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

OMB Watch and The Center for Responsive Politics Unveil Federal Spending Oversight Tools

Washington, D.C., Oct. 10 - At a press club event today, government watchdog groups unveiled powerful new online tools developed to help the public track government spending and congressional conduct.

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MEDIA ADVISORY: Launch of Powerful Tools for Government Oversight

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006 at 9:30 a.m.
OMB Watch and The Center for Responsive Politics Web-based Tools Allow Reporters to Track Federal Spending, Congressional Conflicts, Junkets and the Revolving Door

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CBO's Final FY2006 Deficit Estimate: $250 Billion

Oct 6, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

The final CBO FY 2006 deficit estimate numbs are in … at a cool quarter of a trillion dollars. The $250 billion figure released today is well under CBO’s estimate of $337 billion at the beginning of the year and the $318 billion actual deficit for FY2005. Until this summer, the deficit projections were uniformly in the $300 billion-range, but a late surge in corporate income helped boost FY2006 revenues by $253 billion over last year’s total.

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Bernanke on Budget Cuts

Oct 5, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Another sign that the Bush Administration may push for "entitlement reform" (read: massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) after the election. From CongressDaily ($$):

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The Other Public Interest

Oct 2, 2006 by Matthew Madia

Shorter Sebastian Mallaby: Democrats have no principles because they won't cut Social Security for married low-income people. Snark aside, I bring this up because Mallaby and many of the entitlement-reform-obsessives around Washington are missing the point about fast-growing government spending. The fastest growing part of the budget are interest payments on the national debt. For more, Daniel Gross has a great article in Sunday's NYT explaining why interest payments have taken off.

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The Many Numbers of the Budget Deficit

Sep 29, 2006 by Matthew Madia

Kevin G. Hall, writing for McClatchy, does a nice job of describing the tricksyness with which federal budget numbers are bandied about. From the voice of Pollyanna to that of the bard of the Apocalypse, St. John, talk of the budget elicits a whole range of degrees of concern. To wit: Pollyanna:

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It's the Deficit, Stupid

Sep 29, 2006 by Matthew Madia

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute testified at a Senate Finance Hearing on Tuesday. Essentially, Edwards argued that the federal government has a "spending problem." Increased spending, he said, is almost entirely responsible for the last 5 years of high deficits. Therefore, we ought to get to the root of the problem and cut back on spending to get the deficit under contol. This is the same tack that Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH) has taken while advocating for drastic budget cuts.

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E. Coli Outbreak Is Reason to Better Protect Food Supply

Though federal agencies responded relatively quickly to the recent outbreak of E.Coli in bagged spinach, the case highlights the need to ensure the safety of the nation's food supply and to have adequate tracking systems in place to do so.

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OPEN Government Act Clears Senate Committee Hurdle

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21 approved the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act (S. 394), a promising development for open government advocates. The bill, sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), would remove hurdles to obtaining information from federal agencies under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

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NSA Bills Head to a Vote

High on Congress' agenda this week is legislation to authorize the National Security Agency's (NSA) Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chair Arlen Specter (R-PA) brokered a hollow compromise with moderate Republicans on the National Security Surveillance Act (S. 2453), increasing the likelihood of its passage. In the House, Rep. Heather Wilson's (R-NM) Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act (H.R. 5825) passed out of committee and is likely to see a floor vote this week. Both bills would legalize the warrantless surveillance program and provide exceptions to the judicial approval required by the Fourth Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

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