How Government Works

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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White House Refuses to Release Visitor Logs

On July 22, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for withholding White House visitor logs. The logs pertain to individuals who visited the White House to discuss health care policy. Some see the administration’s refusal to disclose the logs as a continuation of Bush administration secrecy.

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"Not Consistent With Independence"

Jul 28, 2009 by Craig Jennings

On Sunday (July 26) Federal Reserve Bank chief Ben Bernanke sat down with Jim Lehrer of PBS's News Hour to defend recent bold actions of the central bank to shore the nation's financial system. Specifically, Congress and many Americans question the wisdom of engineering a $29 billion bailout of Bear Stearns (as competitor Lehman Brothers lay dying in a pool of its own red ink); the extension of over $2 trillion in loans and loan guarantees using who-knows-what as collateral; and a doubling of the monetary base.

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Has Something Funny* Happened on the Way to the Internet?

Jul 27, 2009 by Craig Jennings

UPDATE: It's up. On the evening of Friday, July 31, the contract was posted on Recovery.gov.

Despite GSA's and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board's "confirmation" that the $9.5 million contract with Smartronix, Inc. to implement Recovery.gov 2.0 would be posted online, we're still waiting to see it on Recovery.gov.

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Dashboard Info Prompts VA to Hit the Brakes

Jul 22, 2009 by Craig Jennings

A project by the nation's Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, has lead to the suspension of some 45 information technology (IT) projects at the Veterans Administration. Unveiled earlier this month, the “'IT Dashboard' is a new, one-stop clearinghouse of information that allows anyone with a web browser to track federal IT initiatives..."

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Obama's Use of Signing Agreements Draws Ire of House Democrat Leaders

Jul 21, 2009 by Jocelyn Yin*

Today, four House Democrat leaders, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. David Obey (D-WI), released a strongly worded letter that expresses their displeasure with President Obama's use of a signing statement to reassert his right to ignore the conditions placed on the IMF funding for purposes of conducting foreign policy.

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SIGTARP Report Calls for More Bank Info

Jul 20, 2009 by Craig Jennings

This morning the Special Inspector for TARP released a report based on a survey of some 360 financial institutions that received TARP funds. The report finds that:

Many banks reported that TARP funds allowed them to increase lending for residential and commercial loans, small business loans, credit card loans, and other types of lending. Most firms reported multiple and sometimes interrelated uses; a majority of respondents’ reported that they used the funds primarily for lending, building capital reserves and investing...

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Phase Three of Open Government Directive Process Generates Recommendations

The third phase of public participation in generating recommendations for the federal Open Government Directive wrapped up on July 6. The final phase sought draft recommendations within three broad topics – transparency, collaboration, and participation – which President Barack Obama identified in his January memo as the three principles of open government.

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EPA Calls for Transparency as "First Step" to Improving Water Quality

In a July 2 memo to top staff, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, called for greater transparency of water quality enforcement and compliance information. Jackson acknowledged that U.S. waters do not meet public health and environmental goals, and she listed enhancing transparency as the first of several steps toward improving compliance and water quality.

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OMB Watch and Coalition for an Accountable Recovery Ask Government to Post Recovery.gov Contract Online

WASHINGTON, July 13, 2009—Today, OMB Watch and the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery wrote to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and requested that the board immediately make available on Recovery.gov the recently announced contract with Smartronix to redesign Recovery.gov, the contract or task order with CGI Federal to create FederalReporting.gov, and any other contracts related to the work of the board.

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Sen. Coburn Wants You to Examine His Records UPDATED

Jul 7, 2009 by Gary Therkildsen*

Last night, as expected, the Senate passed the $3.1 billion FY 2010 Legislative Branch appropriations bill by a vote of 67-25. Final passage of the bill included Sen. Coburn's amendment requiring all senators to disclose their yearly expenditures in a publicly searchable online format. The Senate approved the amendment by voice vote.

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