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

OMB-OMB Watch Collaboration Improving Results?

Sep 28, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Got a email from the nice folks over at OMB this morning about my blog post last week on the release of new PART scores and some of the shortcomings of the PART website. The email was surprising for two reasons: first, they read the BudgetBlog. (ok, so that's not so surprising as we all know everybody who is anybody reads the BudgetBlog.) Second, and perhaps more surprising, they have changed the spreadsheet that lists all PART scores that you can download from ExpectMore.gov to include a column for "Last Year Assessed." Now anyone can easily tell when the last assessment was done for each program. Fantastic! Way to go OMB! (I feel slightly more influential today than I did yesterday, which really wasn't very influential at all.) OMB also reported they are working to improve the search engine on the site so the most recent review links are returned when searching for programs. This is also excellent news, with one caveat: I'd still like to have access to the links to the older reviews available when I search, just not as the first items that are returned from the search engine. Instead of removing those links entirely from the search results (or from the site altogether), it would be better to list the reviews chronologically. Then users can tell when each assessment happened and allows them to compare between assessments to see what has changed. When I searched for our old friend - the Administration on Aging (AoA) - this afternoon, the search returned links to the 2007 review pages, but do not list those conducted in 2003. The links for the 2003 reviews no longer work. Since I suspect that OMB may read this and was very responsive in taking a previous suggestion of mine, perhaps I'll try it again. Here's what I'd like to see (click the image to enlarge):

1) Expand the posting of "Last Year Assessed" data to the summary view for each program, in addition to listing it in the assessment details page and raw data in spreadsheets. 2) Links to older assessments from previous years (where applicable) on the most recent summary view for each program. So for the AoA, you would be able to click on a link in the 2007 review that took you to all past reviews. So a big thank you to OMB for incorporating some user suggestions to their website, and here's hoping we can keep improving it. If this works, I'm asking for the out-year discretionary spending details from the President's budget - those always seem to get leaked eventually, but it would be nice to have them upfront. Who knows how far this might go...

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Webb-McCaskill Contracting Commission Passes!

Sep 28, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Good news- the Webb-McCaskill Wartime Contracting Commission amendment passed the Senate last night, too! Here's the press release. It got unanimous approval. However, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the amendment was water down to get approval. Most importantly, the commission wouldn't have subpoena power under this draft. Now it's on to the House. Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) has introduced a bill that set up a commission, too.

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College Loan Bill Enacted

Sep 27, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The President has signed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (summary)! The act gradually raises the maximum Pell Grant, which helps low-income students pay for college, to $5,400 by 2012, from $4,050 in 2006. And it cuts interest rates in half for subsidized college loans over the next five years. The nearly $20 billion in new funding is all paid for without tax increases, because the bill cracks down on excessive subsidies to the student loan industry.

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Privatization: Is It All About Accountability?

Sep 27, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Prof. Ellen Danin has an interesting paper arguing that much of the debate about privatization is really about accountability, in one form or another. Here's the abstract:

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Contracting Commission Bill On The Floor!

Sep 26, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The Senate is now debating the wartime contracing commission bill as an amendment to the defense authorization act. Check out C-SPAN now (it's 1:45) and call your Senators!

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Authorization Earmark an Oxymoron?

Sep 26, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Though President Bush signed the ethics and lobbying bill several weeks ago, some conservative critics now contend that the bill is conspicuously lacking, since it applies only to earmarks in appropriations -- and not authorization -- bills. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says he reads the new earmark rules — and that the Senate Parliamentarian will back up his reading of the rules — to not ban Members from including new earmarks into authorization bills during conference talks with the House.

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Wartime Commission Would Investigate Contracting Abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan

Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) have sponsored a bill (S. 1825) that would set up a commission to investigate and reform wartime contracting. It is likely the bill will be introduced as an amendment to the Defense Reauthorization Act that is currently being debated in the Senate. OMB Watch has sent a letter of support to Congress urging adoption of Webb's potential amendment. The Project on Government Oversight, Government Accountability Project, and Taxpayers for Common Sense also support the bill.

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Congress Hears Pleas for Expanded Authority and Resources at CPSC

A proliferation of children's product recalls due to potentially dangerous exposure to lead has left many turning to the federal government for answers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has borne much of the brunt for the regulatory failures. Congress is considering solutions including new federal standards for lead, expanding the agency's regulatory authority and increasing agency resources.

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A Correction and an Explanation

Sep 25, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

We were contacted over the weekend by the Administration on Aging (AoA) in response to my posting last Thursday about the newly released round of PART scores. Saadia Greenberg, Director of the Office of Evaluation at the AoA correctly points out that I was in error when I said it was strange OMB cited the AoA during this release of new scores because it was evaluated by the PART in 2003. In fact, the AoA was reassessed this year (2007) and you can see the results of the reassessment. I apologize for the error. Now I certainly don't want to pass the buck here, but this mistake wasn't really my fault. If you put "Administration on Aging" into the search engine on the ExpectMore.gov website, all you get is information on the program's evaluation from 2003, not 2007. See the screen capture I took this morning: This brings up two important points about the PART:

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EarmarkWatch.org -- the Wiki for those who Wonder...

Sep 24, 2007 by Dana Chasin

... just who's getting all those earmarks anyway? Who's giving them and why? Do earmarks meet pressing needs or pay off political favors? And which are pure pork? Check out EarmarkWatch.org, a new tool that makes it easy to look under the rock and take a close look at earmarks, like the $100,000 prize that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) secured for an organization that promotes creationism in Louisiana schools -- paid for in part by you, of course.

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