Spending Transparency

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

WHAT DO BLOCK GRANTS AND TAX CUTS HAVE IN COMMON?

The Bush Budget for FY 2004 proposes major funding changes, including block grants, for a number of low-income programs like Medicaid and the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Section 8 Housing Vouchers, Unemployment Insurance, Head Start, Child Welfare and Job Training. The House has begun considering block granting Head Start and Job Training programs. This means that states would get a block of money, sometimes guaranteed for a fixed number of years, to administer programs with less federal oversight. Low-income families and children will lose any entitlement to a minimum federally set safety net that expands when more people are in need. While the safety net is slowing being eroded, block grants would speed up the process. Also, under TANF reauthorization, we expect the "superwaiver" to be revived again – this provision basically unties federal regulations, allowing state governors to waive federal rules in programs including food stamps, public housing, homelessness programs, childcare, job training and adult education.

read in full

END OF THE FISCAL YEAR: HOW ARE STATES DOING?

The National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers published a sobering report from their latest fiscal survey. The new is very bad indeed. The report finds:

read in full

APPROPRIATIONS UPDATE: Let the Cuts Begin

Despite a delay in dividing up the overall discretionary spending amount (as determined in the Congressional budget resolution) among the thirteen spending categories (the 302[b] allocations), Congress is quickly moving forward with the FY 2004 appropriations bills. So far, the House Appropriations Committee has approved seven bills; the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved two. Congress intends to pass all the bills by the start of the August recess so they can be finalized before the new fiscal year starts in October. The bills cover appropriations for FY 2004, which runs from October 1, 2003 through September 31, 2004. Once each chamber passes all the bills, the House and Senate must work to reconcile their individual versions. Assuming that agreement can be reached, they are then sent to the President for his signature.

read in full

Economy and Jobs Watch

This past week, the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) lowered a key interest rate, suggesting that the Fed is not confident about the quality of the “economic stimulus” in the recently passed tax cut package.

read in full

Economy and Jobs Watch

Two recent economic reports show the depth of economic mismanagement by the Bush administration. First, it was reported last week that the unemployment rate has risen to 6.1 percent in yet another indication of the poor state of the labor market. Second, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced that it expects the current year’s budget deficit will be around $400 billion.

read in full

The House Takes Up Permanent Repeal of the Estate Tax

After hijacking the child tax credit with add-ons that inflated the cost to $82 billion, House GOP leaders continue this month in their headlong rush to drain resources from government by cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy. The campaign has just moved from the outrageous to the egregious.

read in full

Child Tax Credit: The Poor as Political Theatre

The story is confusing. How did it end up that some Democrats voted against the House bill extending the refundable child tax credits to the 6.5 million low-income families who got left out of the latest tax break for the wealthy?

read in full

Federal Budget Resources

The Federal Budget is a core issue area of OMB Watch. We follow federal budget and economic policy issues ranging from tax issues to government performance and beyond.

Our core issues include:

The Social Investment Initiative (SII): a two-year effort arising out of Invest in America to build a network of state and local organizations around long-term federal budget priorities; as well as other related projects.

Americans for a Fair Estate Tax (AFET): OMB Watch is very involved in the AFET coalition's efforts to fight against repeal and for a fair reform of the estate tax.

Fair Taxes for All (FTFA): a growing coalition of more than 300 national, state and local organizations, including OMB Watch, who are united in opposition to massive, irresponsible tax cuts.

Additional sub-issues include: Social Investment Initiative Budget Surpluses, Deficits and the National Debt Annual Budget Process & Appropriations Federal Tax Policy State Budget Policy Social Security Invest in America Government Performance Economic Policy Category Map

read in full

The Estate Tax and Charitable Giving

There is little doubt that repeal of the estate tax will have a profound impact on nonprofit organizations. One way nonprofits will feel this impact is through less charitable giving. This policy analysis examines the ways in which nonprofits and foundations might be affected as well as the magnitude of the reduction in charitiable giving that might arise from a full repeal. The Estate Tax and Charitable Giving

Downlad full analysis (.pdf)
Downlad policy summary only (.pdf)
Downlad report only (.pdf)

read in full

Budget ZigZag

The “Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation of 2003” bill (HR 2) that President Bush signed into law with much fanfare on May 28 is chock full of tax cuts that “sunset” – that is, they revert back to pre-2003 law. When combined with the previous Bush tax cut, “The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001,” which is also full of tax cuts that slowly phase in and then end altogether, the result is like something out of Kafka. However, the difficulty for the IRS of creating forms and instructions to reflect yearly changes and taxpayer confusion are not the worst consequences of these bills.

read in full