Federal Debt and Deficit

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

Federal Government Turn a Surplus

Jan 13, 2006 by Matthew Madia

The federal government posted a budget surplus for December, 2005 for the first time since 2002, according to the Treasury Department. A surge in corporate tax revenues pushed total federal revenues for the month to $241.88 billion, while government spending rose at half the rate of revenues to $230.9 billion.

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FY 2007 Budget Request Will Show Tight Spending Constraints

Jan 11, 2006 by Matthew Madia

The release of the President's budget is less than a month away, and Treasury Secretary John Snow has made it clear the budget will "call for sacrifices, no doubt about it." Like last year's "tough budget," this year's slicing and dicing is an attempt by the administration both to appear tough on spending, as well as help them pare the down the deficit -- a whopping $318 billion last year -- even further.

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Congress to Increase Debt Limit for Fourth Time In Four Years

Jan 10, 2006 by Matthew Madia

Last April Congress called for an increase in the debt limit -- the national debt is expected to hit $8,184 billion in mid-February -- however they have yet to act. Lawmakers are expected to take up the issue in February after voting on final tax and budget reconciliation bills, marking the fourth time during President Bush's presidency the debt limit has needed to be raised.

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$119 Billion Deficit in First Quarter of 2006

Jan 9, 2006 by Matthew Madia

The Congressional Budget Office released the Monthly Budget Review on Friday, in which they reported the federal budget deficit for the first quarter of 2006 as being $119 billion. This figure is fairly close to the shortfall seen in the first quarter last year.

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Bush, Congress Hide True Costs of Permanent Tax Cuts

Both the president and Congress have advanced five-year budget plans in 2005. These plans help to mask the true cost of policies to extend the president’s first-term tax cuts permanently, which explode after the current proposed budget window ends in 2010.

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Bush Budget to Increase Deficits $1.6 Trillion over 10 Years

The Congressional Budget Office released its estimates March 5 for the cost of President Bush’s fiscal year 2006 budget, showing deficits increasing by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years. The CBO report will greatly impact the way the House and Senate budget committees write their FY 06 budget resolutions set for markup this week.

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New OMB Watch Report Views Budget from Nonprofit Perspective

The President’s budget that was released on Feb. 7 is not just austere; it is also frighteningly bleak for nonprofit groups and the people and causes they serve. The President has manufactured a fiscal crisis with massive tax cuts, mainly targeted to the wealthy, that has resulted in federal revenues being reduced to the lowest levels since the 1950s as a percentage of our economy. Cutting revenue to that level means there is drastically less money to fund programs that address community and human need problems, a core function of many nonprofits.

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CBO’s Reduced Deficit Projections Mislead

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an updated Budget and Economic Outlook with new 10-year deficit projections for 2006–2015. The report estimated 10-year deficits to have dropped from $2.3 trillion to $1.4 trillion since last September, a 39 percent decrease. These conclusions, however, are very misleading.

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Halving the Deficit Will Involve Major Changes—or ‘Fuzzy Math’

Anybody who listened to President Bush speak during his campaign heard a few specific messages reiterated again and again, loud and clear. One addressed the federal budget deficit, which at 3.6 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) in 2004 was the highest it has been in over a decade. Bush has vowed to halve the deficit by 2009. He repeated this promise in a December press conference, stating he will cut the deficit in half while continuing to pursue both making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent and providing “every tool and resource for our military.”

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Congress Raises Debt Limit, Fails To Pass Intelligence Bill

While members of Congress were unable to complete work on the omnibus spending bill or the intelligence bill during the lame-duck session, they did manage to complete their work on the debt limit.

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