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

Senate Votes to Stop Medicaid Changes

May 23, 2008 by Matthew Madia

Yesterday, the Senate passed an amendment to the war supplemental bill that will put the brakes on several controversial Medicaid regulations. The Bush administration has finalized, or is preparing to finalize, the regulations in an effort to cut federal funding for a variety of Medicaid programs administered by the states.

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War Supplemental Update: Senate Approves Spending Amendments

May 22, 2008 by Craig Jennings

...lobbing it back over to the House The Senate has approved an amendment to the war supplemental spending bill (HR 2642) that would fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of Bush's presidency. The $165 billion spending measure was adopted 70-26.

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House, Senate Set to Approve Budget Resolution

May 22, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The House and Senate are set to vote on the FY 2009 Congressional Budget Resolution today. OMB Watch sent letters of support for the resolution to both the House and Senate Budget Committees yesterday (House letter, Senate letter). The letters highlight the positive (and negative) aspects of the resolution, as well as the recent historical difficulty of enacting a budget resolution during an election year (hasn't happened since 2000).

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Jackson May Not Have Been Only Bad Apple at HUD

May 21, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Carol Leonnig at the Washington Post wrote a great article over the weekend that gets further into the weeds on contracting problems at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under former Sec. Jackson. Leonnig profiles three small businesses that received huge jumps in the size of federal contracts they received over the last five or so years, often times despite objections of career contracting officers. It appears awarding contracts as political favors might have extended well beyond Jackson to many other high ranking officials at HUD:

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Editorial Titans Go Head-to-Head on Housing

May 19, 2008 by Dana Chasin

The lead editorials in the New York Times and Washington Post today both focus on the principal legislative solution to the nation's housing crisis -- the House-passed $1.7 billion plan to provide $300 billion in mortgage refinance guarantees, designed by Financial Services Committee chair Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to mark up a similar bill tomorrow.

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GI Bill Surtax Would Affect 0.3% of All Taxpayers

May 16, 2008 by Craig Jennings

When the House approved the domestic spending amendment to the war supplemental spending bill, it approved not only a $52 billion expansion of the GI Bill, but a 0.5% surtax on income for millionaire couples (individuals earning more than $500,000). According a recent Citizens for Tax Justice report, the tax would affect about 0.3% of all taxpayers.

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- May 16, 2008

May 16, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Tax Policy -- W&M Approves Extenders; Rejects AMT Patch: By a mostly party-line vote of 25-12, the House Ways and Means Committee approved at $57 billion tax package of an assortment of tax breaks yesterday. The committee also voted down a Republican-offered unpaid-for one-year AMT patch. The bill is expected to be on the House floor next week.

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War Supplemental Update: War Funding Bill Lacks War Funding Provision

May 15, 2008 by Craig Jennings

For reasons not entirely clear -- other than simply throwing a temper tantrum -- House Republicans voted present on the amendment that would add $162.5 billion in war funding to HR 2642, the shell bill that was to be ultimately be the war supplemental spending bill. The vote to add war funding failed 141-149, as anti-war Democrats voted "no" and 132 Republicans voted "present." A second amendment, a provision that would set a Dec. 31, 2009 withdrawal date for troops in Iraq, passed 227-196.

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Best Spin Ever: Doan Fought for Accountability!

May 15, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

When I posted at the end of April that the book had closed on Lurita Doan, former head of the General Services Administration, (GSA) apparently I was wrong. She has resurfaced in interviews in GovExec magazine, on Federal News Radio and most recently in this border-line ludicrous column in Federal Computer Week by Neal Fox, the former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the GSA.

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Ranks of Contracting Officers Grow, But Not Enough

May 14, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Stephen Barr, who writes the Federal Diary column for the Washington Post, wrote on an interesting topic last week - the growth in federal contracting officers (COs) under President Bush. Barr reported that the number of COs has increased 6.8 percent since President Bush took office, according to federal statistics. Barr also was correct in pointing out that there are concerns among many in Washington (both inside Congress and out) that despite these increases, there are still far too few COs and they receive sub par training and support in doing their jobs.

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