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

More Fallout From Federal Budget Cuts

Apr 17, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Washington Post reported this morning that U.S. nuclear weapons labs are losing staff and not undertaking necessary and valuable research because of budget cuts. From the Post article: The directors of the nation's three national nuclear weapons laboratories say that budget cuts by Congress and the Bush administration have reduced their ability to carry out scientific research needed to ensure the reliability of the nation's nuclear arsenal in future years.

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Bill to Stop Medicaid Regs Moves Forward

Apr 17, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

A bill to delay seven regulations that would eliminate or severely cut Medicaid health care programs won unanimous approval yesterday in the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 46 - 0. The top Senate Republican on this topic - Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) - opposes the House bill despite overwhelming bipartisan support for it. Grassley prefers to amend the regulations rather than postpone for a year.

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Re-Stimulus Redux

Apr 16, 2008 by Dana Chasin

Act II, Scene I in the legislative drama of the stimulus played out this afternoon in the House Ways & Means Committee, as the panel considered a proposal to give residents of most states an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits, on top of the 26 weeks already authorized under law. Residents of states with unemployment rates at or above 6 percent (today, that means Alaska and Michigan) would get an additional 13 weeks.

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Boehner: Preschool Education, Food Stamps "Wasteful Pork-barrel Spending"

Apr 11, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Referring to speculation that Democrats would add domestic spending provisions to a $108 billion war supplemental bill, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said, "We will fight against any cynical attempts to...pile billions more in unrelated and wasteful pork-barrel spending onto the backs of our men and women in uniform serving so bravely." Here's a list of programs (CQ, $) for which a few Democrats would like to see funding in the war spending bill:

Food Stamps
Levee repairs for the Gulf Coast
Head Start

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- April 9, 2008

Apr 9, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Health Care -- Bipartisan Support for Blocking Bush Medicaid Rule: CQ reports ($) that a House bill that would block the president's Medicaid rule changes is gaining support among Republicans. The proposed rule changes would shift about $17.8 billion (over five years) in Medicaid costs to states. The bill, H.R. 5613, will be marked up today in the Committee on Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.

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Frank's Housing Bill Is Good Policy, Good Politics

Apr 4, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Dana has a piece up at TPM Café in which he outlines a set of criteria - political and substantive - that qualify a housing bill as effective and viable.

It cannot involve "massive government intervention," or it risks the threat of veto by President Bush
It must pay for itself or include offsetting tax hikes or spending cuts to comply with the pay-as-you-go
(PAYGO) constraints Congress has imposed on itself
It cannot involve a bailout of either financial institutions or investors who have lent to homeowners or to

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DAILY FISCAL POLICY REPORT -- Mar. 31, 2008

Mar 31, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Housing -- Reid May Attempt to Move Housing Bill This Week: Hoping that the higher profile of the mortgage meltdown will prompt a few Senators to change their votes, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) may bring up his housing assistance package for consideration this week.

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How The Fed Put Taxpayers on the Hook for $30 Billion

Mar 26, 2008 by Craig Jennings

When the Federal Reserve engineered JPMorgan's takeover of failing investment bank Bear Stearns, the Fed guaranteed some $30 billion in Bear Stearn's assets. This has prompted an investigation into the deal by the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) explains why Congress should get involved:

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Earmark Requests Shut Down House Web Site

Mar 20, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Bill Allison over at the Sunlight Foundation has a great blog up about a report in Roll Call that the House Appropriations committee website was overwhelmed with requests for earmarks shortly before yesterday's deadline. Because the website crashed, the deadline has been extended until next week.

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GAO Report Examines Overuse of Supplemental Spending

In a recently released report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined ten years of supplemental spending (FY 1997-FY 2006) and found not only a five-fold increase in the amount of expenditures funded through the supplemental process, but also that procedures that enable legislative deliberation are bypassed when Congress funds government operations through supplemental spending. Supplemental spending has become an alternative funding process, parallel to the normal annual appropriations process. This allows certain expenditures to elide close congressional and public scrutiny and allows Congress to escape debate over federal funding priorities.

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