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

Time to Get Tough on the Swiss

Nov 14, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Back in August, I blogged about a report issued by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations about how foreign banks, specifically large European banks, were helping wealthy Americans evade U.S. taxes.

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Paulson: Troubled Asset Relief Program Will Not Buy Troubled Assets

Nov 12, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Rethinking the crux of the financial markets crisis and its solutions, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced today that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), originally intended to take toxic financial assets off the books of lending institution

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Trust But Verify

Nov 12, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Argh! More bad news about the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the watchdog at the Department of Defense that is supposed to watch out for waste and fraud within the agency's enormous contracting apparatus. DCAA was in the news a lot this summer (see here, here, here, and here) after information surfaced showing the DoD spends too little on contract oversight and interferes with current auditors to restrict the length and scope of investigations. It doesn't look like things have improved much since then.

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Treasury Releases TARP Transaction, First Tranche Reports

Nov 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

On the Depart of Treasury Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA, AKA TARP) website, the Department has posted, according EESA law, a list of transactions made under TARP. And here they are, all $125 billion* worth of them:

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GAO IDs Top Transition Issues

Nov 6, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has created a website "designed to help make the [presidential] transition an informed and smooth one across the federal government." In addition to suggesting myriad policies for various governmental issues like the long-term fiscal outlook,

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Inconsistency at the IRS

Oct 31, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The USA Today reports today that the IRS sent out $1.6 billion in incorrect tax refunds during the 2006 and 2007 tax filing season. The information was released in a recent report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The TIGTA investigation found that the IRS has low-balled their initial estimate of the fraudulent tax refunds in 2006 and 2007 and that the agency has insufficient resources to adequately detect and stop these refunds from being dispersed.

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Hiding Under the TARP

Oct 29, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Treasury Department has been writing checks to banks for a couple weeks now.

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Silver Lining to the Financial Crisis

Oct 24, 2008 by Craig Jennings

If anything, the collapse of the nation's financial markets has forced even the staunchest of believers in the Free Market^® to consider the possibility that sometimes the "market" doesn't know best.

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The End of an Era?

Oct 23, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Update: Bloch was fired by the White House yesterday. From CongressDaily ($): Scott Bloch, the embattled head of the U.S. Special Counsel, was fired today in a meeting with White House officials, according to several sources...On Monday Bloch announced plans to resign on Jan. 5. OSC employees said Federal Protective Service employees barred Bloch from his office today. The agency has an all-hands meeting at 4 p.m.

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EPA Doesn't Tell the Whole Tale of Enforcement

Oct 21, 2008 by Matthew Madia

The Environmental Protection Agency exaggerates its penalties on polluters according to a new GAO report to be released later today, AP reports. GAO charges that EPA overstates its total penalty amounts by including fines that are never actually collected. From AP: The levied fines in 2004, 2005 and 2006 included a total of $227.2 million in so-called default judgments. The agency admitted these hard-to-collect fines were larger in those years; GAO said they are unlikely to be collected.

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