Entitlements

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

more news

Samuelson Misremembers Recent Deficit History

Feb 14, 2007 by Craig Jennings

Robert Samuelson's column in the Washington Post this morning is a broadside against entitlement spending. You see, Samuelson believes that Congress will never balance the budget because so many Americans receive welfare (read: Social Security, Medicare, Medicade) that cutting such programs is politically impossible. And because raising taxes is also politically impossible, eliminating the federal budget deficit is impossible.

read in full

Baucus Says No to SS Privitization Nominee

Feb 14, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) announced today he will not take up the nomination of Andrew Biggs to be Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Biggs was nominated last year but was not confirmed and was re-nominated this year by President Bush. In making his announcement, Baucus said: Andrew Biggs

read in full

Entitlement Enlightenment: Into the Bipartisian, Interbranch Breach

Feb 8, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) and OMB Direct Robert Portman outdid each other at yesterday's Committee hearing. They lavishly praised each other's sincerity and good-faith bipartisan commitment to restoring the nation's fiscal imbalances by guaranteeing long-term entitlement program solvency, taking pains and risks to be sure to leave everything on the table, sharing a good-natured chuckle at the off-message public comments of a naughty Vice President who tried take some minor taxware of the table in broad daylight. The lyrics to their Kumbaya cooing were as follows:

read in full

Health Care Wrongness

Feb 8, 2007 by Matt Lewis

A note on a budget meme that needs to be done in. The Washington Post: Some of its approaches, particularly the effort to restrain the growth of Medicare through additional means-testing and cutting payments to providers, are commendable; they merit more serious consideration by Congress than they appear destined to receive. The New York Times:

read in full

OMB Watch Release Preliminary Budget Analysis

Feb 5, 2007 by Matt Lewis

OMB Watch has released a preliminary analysis of the President's FY 08 Budget request. President's Budget Full of Cheap Rhetoric; Wrong Priorities President Favors Tax Cuts for the Wealthy over Domestic Needs Check back here for additional analyses and commentary on the budget as the week progresses.

read in full

Projections and Prophecy

Jan 30, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-SD) must be getting bored. He's been having hearings on long-term fiscal issues, but pretty much every speaker has been saying the exact same thing: there's huge problems in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, so we better start cutting benefits, and maybe find a way to raise revenues.

read in full

Give With One Hand, Take With The Other

Jan 29, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has an big-time paper out on entitlement costs and the budget, where they both move forward the debate over future fiscal problems, and move it back. Laudably, they dispel the myth that there is an "entitlement" crisis. Many entitlement programs are actually going down in costs and getting more efficient. Just because the program is an entitlement doesn't mean it's got problems.

read in full

Congressional Neglect Hits Timber-Dependent Communities

Jan 29, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Last year's Congress failed to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determiniation act, which provides a funding stream for rural areas suffering from the decline in the timber industry. Unless Congress acts soon, these rural communities may lose millions of federal funding. Oregon would be particularly hard-hit. The LA Times has more:

read in full

Bush's Fiscal Rhetoric Falls Short

Jan 24, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

In case you missed it this morning, OMB Watch released a statement responding to the president's State of the Union address last night. In short, we were unimpressed with Bush's empty rhetoric about fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. Bush's Fiscal Policy Rhetoric Continues to Fall Short

read in full

Commissions & Task Forces & Working Groups, Oh My!

Jan 23, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Yesterday afternoon, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) announced plans to force Congress to consider changes to entitlement programs through the establishment of yet another commission. The Feinstein-Domenici plan would require a 15-member commission to deliver recommendations one year from the date it was established and would force, through specific deadlines, action by committees, debate on the floor or each chamber, and conference committee negotiations. Everything is scripted just so in the Feinstein/Domenici plan.

read in full