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...

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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

Bad Idea

Apr 29, 2011 by Craig Jennings

"I thought it over, and putting the American at economy in grave peril once a year would solve all my issues, so I figure, let's do it six times a year."

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The False Sense of Balance of a Balanced Budget Amendment

Apr 27, 2011 by Craig Jennings

With federal borrowing rapidly approaching its statutory limit, Washing politicians are falling all over themselves to figure out how to extract more budget concessions from President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in exchange for not throwing the world's financial markets into a panic.

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Spending Caps: The House Budget Resolution by Another Name

Apr 25, 2011 by Craig Jennings

As the date approaches when the Treasury will meet the debt ceiling, the demands of the ~~hostage takers~~ House and Senate conservatives who are playing hard-to-get for their vote to up the ceiling are becoming known. And naturally, rather than put forth ideas that would make a serious attempt at reducing the federal budget deficit, these MOCs are demanding budget mechanisms designed to only limit spending.

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CBO Monthly Budget Review, April 2011

Apr 12, 2011 by Gary Therkildsen*

Last Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Monthly Budget Review (MBR) for April. If you've been keeping an eye on this blog, you'd know that the $830 billion deficit Uncle Sam has racked up over the first six months of fiscal year (FY) 2011 is unsurprising and isn't really newsworthy. Of course, that's not the way it's likely to play out in the media or on Capitol Hill.

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Paul Ryan's 'Path to Prosperity' ... for the Rich

Apr 7, 2011 by Gary Therkildsen*

Released Tuesday morning amid great fanfare, Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget proposal is turning out to be a grab bag of right-wing economic crankery. In fact, that's too nice: the proposal is flat out awful. And when I say "awful," I don't just mean evisceration-of-two-very-popular-social-safety-net-programs or two-thirds-of-proposed-spending-cuts-from-low-income-programs awful, but tax-hikes-on-middle-and-low-income-folks-combined-with-tax-cuts-for-the-rich awful.

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The Ryan Plan: Budgeting for Big Business

Apr 7, 2011 by Craig Jennings

The House Budget Committee approved last night Rep. Paul Ryan's budget resolution proposal. What would House Republicans' do given their way? Write big checks to big businesses, cut taxes for the rich, and cut off health care, nutrition, and housing assistance for the poor.

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Analysis: Rep. Paul Ryan's FY 2012 Budget Resolution

Like all congressional budget resolutions, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan's (R-WI) fiscal year (FY) 2012 Budget Resolution is not simply a chart of preferred spending and revenue levels, it's also a political statement guided by ideology. And Ryan's ideology demands that the federal government divert ever increasing sums from middle- and low-income families to big business and high-income families.

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The Balanced Budget Amendment That Isn’t About Balancing the Budget

Mar 31, 2011 by Sam Rosen-Amy

In a move hearkening back to the Clinton era, Senate Republicans introduced a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution earlier today. All 47 members of the caucus are cosponsoring the bill, a strong show of force. But here’s the thing: this balanced budget amendment isn’t about balancing the budget.

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Cloaked in Good Government Garb, Sunset Commission Would Fast Track Spending Cuts

On March 16, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) proposed a controversial amendment to a small business reauthorization bill. The amendment would create a so-called "sunset commission," which is designed to identify and eliminate federal programs deemed unnecessary. The commission, billed as a "good government" measure by proponents, would likely operate behind closed doors, usurping the traditional oversight role of key congressional committees and potentially eliminating important programs.

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Commentary: Congress's Backward Budgeting

Some in Congress are treating a recently released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on duplicative federal programs as a recipe book for budget cutting. However, GAO's recommendations for fixes are more nuanced, and the report ultimately underscores the value of implementing effective program measurement tools and carefully calibrating federal spending to ensure that national priorities are addressed.

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