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...

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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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Economy and Jobs Watch: Sluggish Growth Continues

Employment growth continues to be below average. In August, the number of new jobs added was just 144,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This is the third straight month that the data has been below its historical average -- over the last 30 years, the economy has added about 150,000 per month.

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Labor Day Finds Little to Celebrate in Recent Trends

Yesterday we celebrated Labor Day. Unfortunately, there has not been much to celebrate in the labor market over the last 4 years. A look at the recent record shows an extremely under-performing labor market economy.

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'State of Working America' Calls Economy Unbalanced

On Labor Day, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released its 2004 "State of Working America" report, showing that performance of the economy throughout the recovery has been unbalanced. "After almost three years of recovery, our job market is still too weak to broadly distribute the benefits of the growing economy," it found. "Unemployment is essentially unchanged, job growth has stalled, and real wages have started to fall behind inflation."

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CBO Updates Budget Estimates: Massive Deficits to Grow

The Congressional Budget Office today released its semi-annual update on the nation's budget situation. The report confirms massive deficits for the current year and beyond. In addition, the report shows that deficits will not be "cut in half" in the next five years, as projected by the Bush administration.

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CBO Confirms Record Deficits

Sep 7, 2004 by Guest Blogger

The CBO today released its semi-annual budget update. The report confirms record deficits of $422 billion for 2004.

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Poverty on the Rise

Aug 26, 2004 by Guest Blogger

The Census Bureau today released updated income and poverty data. The news is not good.

Among the findings:

"Real median household money income did not change from 2002 to 2003.1
...the share of aggregate income received by the lowest 20 percent of households had a slight reduction â€“ from 3.5 percent to 3.4 percent.
The ratio of female-to-male earnings in 2003 for full-time, year-round workers was 76 percent, a decline from 77 percent in 2002, because of a decline in the earnings of female year-round full-time workers.
The official poverty rate rose, from 12.1 percent in 2002 to 12.5 percent in 2003. The number in poverty increased also, by 1.3 million people, to 35.9 million in 2003.2.
The poverty rates for people 18 to 64 and those 65 and older remained unchanged, but the poverty rate for children rose from 16.7 percent in 2002 to 17.6 percent in 2003."

See the full report from the Census Bureau.

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Report Card Finds Secrecy Rose 60% at Rising Cost of $6.5 Billion Last Year

RELEASED 10 A.M., AUG. 26, 2004 Washington, D.C.
Government data confirm what many have suspected: secrecy has increased dramatically in recent years under policies of the current administration, which classified 14 million new documents last year. For every $1 the federal government spent last year releasing old secrets, it spent an extraordinary $120 maintaining the secrets already on the books, according to an analysis by OpenTheGovernment.org.

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Recent Trends in Nonprofit Employment and Earnings 1990-2004

Aug 24, 2004 by Guest Blogger

New Report: "Recent _fcksavedurl=>"Recent Trends in Nonprofit Employment and Earnings: 1990-2004" This report examines the recent history of employment and compensation trends in the nonprofit sector, from 1990 to 2004. It finds that while the nonprofit sector held up well in the 2001 recession and its recent aftermath, the more recent experience has been troubling. Employment growth has come to a near standstill over the past year. In addition, and perhaps more troubling, there have been declines in average hours worked, weekly earnings, and hourly wages. Data on individual states also confirm the general nationwide pattern. Read More.

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Officials Seek Exemptions to Arkansas Access Law

City of Fort Smith officials are seeking to change Arkansas' state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) after they were caught violating the law by having secret discussions about a real estate purchase. The city administrator privately polled Fort Smith's Board of Directors via telephone to get approval to bid on real estate being publicly auctioned. City officials contend that if the matter had been discussed publicly, the city would have paid more as knowledge of their top price would have driven up bids. Therefore, the secrecy served the taxpayers' interest.

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Lawmakers Attack Science of Endangered Species Act

Conservative lawmakers are using peer review and data quality language to obscure what amounts to an attack on the Endangered Species Act. Two new bills would require the Fish and Wildlife Service to establish minimum criteria for scientific studies used as the basis for listing species, and to conduct restrictive independent peer reviews on all data used.

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