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

Worker Earnings Continue Decline

Feb 21, 2008 by Craig Jennings

According to yesterday's BLS Real Earnings report, for the fourth month in a row, workers saw a year-over-year decline in their paychecks. In January workers saw their pay drop by 0.5% from Dec. 2007 and 1.4% from Jan. 2007. Although a recession has not been officially declared, for millions of wage earners it certainly feels like one. (click to enlarge)

read in full

Multiple Rules Work in Concert to Undermine Medicaid

Feb 15, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Bush administration is pursuing or has achieved several policy goals that work to cut social support services by reducing federal funding for Medicaid programs. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released all of these policies — three proposed rules, one interim final rule, and two final rules — in the past nine months.

read in full

Walker Departs GAO to Walk His Talk Elsewhere

Feb 15, 2008 by Dana Chasin

GAO chief and U.S. Comptroller General David Walker announced plans today to become president and CEO of the Peterson Foundation established by renown deficit hawk Pete Peterson, former Commerce Secretary and chair of the Concord Coalition (and, to be fair, beneficiary of millions of federal dollars in carried interest tax breaks). Peterson will contribute $1 billion to the organization over the next several years. Walker had been head of GAO since November 1998. With characteristic modesty, Walker puts his move in perspective:

read in full

The Limited Effects of Fiscal Stimulus

Feb 13, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Writing in the New York Times, Robert Reich explains how a minor and temporary boost to workers' incomes is tempered by the long-term trend in income inequality.

read in full

Mentioning the Unmentionable

Feb 11, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Jesse Drucker notes($) that the full cost of the recently-passed economic stimulus package is slightly underestimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation's score: A round of business tax cuts in Congress's economic-stimulus package passed Thursday will cost nearly triple the official government estimate, tax experts said.

read in full

Bush Budget Continues to Disappoint

Feb 11, 2008 by Craig Jennings

President Bush's FY 2009 budget continues to receive poor reviews into its second week. We reviewed a number of those reactions last week (see our summary posts here and here), and below are some additional disappointed reviews:

The Daily Tar Heel: Budget May Cut Student Loans
BlackAmericaWeb: Reading Is Fundamental's Program Target of Major Cuts
Center for American Progress: Bush's Budget Cuts Aid to Displaced Workers
The Buffalo News: Bush Budget Disappoints
Washington Post: No Funds in Bush Budget For Troop-Benefits Plan
WP's Stephen Barr: Social Security, DHS Say Bush's Budget Falls Short

read in full

House Approves Senate-Revised Stimulus Package, Heads to President's Desk

Feb 8, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The House voted (380-34) to approve an economic stimulus package passed by the Senate hours earlier. The measure now awaits the president's signature. Congress has decided that the hungry, the unemployed, and the cold should continue to go without adequate food, adequate income, and adequate heat, because putting money into their hands would do little stimulate the economy as they probably wouldn't spend it.

read in full

More Reactions/Analysis of President's Budget

Feb 7, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

More reactions and analysis of the president's budget have emerged since our first round-up post on Tuesday:

CBPP: President's Budget and Medicare "Trigger"
NWLC: Budget Woes: President's FY 2009 Budget
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: The President's FY 2009 Budget
The Workforce Alliance: FY 2009 Federal Funding Analyses

There have also been a number of statements and analyses circulated from Capitol Hill:

Senate Budget Committee Dems: Brief Analysis of Bush FY 2009 Budget
Sen. Conrad (D-ND): Statement on FY 2009 Budget Release
Majority Leader Hoyer (D-MD): Bush's Legacy: Fiscal Meltdown, Weak Economy
House Budget Committee: State-by-State Analysis of President's FY 2009 Budget Request
Speaker Pelosi (D-CA): Statement on President Bush's FY 2009 Budget
Majority Leader Hoyer: Statement on Bush's Release of Another Fiscally Irresponsible Budget
Sen. Gregg (R-NH): Statement on FY 2009 Budget Release
Senate Budget Committee Repubs: Overview of President's Budget

read in full

Monthly Budget Review: February, 2008

Feb 7, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The federal government incurred a deficit of $90 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2008, CBO estimates, about $48 billion more than the shortfall in the same period last year. Shifts in the timing of certain payments and receipts account for about one-third of that increase in the deficit. ... The federal government recorded a surplus of $15 billion in January, CBO estimates, less than half the surplus recorded in the same month last year.

read in full

Bush Breaks His Record For Tiniest Budget Yet

Feb 6, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Since the president's FY 2009 budget request was mostly a rehash of old policies and proposals we've already spent time debunking in previous years, we've been looking for some new angles with which to view the president's budget. As I was sitting at my desk looking at the budget books in my office, the actual length of the main budget volume released this year jumped out at me. Or I should say, it didn't jump out at me. Turns out the main budget book for the FY 2009 budget is the shortest one ever released by the president. At 170 pages, it is more than 45 percent shorter than the average length of the budget book released each year by President Bush (which came in at 311 pages. Not sure what one can make of this change, particularly since the FY 2008 budget is also much shorter than the Bush average. This particular part of the president's budget proposal has evolved during the Bush administration to be a fancy, glossy, picture-filed advertisement for the administration's achievements and priorities, with little hard budgetary information. It is developed, I suppose, to help the administration put the best spin on their budget proposal and successes. I wonder if the Bush administration is tired of actively selling their misguided priorities, particularly in this final year and that is the reason for the shorter volume? Or perhaps they have realized they really don't have many budget achievements that they should be bragging about?

read in full