Government Performance

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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more news

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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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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Senate Restricting Public Access to Contractor Data

May 21, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The U.S. Senate is moving to restrict public access to a new contractor misconduct database, part of a new proposal being spearheaded by the Project on Government Oversight and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Apparently there is bipartisan objection to the proposal within the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Scott Amey at POGO has the rundown:

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Jackson May Not Have Been Only Bad Apple at HUD

May 21, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Carol Leonnig at the Washington Post wrote a great article over the weekend that gets further into the weeds on contracting problems at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under former Sec. Jackson. Leonnig profiles three small businesses that received huge jumps in the size of federal contracts they received over the last five or so years, often times despite objections of career contracting officers. It appears awarding contracts as political favors might have extended well beyond Jackson to many other high ranking officials at HUD:

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Carlyle Group to Buy Booz Allen Government Practice

May 20, 2008 by Craig Jennings

I don't have anything substantive to add to this Government, Inc. post. I'll just echo Robert O'Harrow's sentiment that a Carlyle-Booz marriage would be interesting, but especially from an oversight perspective. Carlyle manages something like $81 billion worth of assets. Its alums include members of the bin Laden family, former president George H.W. Bush and former British prime minister John Major. It has been the focus of investigative reports galore and uncounted conspiracy theories.

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Overseas Contractor Insurance Companies Bilking Taxpayers

May 16, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Citing inflated profit margins, a recent report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee criticized providers of federally mandated insurance to the Pentagon of sticking taxpayers with exorbitant bills. The Defense Base Act (DBA) requires that all contractors working for the federal government overseas purchase workers compensation insurance for its employees. The cost of the insurance is then passed on to the government. But unlike other federal agencies, the Pentagon has the authority to negotiate its own contracts.

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Unions Boost Wages of Lowest-Income Workers the Most

May 16, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Shawn Fremstad posted yesterday on a new paper released this month by John Schmitt over at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The paper studies the impact unions have on income and has some interesting findings:

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Best Spin Ever: Doan Fought for Accountability!

May 15, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

When I posted at the end of April that the book had closed on Lurita Doan, former head of the General Services Administration, (GSA) apparently I was wrong. She has resurfaced in interviews in GovExec magazine, on Federal News Radio and most recently in this border-line ludicrous column in Federal Computer Week by Neal Fox, the former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the GSA.

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