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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CBO Monthly Budget Review, August 2010

Sep 10, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

People try to pull me down / They talk about me like a dog / Talk about the clothes I wear

Uh oh, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its Monthly Budget Review (MBR) for August. The report states the federal government has racked up just under a $1.3 trillion deficit so far this fiscal year, which, for those of you paying attention, only has one month left. Are we going to break the $1.3 trillion barrier this year? Sadly, yes.

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The Real Significance of Orszag's Column

Sep 7, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

Peter Orszag's first opinion piece in the New York Times has certainly made a splash, hasn't it? Media outlets are hyping that the former head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has come out in defiance of the White House to argue that Congress should extend all the Bush Tax Cuts. Take a closer look at Orszag's column, though, and one will recognize this meme as a silly controversy distracting from the real issue raised in the piece.

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Deficit Commission Chair Troubled by Vets, Retirees, "Lesser People"

Sep 1, 2010 by Craig Jennings

National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (AKA "Deficit Commission") co-chair former senator Alan Simpson's latest outburst has betrayed his ignoble sensibilities and misguided priorities.

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It's the Lack of Jobs that Causes Unemployment

Aug 31, 2010 by Craig Jennings

Last week, in a post on the how dreadful the job market is, I mentioned that "some" argue that the 99-week limit on Unemployment Insurance is actually creating unemployment.

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Five Charts That Congress Clearly Has Not Seen

Aug 23, 2010 by Craig Jennings

It has been -- and many would argue that it still is -- a deep, deep recession. The breadth of job losses is nothing short of staggering.

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Congress Sends Aid to States, Gaps Remain

With all of the attention placed on federal budget problems, it can be easy to forget that state budgets are facing similar troubles. Since almost every state has some form of a balanced budget requirement, states can be extremely susceptible to swings in the economy, and the recent recession is a perfect example. In an effort to help ameliorate the states' fiscal situation, President Obama recently signed into law a $26 billion state aid bill passed by Congress in a rare August session. The bill, which includes $10 billion in education funding and $16 billion for state Medicaid programs, is expected to save some 300,000 jobs. Still, it pales in comparison to the actual size of the fiscal problem facing the states.

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Commentary: Federal Debt and Its Implications for Economic Stability

When the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) produced a brief in late July on the nation’s debt levels and the risk they present to the economy, those pushing for immediate deficit reduction jumped on the report as evidence that the U.S. is about to go over a financial cliff. Upon closer inspection, though, the greatest threat facing the country is still the Great Recession and the lingering effects thereof.

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Tax Cuts for the Rich will Make Rich People Richer

Aug 16, 2010 by Craig Jennings

Letting the '01-'03 tax cuts for upper-income households expire may or may not adversely affect job creation*, but at the end of the day, it's important to keep in mind that these tax cuts for the rich are just another means to transfer large piles of cash to people who already make boatloads of it.

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CBO Monthly Budget Review, July 2010

Aug 10, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Monthly Budget Review (MBR) for July. The review provides an assessment of the federal budget through the first ten months of fiscal year 2010. According to the CBO, we have racked up a roughly $1.2 trillion deficit so far, which is about $90 billion less than the deficit last year at this time.

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Is Ben Nelson this Confused on Other Policy Issues?

Aug 5, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

Connor Kenny, an editor at OpenCongress, put a great piece up on the Huffington Post yesterday. It was an analysis of the nonprofit's recent scorecard on how each senator has voted on extending unemployment benefits over the past two years. Along with discovering "a few head scratchers," the report finds "at least one irrefutable truth": "[Sen.] Ben Nelson [D-NE] has a whacked-out definition of 'fiscal responsibility.'"

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