Open, Accountable Government

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

Obama and Coburn Shine Brighter Light on Government Spending

Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) have joined forces again to craft legislation that would increase the transparency of how the federal government spends taxpayers' money. The Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act (S. 3077), introduced June 3, is a follow-up to the 2006 Transparency Act, which was also spearheaded by the two senators. Obama and Coburn, along with Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and John McCain (R-AZ), introduced the new legislation with the goals of making important new data easily accessible and enabling citizens to hold our government accountable for the fiscal stewardship of our shared resources.

read in full

Covering Up Mistakes of Torture and Rendition

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released a report that investigated the case of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who was taken into U.S. custody in 2002 and removed to Syria, where he was held by authorities for fourteen months. Two House committees held a hearing June 5 on allegations of torture that Arar says occurred during his imprisonment.

read in full

CBPP: Tax Extenders Need Comprehensive Review

Jun 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a helpful policy brief out today that runs through all the reasons the upcoming package of tax cuts -- popularly referred to as the "extenders" package -- should be offset. We couldn't agree with CBPP more. In their brief, they make four main points, the last of which is probably the most important:

Congress should pay for the tax extenders, as its budget rules require.
Arguments against applying PAYGO to the extenders bill do not withstand scrutiny..
The offsets in the House-passed bill are reasonable policy.

read in full

EPA Asks Public, "What Do You Want to Know?"

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has invited the public to participate in a week of online dialogue to develop ideas to improve access to environmental information.

read in full

Military Wages

Jun 9, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Congress has sent the president a bill that would, in addition to forcing free-riding federal contractors to pay payroll taxes, "allow soldiers receiving combat pay to have their money counted as income for the purposes of the Earned Income Tax Credit." (BNA email) I realize that we blow a lot of cash on the military, but does it strike anyone as odd that some Americans getting shot at in a combat zone in service of their country are paid so little that they qualify for EITC?

read in full

Workers See Fewer Hours, More Weeks Unemployed

Jun 6, 2008 by Craig Jennings

As Dana noted in this morning's daily report, the unemployment numbers released this morning were bad enough to put unemployment insurance (UI) benefits extension back in play for the domestic spending section of the FY 08-09 war supp. But the past couple of weeks have seen the release of a couple of other data points that should increase concern among lawmakers that the U.S. labor force has come into sour times.

read in full

CBO Monthly Budget Review: May, 2008

Jun 6, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The good folks over at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their monthly budget review yesterday. Some highlights of the number crunching in the report are below:

read in full

Media Coverage of Obama-Coburn Bill

Jun 5, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Below are blog and news stories discussing the introduction yesterday of a new transparency bill cosponsored by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). Given the bill was introduced at the same time as Obama was wrapping up the Democratic nomination for president, the coverage was not bad.

read in full

Obama-Coburn Continue Transparency March

Jun 4, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Tom Carper (D-DE), and John McCain (R-AZ) introduced new legislation on June 3 as a follow-up to the 2006 Transparency Act. The bill, the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act (S. 3077), would augment the 2006 law but go further, making important new data more easily accessible to the public and making it easier for citizens to hold our government accountable for the fiscal stewardship of our shared resources.

read in full

The Health Care Entitlement That Must Not Be Named

Jun 3, 2008 by Craig Jennings

In a post over at inclusionist, Shawn Fremstad makes a crucial point about federal health care spending. In fact, the 2nd biggest health care entitlement isn't Medicaid, it's the $200+ billion tax break for employer-sponsored health insurance. The health insurance tax break costs around $30 billion more than Medicaid and, if my recollection is correct, is increasing at a faster rate than either Medicaid or Medicare. It's also, unlike Medicare or Medicaid, a regressive tax subsidy that provides more benefits for the wealthy.

read in full