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

Transparency Act Legacy Spreads to the States

Sep 4, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Ellen Miller blogs today over at the Sunlight Foundation about the legacy of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act). The Transparency Act mandated that all federal spending be easily accessible and searchable in the Internet. After the law passed in 2006, the federal government launched USASpending.gov in 2007, which was built on the software platform that powers OMB Watch's FedSpending.org. Ellen reports the legacy of this federal law is being felt at the state level, all over the country:

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A Bridge for Sale: Contracting Problems Continue

Aug 28, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

I came in this morning to find my inbox (well, it was actually my Google RSS Reader, but saying inbox sounds better) deluged with more stories about contractor malfesence. A quick rundown for our BudgetBlog readers: The Wall Street Journal reports that MVM Inc., one of the largests security contractors used by the U.S. intelligence community, has lost a huge CIA contract - worth up to $1 billion over five years. Apparently they were not providing enough armed security guards, which is strange because that was, you know, what they were contracted to do.

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The Search Engine That Couldn't

Aug 25, 2008 by Amanda Adams*

If it weren't for its direct impact on national security, we could all enjoy a hardy guffaw at the $500 million mess that is supposed to tie the nation's intelligence data together. The anti-terror intelligence database, known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), is the subject of recent House Science and Technology Committee's Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee report. The report found that "Railhead," the $500 million project that was supposed to tie together the intelligence data of the nation's 16 separate intelligence agencies. Instead:

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Taxing and Spending

Aug 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Brad DeLong has a great post on the tradeoffs we face in bringing the long-term budget into balance.

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A Billion Here, A Billion There

Aug 25, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Last week I wrote on the BudgetBlog about a new Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) analysis detailing the status of earmark in the FY 2009 House and Senate appropriations bills to date. I wrote at the end of the post that cutting earmarks does not save "any" money, which as it turns out, isn't exactly true. Steve Ellis from TCS wrote a helpful email I'm republishing here with his permission. Steve helps to clarify where/when savings are possible from cuts in earmarks. Hey Adam,

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Gearing up for New Census Poverty Data

Aug 22, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Today has been a slow day in an already slow month in fiscal policy in Washington, DC, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) issued a very helpful report leading up to the release of poverty, income, and health insurance data from the U.S. Census Bureau next Tuesday. The report is a guide to what to look for in the Census release and how to assess whether economic growth is reaching low- and middle-income families. CBPP thinks these data could show some pretty unprecedented trends:

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Notes from the Economy: Unemployment Insurance Claims

Aug 21, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Department of Labor released its weekly unemployment insurance claims data this morning. Initial and continuing claims moved slightly downward, from 445,000 to 432,000 and from 3,379,000 to 3,362,000, respectively. The four-week moving average of initial claims, however, ticked up from 438,500 to 445,750.

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The Best Laid Plans

Aug 19, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Over on Capital Gains and Games (a favorite blog of the Budget Brigade), budget guru Stan Collender and Pete Davis muse, in a couple of posts, on the presidential candidates' budget plans. They emphasize the point that, as much as they may want to implement deficit-increasing tax and/or expenditure plans, the market may have other plans. First, Collender reminds us that in the post-Reagan world, economic policy options were limited.

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Defense Contract Oversight Faces Multiple Challenges

Over the last seven years, the Defense Department has doubled the amount of money spent on private contractors, yet it has remained disturbingly lax on contractor oversight. Recent evidence has emerged showing that the Pentagon spends too little on contract oversight and interferes with current auditors to restrict the length and scope of investigations.

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Earmarks Declining? Not So Fast...

Aug 19, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Taxpayer for Common Sense, the scrappy nonprofit that is fast becoming the go-to resource for all things earmarks, released a new analysis earlier this week showing that earmark levels have dropped slightly in the FY 2009 appropriations bills compared to last year. From the TCS report:

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