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

EPA's Assessments of Chemical Dangers -- Too Slow

A government investigation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) process for assessing dangerous chemicals concludes the agency is so slow and lacking in credibility that the system is in "serious risk of becoming obsolete."

read in full

Senate and House Take Legislative Swings at Secrecy

The Senate introduced new legislation that would make it more difficult for the executive branch to establish secret policies. This effort followed the House's passage of legislation to reduce overuse of classification by security agencies.

read in full

FBI to Increase Secret Powers in the Near Future

The Department of Justice (DOJ) plans to finalize secret changes to a secret rule that sets guidelines for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) work. The changes will reportedly lower intelligence-gathering standards and could pose a significant threat to individual rights. Several senators have voiced strong concerns about the changes.

read in full

EPA Failing on Children's Environmental Health Issues

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) told a Senate oversight committee Sept. 16 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ignored recommendations from an advisory committee established to assist the agency in creating policies to protect children's health. For example, in developing three recent air quality standards on particulate matter, ozone, and lead, EPA either rejected the committee's recommendations or treated them as one of many public comments, according to GAO.

read in full

CBPP: Updated Child Tax Credit Expansion Analysis

Sep 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has updated their analysis of the proposed expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) that is currently being debated in Congress. The CTC expansion is included as part of the "tax extenders" package of tax cuts that is scheduled to be debated this week. Looks like the expansion would help some pretty hard working folks:

read in full

What About the Rest of Us?

Sep 19, 2008 by Craig Jennings

As Wall Street collapses under the weight of its greed, bad luck, and basic stupidity, the Free MarketTM crusaders of the Bush White House have come out of the pro-regulation, big-government closet. This morning, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that the federal government will ride to the rescue of the investors in distress.

read in full

Feds Seeking Back Taxes from Feds

Sep 19, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Federal News Radio posted a short report from earlier this week about efforts at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to collect over $3.5 billion in back taxes from federal employees. The Internal Revenue Service is trying to collect billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from nearly half a million federal employees. According to IRS records, 171,549 current federal workers did not voluntarily pay their federal income taxes in 2007. The same is true for 37,752 active duty military and nearly 200,000 retired civilian and military personnel.

read in full

A Chance to Change Wall Street

Sep 19, 2008 by Craig Jennings

If anything, the meltdown on Wall Street has shown that executive compensation and performance are hardly related.

read in full

POGO Running on All Cylinders

Sep 19, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Earlier this week, we highlighted two hearings in the House of Representatives that were focusing on issues of waste, fraud, and abuse and federal contracting. Our friends over at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) have had their A-game this week. They not only testified at one of those hearings, but have provided some excellent previews, commentaries, analysis and reports, and summaries on the hearings this week. All of the POGO materials are worth at least glancing through, if not reading thoroughly.

read in full

Happy Birthday OMB Watch!

Sep 17, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

We'll be shutting down the BudgetBrigade a bit early today to head off to OMB Watch's 25th Anniversary celebration. Yup, that's right. OMBW is 25 years young this year and we're primed and ready for our quarter life crisis! We're taking some time to celebrate tonight with friends and supporters and remember 25 years of fighting for a more transparent and accountable federal government.

read in full