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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Obama and Coburn Shine Brighter Light on Government Spending

Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) have joined forces again to craft legislation that would increase the transparency of how the federal government spends taxpayers' money. The Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act (S. 3077), introduced June 3, is a follow-up to the 2006 Transparency Act, which was also spearheaded by the two senators. Obama and Coburn, along with Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and John McCain (R-AZ), introduced the new legislation with the goals of making important new data easily accessible and enabling citizens to hold our government accountable for the fiscal stewardship of our shared resources.

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CBPP: Tax Extenders Need Comprehensive Review

Jun 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a helpful policy brief out today that runs through all the reasons the upcoming package of tax cuts -- popularly referred to as the "extenders" package -- should be offset. We couldn't agree with CBPP more. In their brief, they make four main points, the last of which is probably the most important:

Congress should pay for the tax extenders, as its budget rules require.
Arguments against applying PAYGO to the extenders bill do not withstand scrutiny..
The offsets in the House-passed bill are reasonable policy.

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Media Coverage of Obama-Coburn Bill

Jun 5, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Below are blog and news stories discussing the introduction yesterday of a new transparency bill cosponsored by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). Given the bill was introduced at the same time as Obama was wrapping up the Democratic nomination for president, the coverage was not bad.

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Obama-Coburn Continue Transparency March

Jun 4, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Tom Carper (D-DE), and John McCain (R-AZ) introduced new legislation on June 3 as a follow-up to the 2006 Transparency Act. The bill, the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act (S. 3077), would augment the 2006 law but go further, making important new data more easily accessible to the public and making it easier for citizens to hold our government accountable for the fiscal stewardship of our shared resources.

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JCT Adopts More Logical URL

Jun 2, 2008 by Dana Chasin

And now a word from our friends at the Joint Committee on Taxation: We are pleased to announce that The Joint Committee on Taxation has a new web address: www.jct.gov. We hope that this more logical address will make our website easier for you to remember, and encourage you to visit it frequently. The old address (www.house.gov/jct) is still functional and will continue to work for the time being. Please update your favorites/bookmarks.

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Pentagon IG Report Exposes Cost of Contracting

May 28, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The good folks at POGO have come into the possession of one Defense Department Inspector General's report published in March of this year. This report was at the center of a congressional hearing that was commented on by Stan Collender in a blog post (and WaPo story) we flagged yesterday. And according to the report:

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House Launches "Fighting Contracting Abuse" Caucus

May 27, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

CongressDaily is reporting ($) that a few members of the House of Representatives are forming the "Smart Contracting Caucus" to pursue what Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) called "thoughtful federal procurement reform." But Dan Friedman at CongressDaily isn't buying the spin:

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Collender: Pentagon IG Report Signals Fraud

May 27, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Federal budget sensei Stan Collender reads this WaPo story on the mismanagement of $15 billion Iraqi reconstruction funds and wonders if something more than incompetence isn't at work. The Pentagon's own inspector general confirmed that this lack of concern for procedural safeguards was blatant and commonplace. That makes it hard to come to any conclusion other than that they were ignored rather than expedited or poorly executed.

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Earmark Skimming: It Costs Money ... to Spend Money

May 23, 2008 by Dana Chasin

When Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) heard from the Department of Defense that the agency was withholding 12 percent of a $1 million medical research earmark Nelson had secured for the University of Nebraska, he learned about a widespread but little-known practice among federal agencies -- taking a cut from earmarked funds, some for unrelated purposes as varied as staff salaries and postage stamps. Nelson dubbed it "earmark simming." This week, the New York Times reported on this practice. Apparently,

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Congress Sends Bush Fair Share Act

May 23, 2008 by Craig Jennings

When the Senate unanimously approved the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax (HEART) Act (HR 6081) on Thursday, two days after the House approved it 403-0, it also approved a measure that would force federal contractors employing American workers through offshore shell companies to pay Social Security and Medicaretaxes. If signed by the president, the bill's enactment would result in hundreds of billions of in new revenues.

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