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

Compare and Contrast

Oct 3, 2007 by Craig Jennings

You wouldn't believe it from the deft strokes of his veto pen, but President Bush is the very same president who signed into law the massive Medicare prescription drug benefit. Let's compare that bill with the recently vetoed SCHIP bill: Program 5-Year Cost (billions of dollars) Fully Funded? Vetoed? Medicare prescription drug coverage 268.7 No No SCHIP Expansion 34.9 Yes Yes (click to enlarge)

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Samuelson Watch

Oct 3, 2007 by Craig Jennings

This week's Samuelson Watch is outsourced to Matthew Yglesias:

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Bush Vetoes SCHIP

Oct 3, 2007 by Matt Lewis

It hasn't been reported yet, but we're hearing that Bush has vetoed the SCHIP bill. Update: Here's the AP story. Update: The House may vote to override the veto on October 17th.

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The Ball Is In Your Court, Mr. President

Oct 2, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The SCHIP reauthorization has been sent to the President for his signature. Will he help give 4 million more children health insurance, or will he try to deprive them of it? Well, don't just sit there. Tell the President to sign it!

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What's Next For SCHIP?

Oct 1, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Now that the same children's health insurance bill (SCHIP) has been passed by both the House and Senate, what's happening next? Well, for one, Congress hasn't sent the bill to the President yet for his signature. That will most likely happen tomorrow. Then, the President, making good on his many promises, will probably veto the bill immediately. He'll probably try to keep it quiet. He's a little embarrassed that he's denying children health insurance.

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The Drumbeat For Benefit Cuts

Oct 1, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The drumbeat for "entitlement reform," a euphemism for Social Security and Medicare cuts, has been getting louder. The main drum circle comprises the Washington Post's editorial board, the Senate Budget Committee, and the Bush Treasury Department. When they want to, they can make a frightful lot of noise. Thankfully, Dean Baker is around to check the facts.

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Reich's Supercapitalism

Sep 28, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The first chapter of Robert Reich's new book, Supercapitalism, is available to read at alternet.org now. In it, Reich makes some challenging points. His thesis is that the new deregulated, global economy benefits consumers at the expense of workers. With Wal-Mart as his primary example, he lists many of the products whose prices have been significantly reduced by technology, regulatory retrenchment, and presumably deunionization or the lack or unionization in new industries. Better jobs may mean higher prices.

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Cost Accounting for a "Korea-like Presence"

Sep 28, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The American people made their views on ending the war in Iraq abundantly clear on Nov. 7, 2006, firing the president's party's congressional majority. Later that week, President Bush proposed a "surge" of 20,000 additional American soldiers to be deployed in Iraq. Today, a majority in Congress supports withdrawal of almost all American military forces in the next year, two years, whenever is most immediately practicable. Now, President Bush is preparing us for the possibility of a permanant presence in Iraq.

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Another Doosy by David Brooks

Sep 28, 2007 by Matt Lewis

David Brooks has a lyrical but vague and pretty misleading column about the entitlement crisis today, and in a feat of rhetorical flexibility connects it to SCHIP. Two problems: as Dean Baker says, the bottom line of the entitlement crisis is health care inefficiency. There is no legitimate centrist "share the sacrifice" position, and it has nothing to do with Social Security. Even CBO director and former Hamilton Project leader Peter Orszag agrees with Baker on the cause of the problem!

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College Loan Bill Enacted

Sep 27, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The President has signed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (summary)! The act gradually raises the maximum Pell Grant, which helps low-income students pay for college, to $5,400 by 2012, from $4,050 in 2006. And it cuts interest rates in half for subsidized college loans over the next five years. The nearly $20 billion in new funding is all paid for without tax increases, because the bill cracks down on excessive subsidies to the student loan industry.

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