Appropriations

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

2008 Fiscal Policy Year in Review

It's been an exceptional year. 2008 saw not only economic indicators that evoked memories of the Great Depression, but also a record-breaking federal budget deficit. The federal government, through several agencies, activated trillions of dollars in loans and asset guarantees. Congress approved the largest supplemental spending bill in its history and gave the Treasury Department the authority to expend the equivalent of three-fourths of the federal discretionary budget on one sector of the economy. But in many other ways, Congress proved to be unremarkable by staying true to its recent history of underachievement.

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Paulson Undercut Congress in TARP Law Negotiations

Dec 15, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Disturbing story in The Washington Post this morning indicating that the executive compensation provisions in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) may not apply to any the firms that have received money under the plan.

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TARP Congressional Oversight Panel Goes Online

Dec 15, 2008 by Craig Jennings

TARP's Congressional Oversight Panel (COP)-- one of the Troubled Asset Relief Program's (TARP) oversight institutions -- now has a website.

Pop on over to http://cop.senate.gov/ to follow the panel's reports and announcements.

Here's COP's chair Elizabeth Warren explaining the panel's duties.

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No Cover for TARP Chief

Dec 12, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Congressional Oversight Panel (appropriately acronym'd "COP") of TARP asked the really big question that the architects of the program has yet to answer: What's the point of TARP?

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TARP Oversight Committee Has a Few Questions for Treasury Dept.

Dec 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Congressional Oversight Panel, a committee created by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) legislation released its first report today. And because appointments to the panel were made only weeks ago, they had little time to conduct an investigation.

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Senate Finally Confirms SIGTARP

Dec 9, 2008 by Craig Jennings

WaPo:

Neil M. Barofsky will become a special inspector general within the Treasury Department to audit and investigate spending by the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

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Huge Job Losses Show More Economic Pain Coming

Dec 8, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistic reported the largest job loss numbers since 1974 as the economy lost 533,000 jobs and the unemployment rate pushed higher to 6.7 percent. This news, combined with last week's pronouncement that the U.S.

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Monthly Budget Review: November, 2008

Dec 5, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its Monthly Budget Review for November.

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SIGTARP Hold Lifted

Dec 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

It appears that the anonymous hold on Neil Barofsky, President Bush's nominee for the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program has been lifted. The Senate is expect to proceed expeditiously when they return to action next week.

There's no word, however, on the identity of the anonymous holder.

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Thomas Frank on Our Obsession with Contracting

Dec 3, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Thomas Frank wrote an excellent column in the Wall Street Journal before Thanksgiving that is a great overview of the problems of a government contracting system run amok. The entire column is worth reading, but here's a key passage:

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