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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War Supp: What's Up with That?

Jun 18, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Hoyer eyeing Thursday for House vote; GI Bill offset included (Updated below) By cancelling approps markups this week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has cleared the deck for floor consideration of that chamber's latest revision of the war supplemental spending package. With the exception of additional funds for midwest region's recent flooding disaster (speculation is $2 billion-ish), the House bill is shaping up to look pretty much like the original sent to the Senate oh-so-long ago:

Fulfillment of the remaining war funding request for FY 2008 and part of FY 2009

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House Approps Subcommittee Boosts IRS Funding, Takes Aim at Private Debt Collection

Jun 18, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee approved, by voice vote, a $22.4 billion bill that would provide funds for the Treasury Department and the District of Columbia. Included in the measure is $11.4 billion for the IRS, a slight increase over the president's request and over $300 million more than the current budget. And while the IRS' enforcement budget allotment matches the president's request -- a respectable 7 percent increase over current levels --, the committee saw fit to raise Bush's $2.15 billion request for taxpayer services funding by $60 million.

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Approps Update

Jun 13, 2008 by Craig Jennings

House Approps Committee Releases 302(b)s; Byrd Announces Markup Schedule The House Appropriations Committee has released its 302(b) allocations. House FY 2009 302(b) Allocations (discretionary budget authority; excluding emergency funding unless otherwise noted; in billions of dollars) FY 2009 Proposed Allocations Defense $487.737 Homeland Security 39.900 Homeland Advance Appropriations: BioShield 2.175 Military Construction & Veterans Affairs 72.729 Subtotal, Security-Related 602.541 State & Foreign Operations 36.620 Agriculture 20.623

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Appropriators Get to Work

Jun 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

With the bicameral adoption of a budget resolution last week, Congress embarks on the long, strange trip known as "the appropriations process." Occasionally, we'll update this chart to let you know where everything stands. Or, you can also follow all the appropriations action on the Thomas "Status of Appropriations Legislation for Fiscal Year 2009" website. House FY 2009 Appropriations Markup Schedule 6/11/2008 Subcommittee Markup — Homeland Security 6/11/2008 Subcommittee Markup — Interior & the Environment 6/12/2008

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Obama and Coburn Shine Brighter Light on Government Spending

Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) have joined forces again to craft legislation that would increase the transparency of how the federal government spends taxpayers' money. The Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act (S. 3077), introduced June 3, is a follow-up to the 2006 Transparency Act, which was also spearheaded by the two senators. Obama and Coburn, along with Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and John McCain (R-AZ), introduced the new legislation with the goals of making important new data easily accessible and enabling citizens to hold our government accountable for the fiscal stewardship of our shared resources.

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The $12 Billion Question

Jun 10, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Does UI Extension Require Compliance with PAYGO? Would that it were easy to answer this one. As you might imagine, the answer is: it depends. PRO: PAYGO applies to an extension of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits because there would be -- without an offset -- a net increase of the deficit at the end of the day. Like other trust funds (think Social Security), there is no actual money there, just IOUs.

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Congress Adopts Mixed-Bag Budget Resolution

A rare event occurred in Washington on Thursday, June 5: Congress approved a budget resolution during an election year, a feat not seen since 2000. This fact and a human needs-oriented approach to spending signal that Congress is addressing national priorities while attempting to more responsibly manage the country's finances. However, Congress's eliding of pay-as-you-go rules and unrealistic assumptions about war spending and Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) relief have marred an otherwise responsible budget resolution.

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Spike in Jobless Rate Restarts Focus on Unemployment Insurance

On June 6, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a jump in the national unemployment rate from 5.0 percent in April to 5.5 percent in May, the single biggest month-to-month increase in 22 years. Another 49,000 Americans joined the ranks of the unemployed in May, bringing the yearly total thus far to 324,000. The news took analysts by surprise, and along with rising oil prices, helped push stocks down by three percent on all three major American exchanges and re-ignited talk of a possible recession.

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Military Wages

Jun 9, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Congress has sent the president a bill that would, in addition to forcing free-riding federal contractors to pay payroll taxes, "allow soldiers receiving combat pay to have their money counted as income for the purposes of the Earned Income Tax Credit." (BNA email) I realize that we blow a lot of cash on the military, but does it strike anyone as odd that some Americans getting shot at in a combat zone in service of their country are paid so little that they qualify for EITC?

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Workers See Fewer Hours, More Weeks Unemployed

Jun 6, 2008 by Craig Jennings

As Dana noted in this morning's daily report, the unemployment numbers released this morning were bad enough to put unemployment insurance (UI) benefits extension back in play for the domestic spending section of the FY 08-09 war supp. But the past couple of weeks have seen the release of a couple of other data points that should increase concern among lawmakers that the U.S. labor force has come into sour times.

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