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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Magic of the Market, Private Prisons Edition

Sep 21, 2007 by Matt Lewis

A recent study by University of Utah professors found no clear advantage to privatizing prisons, in terms of either cost or benefits. The Desert Morning News has the story (via the AFSCME privatization blog): Privatizing Utah's prison system would have no clear cost advantages, according to an independent study that was presented to lawmakers on Wednesday.

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White House Releases Next Round of PART Scores

Sep 20, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

The White House released the next round of PART scores yesterday (the 2007 PART scores), adding an additional 40 new programs that had never before been assessed to the docket and 75 programs that were reassessed at the request of agency staff. The full gambit of PART scores can be found at ExpectMore.gov, but it is difficult to identify the newly assessed programs or the ones that were reassessed.

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Alan Spoke -- Atlas Shrugged

Sep 20, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Because He Couldn't Hear Him NEWS ITEM: Greenspan in 1987 said he had "learned to mumble with great incoherence." (USA Today) I want to take this opportunity, on the occasion of a cycle of media coverage of the publication of a book by a certain former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to express myself in no uncertain and certainly no less prolix terms than said chairman to say that certain sayings ascribed to the subject of this discursis were subject to such scrutiny as practically, if not irrationally, and often exhuberantly, to confer upon them the status of scripture.

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OMB Watch Supports Wartime Contracting Commission

Sep 20, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The Senate is now debating and amending the Defense Department authorization act. Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO), along with all the other Democratic freshman Senators, are pushing an amendment that would set up a commission to investigate wartime contracting.

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FedSpending.org Adds New Data, Features

Sep 20, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

FedSpending.org has launched a new version today, with updated data from parts of FY 2006 and FY 2007, new features and search functionality, greater accessibility for people with disabilities, and a few bug fixes in the site. The site now contains contracting data through the second quarter of FY 2007 and federal assistance data through the first three quarters of FY 2006.

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Take the BudgetBlog Reader Survey

Sep 18, 2007 by Craig Jennings

We here at the BudgetBlog would like to know what you think of our blog. Please take a moment to fill this short reader survey and give us your thoughts.

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Lobbying and Ethics Bill Enacted

Sep 17, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

On Friday, President Bush finally signed the lobbying and ethics reform bill. OpenCongress has the story.

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Student Loans Get The Kinsley Treatment

Sep 17, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Michael Kinsley has a great article on the student loan "industry"- another example of privatization that costs more money than when the government does it itself (other examples include Medicare Advantage and the IRS private debt collection program). Behold the power of private enterprise and all its efficiency.

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Halfway Done, FY 2008 Congressional Earmarks Cut in Half

Sep 13, 2007 by Dana Chasin

It's only a halftime score, but with all 12 of the House FY 2008 appropriations bills adopted, the total number and dollar value of the congressional earmarks included in these bills -- 6,651 earmarks worth $7.95 billion -- is down by about half from the 13,492 congressional earmarks totaling $18.94 billion in FY 2005. These numbers reflect calculations based on data from the official OMB earmarks website. Caveat: the site contains a full accounting of earmarks only for FY 2005, and only for congressionally-requested earmarks (omitting all executive branch earmarks requests).

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Medicare's Auditing Priorities

Sep 12, 2007 by Matt Lewis

There was an interesting article in the NYT about Medicare overpayments to insurance companies, many of which are a part of the Medicare Advantage plans that the House proposed to trim. In 2003, Medicare audited 49 of the 220 organizations participating in the program. Auditors found significant errors at 41 companies, but Medicare officials took no action on the findings. As a result of the errors, the auditors said, insurers kept "$59 million that beneficiaries could have received in additional benefits, lower co-payments or lower premiums." The report did not identify the companies.

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