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

The Employment Situation

Apr 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

While a loss of 80,000 jobs is troubling, an even more disturbing trend in the private job market continues. In March, the private sector shed 98,000 jobs, marking the fourth consecutive month to see private-sector losses. (click on image to enlarge) Dean Baker at Center for Economic and Policy Research has a good write-up of the situation:

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The Executive Casino: Risk-Free Gaming

Apr 2, 2008 by Craig Jennings

This Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon is a great illustration of the incentives that motivate executives. (The image below is one panel of the full, four-panel comic.) (Click to see the full comic)

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Tax Cuts for Top 1% Crisis

Mar 31, 2008 by Craig Jennings

A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report shows that a repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners would provide sufficient revenues to close the Social Security funding gap.

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The Outlook for Medicare

Mar 27, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Medicare Trustees Report, released on Tuesday, paints a somewhat bleaker picture than the Social Security Trustees Report. Unlike Social Security which is projected to have a nontrivial cash flow problem in 2042, the Medicare report indicates that Medicare has two problems: 1) The exhaustion of the Medicare Part A trust fund and 2) explosive cost growth that presents a larger, longer-term problem for federal fiscal policy.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- Mar. 27, 2008

Mar 27, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Economy -- Per Capita Income Up in 2007, Flat in Fourth Quarter: The BEA has released state-by-state per capita personal income data and indicates that U.S. personal income grew 6.2 percent in 2007, down from 6.7 percent in 2006. However, fourth quarter income gains were negated by inflation, a marked change from the third quarter's 0.9 percent real increase.

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Paulson's Hand Waving Underscores Social Security's Financial Fitness

Mar 26, 2008 by Craig Jennings

In a statement by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on the 2008 Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund Reports, the Secretary reaches deep to find big bad numbers to support his and the president's call for reform of the Social Security program.

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Social Security: It's Long-Term Outlook Is Still Just Peachy

Mar 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

In fact, it's getting better. The Social Security Trustees Report for 2008 was released by the Social Security Administration today (it's quite the page-turner). Here are the key facts:

Social Security's "insolvency" date remains the same as last year - 2041. This is the year in which the program's payments will exceed its income.
The year in which program's payments will exceed tax revenues remains unchanged - 2017. This is the year that the trust fund will first be used to make payments to beneficiaries

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Baucus Continues Quest to Drive Up Deficits

Mar 19, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, reiterated yesterday that the one-year adjustment to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) from impacting millions of additional taxpayers this year will not be paid for - ensuring an additional $70 billion will be added to the deficit.

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Democrats Pass Budget in House & Senate

Mar 14, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The House and Senate successfully passed their versions of the FY 2009 budget resolution yesterday. The House passed their spending outline on a mostly party-line vote 212 - 207 and the Senate passed their version early this morning 51 - 44 (roll call not available yet). Sixteen Democrats in the House opposed the budget along with all Republicans and in the Senate, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) supported the budget, while Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) opposed it.

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Saxton: Top 1% Pay Too Much in Taxes

Mar 13, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Joint Economic Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ) wants us to know what a soul-crushing burden of taxes the richest one percent of income earners shoulder. The share of federal income taxes paid by the top 1 percent of households ranked by income increased from 36.5 percent in 2000 to 38.8 percent in 2005, recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data show. ... "Despite the contention that the tax cuts would unfairly reduce the tax burden of the rich, their share of taxes has in fact gone up," Saxton concluded.

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