President's Budget Proposal

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

Tax Expenditures: The Spending that Dare Not Speak Its Name

Feb 3, 2010 by Craig Jennings

In our statement on the president's FY 2011 budget request to Congress, we mentioned a column in Tuesday's WaPo by Len Burman in which he called for a freeze in tax expenditures. The column, however, deserves more attention than just the one liner we added in the OMB Watch statement.

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A Look at Regulatory Agencies in Obama’s Frugal Budget

Feb 3, 2010 by Matthew Madia

The Office of Management and Budget unveiled President Obama’s FY 2011 budget request on Monday. Obama has decided to propose a spending freeze for discretionary, non-defense budget items. (See OMB Watch’s statement here.) Because Obama has proposed an overall freeze and not a line-item-by-line-item freeze, spending could be transferred to other areas to reflect administration priorities.

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President's Budget Far from Change

Feb 2, 2010 by Craig Jennings

OMB Watch has released its statement on President Obama's FY 2011 budget request.

Read the whole statement here.

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An OMB Watch Statement on President Obama's Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2010—President Obama has sent his budget request for fiscal year 2011 to Congress. Far from bringing change, it at best tinkers with federal priorities while perpetuating the wrong budget agenda.

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What Makes Defense Spending so Special?

Jan 26, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

Following up on Craig's post earlier this evening, I wanted to point out some of the really good points that Spencer Ackerman over at the Washington Independent and Matt Yglesias over at Think Progress have been making all day about President Obama's recently announced spending freeze. Ackerman asks why in the world defense spending should go unaffected and Yglesias adds that, while there are reasons to treat various kinds of spending and taxes differently, "the security / non-security distinction doesn’t hold up ... at all."

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Emptying the Sea with a Teaspoon

Jan 26, 2010 by Craig Jennings

We here in the Budget Brigade have been trying to get our heads around President Obama's announcement that his FY 2011 budget will propose freezing non-security discretionary spending at 2010 levels. Here's what has us beating our heads against our desks.

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OMB Launches Opening Salvo on Performance Overhaul

Oct 7, 2009 by Adam Hughes*

OMB Director Peter Orszag released a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies this morning announcing a new initiative in the FY 2011 budget process that seeks to bring increased emphasis and resources for program evaluation within agencies. The memo has three separate goals:

1) Posting more information about federal evaluations online: OMB will begin working this fall with federal agencies to expand access to information about program evaluations.

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Congress Accepts Very Few of Obama's Proposed Cuts

Aug 18, 2009 by Adam Hughes*

With the release of his detailed budget information in May, President Obama proposed cutting or scaling back 121 programs that would save the government $17 billion in FY 2010 - a very small first step in getting the budget deficit under control. Yesterday, CongressDaily published an article that examined the degree to which Congress accepted Obama's proposed cuts and the results are underwhelming.

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Chugging Along: Time for an Appropriations Update

Jul 28, 2009 by Jocelyn Yin*

As Congress hits the home stretch before the traditional August recess, it's time to see what Congress has been up to...

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OMB Delaying Mid-Session Budget Review

Jul 20, 2009 by Adam Hughes*

In yet another example of searching for sinister intentions of the Obama administration that don't exist, the Associated Press reports this morning that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to delay the release of the annual mid-year update of the budget - called the Mid-Session Review - until mid-August.

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