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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Doan Headlines at Three Ring Circus on Capitol Hill

Jun 13, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Embattled GSA Administrator Lurita Doan returned to Capitol Hill today for a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) invited Doan to testify in the continuing saga of her tenure - this time to examine statements made by Doan that impugn the reputation of federal officials who cooperated with a Committee investigation into Ms. Doan's conduct at the General Services Administration. There was plenty of fireworks at the hearing, particularly because of the release one week earlier of a report by the White House's Office of Special Counsel that found Doan had broken the law by violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government resources for political activity.

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Who Says Obey Must Sign Off on 32,684 Earmarks (besides Obey)?

Jun 12, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

An article in today's Roll Call ($) appears to resolve the central mystery behind Obey's earmarks antics: why in the world must poor Obey himself review each and every one of this year's 32,684 earmark requests, which in turn forces him to wait to include earmarks in spending bills until they are in conference -- after it's too late to remove any earmarks by amendment?

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Obey's Earmarks Antics Attracting Attention

Jun 7, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Once again, House Appropriations chair Rep. David Obey has moved the goalpost on earmarks. Last week, Obey announced that he would ignore reforms adopted by the House on Jan. 5 requiring that earmarks and their sponsors be identified in spending bills when they are introduced. Instead, he said he would delay the inclusion of earmarks into spending bills until they are in conference, when they can no longer be removed from the bill by amendment. Yesterday, Obey shifted his position. His new rule:

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Are House Leaders Slipping on their Ear[mark]s?

Jun 5, 2007 by Dana Chasin

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday shows a 15-point reversal in Americans' approval rate for the Democrats' performance in leading Congress over the last six weeks. On the question of who is "taking a stronger leadership role in the government in Washington these days, (Bush) or (the Democrats in Congress)?" the loss over the same time period is even worse, 22 points. Meanwhile, the poll showed congressional Democrats losing only seven points on whom Americans trust more to handle the war in Iraq. Something is afoot here.

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Rash Report of Reformers' Retreat on Revolving Door

Jun 5, 2007 by Dana Chasin

A story by Jeanne Cummings in today's Politico on the status of the lobbying and ethics bill now headed for conference includes this sentence: The reform community has all but given up on extending from one year to two the so-called revolving-door component that would bar former lawmakers from lobbying their old colleagues.

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Who is the Bush Administration Kidding on PART?

Jun 5, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Abstinence education is back in the news as a recent study from Mathematica Policy Research continues to cast significant doubts on the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education in preventing teen pregnancy, early sexual activity, and sexually transmitted infections. The report, which was commissioned by Congress in 1997, followed 2,057 U.S. teenagers in late elementary and middle school who participated in four abstinence programs, as well as students in the same grades who did not participate in such programs. While this is a topic that is a bit outside the scope of things we comment on here at the Budget Brigade at OMB Watch, I raise it to compare congressionally mandated studies to evaluate programs and the efforts undertaken by the Bush administration with the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). Congress commissioned this study to compare the impact of abstinence-only programs with a control group of students who did not participate - a helpful comparison in determining if it is the abstinence-only programs that are actually making a difference (and the result has repeatedly been that they do not make a difference). Let's compare that to the PART's performance measurement evaluations. According to the PART review from 2006 of the "Abstinence Education" program, the way program performance will be measured is through tracking teen pregnancy rates, percentage of teens who report never having had sex and who continue to abstain after participation in a program, percentage of teens who have had sex and then report abstaining following participation in a program, and decreases in percentage of 9-12 grade students who report having had sex. These are all fine indicators of the level of, well, teen pregnancy and sexual attitudes and actions of teens in the country. Unfortunately, they will not show whether it was the abstinence-only education programs that caused the improvements or goals unless there is a comparison to difference programs or a control group that does not participate in any program. What's even more appalling than faulty methodology within the PART is the outright fabrications that the administration actually uses PART survey findings to inform its funding priorities. The PART review for the abstinence program references a "forthcoming" Mathematica study (question 4.5) and say it "uses a rigorous experimental design with random assignment of control and experimental group." But when the results of that "rigorous" study were released this past April, Harry Wilson, a top official in the Department of Health and Human Services, told the Washington Post that the study "isn't rigorous enough to show whether or not [abstinence-only] education works." Incredibly enough, Wilson added that the administration has no intention of changing funding priorities in light of the results. Do I really need to say more about what a sham the PART is?

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Pre-emptive Nutrition-Assistance Would Save Money

Jun 5, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

A new report commissioned by the Sedexho Foundation estimates the annual costs associated with hunger in America is $90 billion. This estimate excludes government programs for nutrion-assistance - which amount to approximately $53 billion in FY 2006. The report finds that increasing anti-hunger investments by an additional $10 billion to $12 billion a year is cost-effective and could even almost wipe out hunger in America. The lead author of the report, J. Larry Brown from the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University, believes the United States is wasting money by not tackling the issue of hunger head-on: We ought to debate this, because if we're right, we're spending far more by letting hunger exist than it would cost to end it." Washington Times: Cost of hunger calculated at $90 billion

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OMB Sets Standard for Tracking FY08 Earmarks

Jun 1, 2007 by Dana Chasin

In a memo to "heads of departments and agencies" entitled "Tracking Earmarks in the 2008 Appropriations Process," OMB Director Rob Portman announced yesterday the requirements and timeline for the 2008 earmark tracking and internet disclosure process:

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Put that Burger Down and Get Out of Your SUV!

Jun 1, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Since it's Friday and we've had a slow week here at the Budget Brigade, I wanted to put up a little light-hearted reading today. Enter this article from The Hill newspaper about an effort by the advocacy group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to give a tax credit to - get this - vegetarians. The logic goes like this. According to researchers at the University of Chicago, becoming a vegetarian would reduce carbon emissions 50 percent more per person than switching to a hybrid car. This certainly seems logical since a recent U.N. report cited the livestock industry as "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global," including global warming. One problem though. Let's suppose you stop eating meat - no more steak dinners at Morton's, sausages on the grill, or chicken burritos at Chipotle. How much will your individual decision in this case actually reduce the level of activity of the livestock sector? How many fewer cows, chickens, pigs, etc, would be slaughtered and shipped around the country? Probably not too many. The estimates of reduction in emissions from this choice is an aggregate number - the average of each meat-eater's contribution to the emissions of an entire industry - not the actual reduction by each individual's decision to stop eating meat. To have an actual impact on emissions, a large enough number of meat-eaters would have to act in conjunction with each other over a long-enough period of time to be able to shrink the size of the livestock sector. Given that meat consumption has doubled over the last fifty years, my guess is you'll have to convince a whole bunch of your friends to join you at the salad bar. A hybrid car, on the other hand, actually reduces your own physical emissions immediately. You don't have to wait for your neighbor to trade in his Hummer for a Prius for your individual decision to make a (albeit very small) difference. I'm not saying I think you should keep eating meat - that's really up to you. I just wanted to point out the relative benefits of a tax credit for hybrid cards vs. for being a vegetarian. Besides, this line of thinking probably isn't that important anyway beacuse I don't think you could really implement this type of credit - how in the world would the government be able to verify that you, in fact, had not eaten meat?

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Giving Equal Treatment to Work and Wealth

May 30, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday ($) on a plan in Congress to require private brokerage and financial companies to report the "basis" amount of securities that were sold in a given year. This plan was released last week by the Senate Finance committee and it is estimated that it will bring in $11 billion in unpaid capital gains taxes each year - a small, but substantial portion of the overall tax gap related to non-wage income. This is a straight-forward commons sense idea that would help to equalize the treatment of work and wealth in the U.S., at least within the IRS. Currently, payroll taxes (and to a large extent income taxes) are easily calculated directly by the IRS because employers are required to report the amount of income they pay their employees to the IRS. Because of this system, it is very difficult to cheat or make a mistake on your payroll or income taxes and easy for the IRS to catch you if you do (unless you are self-employed, in which case you are reporting your own income to the IRS). But there is no similar requirement for reporting of capital gains taxes (or loses). When individuals report their capital gains or losses, say, from selling shares of stock in a company, they need to calculate the difference between what they paid for the stock, and what they sold it for. The amount they paid for the stock is called the basis. It is much more difficult for the IRS to verify the individual has calculated their tax liability correctly because it does not receive confirmation of the basis for sales of stock and other securities. This plan would help prevent individuals from intentionally cheating or making a mistake in their capital gains and loses by providing the IRS with a way to check individual returns. It would require reporting requirements for income made from wealth to match the reporting requirements for income made from work. While the $11 billion per year brought into the government is actually a small amount compared to the overall tax gap, this proposal would collect sufficient revenues to pay for the entire SCHIP reauthoization bill being debated this year. There are no details on how soon the plan would be introduced as legislation, but with both Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA) supporting the plan, it is likely it will be broadly supported in the Senate.

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