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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more news

Mar 31, 2008 by Craig Jennings

A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report shows that a repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners would provide sufficient revenues to close the Social Security funding gap.

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Mar 27, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Medicare Trustees Report, released on Tuesday, paints a somewhat bleaker picture than the Social Security Trustees Report. Unlike Social Security which is projected to have a nontrivial cash flow problem in 2042, the Medicare report indicates that Medicare has two problems: 1) The exhaustion of the Medicare Part A trust fund and 2) explosive cost growth that presents a larger, longer-term problem for federal fiscal policy.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- Mar. 27, 2008

Mar 27, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Economy -- Per Capita Income Up in 2007, Flat in Fourth Quarter: The BEA has released state-by-state per capita personal income data and indicates that U.S. personal income grew 6.2 percent in 2007, down from 6.7 percent in 2006. However, fourth quarter income gains were negated by inflation, a marked change from the third quarter's 0.9 percent real increase.

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Paulson's Hand Waving Underscores Social Security's Financial Fitness

Mar 26, 2008 by Craig Jennings

In a statement by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on the 2008 Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund Reports, the Secretary reaches deep to find big bad numbers to support his and the president's call for reform of the Social Security program.

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Social Security: It's Long-Term Outlook Is Still Just Peachy

Mar 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

In fact, it's getting better. The Social Security Trustees Report for 2008 was released by the Social Security Administration today (it's quite the page-turner). Here are the key facts:

Social Security's "insolvency" date remains the same as last year - 2041. This is the year in which the program's payments will exceed its income.
The year in which program's payments will exceed tax revenues remains unchanged - 2017. This is the year that the trust fund will first be used to make payments to beneficiaries

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New OMB Watch Report Unveils Top Five Open Government Questions for Candidates

WASHINGTON, March 19, 2008—OMB Watch today released a report that names the top five open government questions that Americans would like candidates for federal office to answer before the November elections. Top Open Government Questions for Candidates, based on a survey of more than 2,000 people, was released in conjunction with Sunshine Week.

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Baucus Continues Quest to Drive Up Deficits

Mar 19, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, reiterated yesterday that the one-year adjustment to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) from impacting millions of additional taxpayers this year will not be paid for - ensuring an additional $70 billion will be added to the deficit.

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Pressure Flushes CDC Report Out of Hiding

In response to allegations of suppression of science, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a draft report that the agency will continue to modify due to CDC concerns that the report too closely links environmental pollution with adverse health effects in the Great Lakes region.

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EPA Blasted for Library Closings

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was blasted in both judicial and congressional forums for closing seven of its libraries over the past several years. In a Feb. 15 ruling, a federal arbitrator found EPA guilty of unfair labor practices with respect to the closings. One month later, Congress heard testimony from several sources, including the Government Accountability Office (GAO), that EPA's library restructuring plan was poorly conceived, planned, and implemented.

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House Passes Compromise FISA Bill

The House recently rejected the president's request to pass and send to the White House a Senate bill to extend surveillance authority and grant telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for assisting in wiretapping. Instead, on March 14, the House passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (H.R. 3773), which rejects immunity for telecommunications companies and imposes stronger civil liberties safeguards.

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