Earmarks

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

more news

TANF and Budget Reconciliation in Today's Post

Aug 7, 2006 by Matt Lewis

Welfare recipients who are working toward college degrees may lose their benefits, according to today’s Washington Post. Key quote: Having grown up on welfare, Rochelle Riordan had vowed never to ask for a government handout. That was before her hard-drinking husband kicked her and their young daughter out of their house near Lewiston, Maine, leaving her with a $300 bank account, a bad job market and a 15-year-old car held together in spots with duct tape.

read in full

Momentum Swings Against Frist and 'Trifecta' Bill

Aug 3, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) - a key swing vote on the upcoming "trifecta" bill - has publicly announced she will vote against the bill. Cantwell's bold decision to stand up for working-class families in Washington and around the country who would get a bad break with this legislation is a significant blow to Sen. Frist's (T-RN) attempts to pass this crass and manipulative bill. Sen. Cantwell should be praised for her brave leadership in speaking out against this effort. Kudos to her!

read in full

They're Going to do What?

Jul 28, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Looks like the GOP leadership in Congress is regrouping to try yet another strategy to pass an estate tax reduction. From CQ (sub. required). House GOP leaders have come up with a new strategy to push a permanent estate tax reduction through Congress by tying it to a minimum wage increase and extension of expiring tax breaks.

read in full

Pension Conference Meeting Gets Nasty

Jul 28, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

The question of whether the Senate will return to consider the estate tax again this year is intimately connected to the fate of the pension conference report. It appears meeting of the pension conference committee last night was tense and saw lawmakers expressing their frustrations with the current situation. According to media reports, a number of members present were quite forthright in their unhappiness about the House boycott of the meeting and recent events.

read in full

GOP on the Verge of Imploding

Jul 28, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

Drama continues to unfold on Capitol Hill as the hot summer heat seems to be getting to members of Congress. We posted yesterday of a "showdown" meeting of members of the long-stalled pension reform conference committee that took place last night. But the meeting did not go as conference chairman Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY) planned as House GOP conferees boycotted the meeting

read in full

DHS No-Bid Contract System "Prone to Abuse"

Jul 27, 2006 by Matthew Madia

The Washington Post is reporting on a congressional report which found that the Department of Homeland Security's (no-)bidding system is "prone to abuse." It's a good thing, then, that Congress is working on a bill that would create a searchable database of all federal government and contracts. Indeed, a database like this would make it easier to identify potential fraudsters.

read in full

OMB Watch Supporting Publication of Budget Justifications

Jul 27, 2006 by Matthew Madia

OMB Watch has partnered with the National Taxpayers Union to draft a letter to the Senate in support of making federal department budget justification reports public documents. The completed letter was sent to the Hill yesterday afternoon with the endorsement of 54 organizations.

read in full

OMB Watch "Name the Database" Contest

Jul 26, 2006 by Adam Hughes*

OMB Watch has been working diligently for the past few months to make information on all federal contracts and grants available online in a free, searchable database. We are navigating through the technical challenges, bureaucratic mazes, and overwhelming amount of data to make the database simple, efficient, and user-friendly. But we need your help with a very important part of our work - the name of the website.

read in full

Federal Spending Database Legislation Gains Momentum

Jul 25, 2006 by Matthew Madia

Legislation to create a free, public, searchable database (S. 2590) containing grants and contracts spending information is gaining momentum in the Senate this week. OMB Watch testified in support of this bill at a subcommittee hearing last week of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and this week on Thursday the full HSGAC committee will mark up a consensus version of the bill. The bill is expected to pass the full committee unanimously.

read in full

Last-Minute Attempt to Add Estate Tax to Pension Reforms Fails

Over the last week, Capitol Hill has been abuzz with speculation that House and Senate GOP leaders were engaging in a last-ditch effort to attach a provision gutting the estate tax to a sensitive and complicated pension reform conference report. The sneaky move failed, however, as Senate Majority Leader Bill First (R-TN) announced today he could not convince a number of key Republicans, particularly Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), to support it. In related news, President Bush has moved to gut IRS estate tax enforcement.

read in full