In front of the Supreme Court, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced the introduction of legislation meant to diminish the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The much anticipated bill is titled as expected, the DISCLOSE Act, which stands for Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections. Four Democrats signed on as co-sponsors, including Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Al Franken (D-MN).

On Thursday, the Senate Budget Committee passed the FY2011 budget resolution on a 12-10 vote. As predicted, the resolution calls for $4 billion in discretionary spending cuts, on top of President Obama's budget, which already proposed a non-security discretionary spending freeze for the next few fiscal years. The Committee's budget resolution would reduce the deficit to $575 billion in 2015, down from its current level of $1.4 trillion. Since OMB Watch already came out against the President's budget proposal as fiscally irresponsible, it's disappointing that the Budget Committee felt it necessary to outdo the President in spending cuts at a time when unemployment is still in the double-digits.

In a post questioning the feasibility of "pay[ing] off our debt" by only raising taxes on those earning more that $250,000, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) tragically confuses "the economy" with "people." The answer to their query, by the way, "can Only Taxing Income Over $250,000 Pay Off Our Debt?" turns out to be "yes, yes we can pay off our debt."

After more than ten years in deep freeze, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now proposing steps to revitalize the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) – the bedrock public right-to-know program that tracks toxic pollution from thousands of businesses. Two recent EPA proposals would expand the number of chemicals reported to the program. This would be the first expansion since 1999. The proposals are small but important steps forward. However, EPA must do much more to boost the usefulness of this vital program.