellent column in the Wall Street Journal before Thanksgiving that is a great overview of the problems of a government contracting system run amok. The entire column is worth reading, but here's a key passage:

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$83 Billion War Funding Request in the Works

Dec 3, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Buried in this article on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates staying in office for the incoming Obama Administration, is this mention of the next war funding request from the current administration:

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TARP: Additional Actions Needed to Better Ensure Integrity, Accountability, and Transparency

Dec 2, 2008 by Craig Jennings

That's the title of a report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report, prescribed by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) legislation, is the first of a recurring series to the appropriate committees of Congress and the Special Inspector General for TARP.

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TARP Oversight Continues Down Bumpy Road

Dec 2, 2008 by Craig Jennings

One of the oversight bodies created by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) legislation is the Congressional Oversight Panel. The panel -- composed of five members appointed by Congressional leadership -- has only recently been named, but has held briefings with Treasury Department officials.

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It's Now Officially a Recession

Dec 1, 2008 by Craig Jennings

It's felt like it for a while, but the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research announced today that we are in a recession and it began in December 200.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 26, 2008 by Craig Jennings

While we here in the Budget Brigade are thankful that our respective alma mates are poised to clinch BCS bowl berths (hook 'em, Horns!), we are even more thankful that President Elect Obama has serious concerns about the current BCS system. That's change we can believe in!

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A Few Trillion More Than 700 Billion

Nov 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Updated: See below.

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Competitive Sourcing Continues to Fail

Nov 24, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report on Friday on the Bush administration's competitive sourcing initiative, which allows the federal government to hold public-private competitions for the right to deliver commercial services for the government (things like janitorial services or food preparation or maintenance). If a private sector bid can show savings of $10 million or more or 10 percent of the cost of providing those services in-house, they win the competition. /p>

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